Will retaking premed requirements look bad, and does it have to be in order?

Hi all,

Does taking some of your pre-requisites again AND/OR doing so out-of-order hurt my application?

Some of the classes which I am retaking were originally taken decades ago, and so, I have forgotten much of the material. Recently, I went to a premed admisisions fair, where several admissions advisers from some East Coast medical schools told me to redo my coursework to “prove” that I could still handle academically rigorous material. For example, one adviser told me to retake physics, because when I last took it decades ago, I got a B in the first part, (I could never fully understand forces on incline planes).

So, to retake physics, I need calculus, which I have forgotten. I originally took a 3 semester calculus course during the 1980s and did well on all but the 3rd part. That was for my first, non-science degree. Then for my second degree, I had to retake these calculus courses in 2006; I got a B in part II. Although I realized that calculus has not changed much, I found the material much harder to understand and comprehend during my second time through; I had been out of school for many years and it was a challenge to keep up with college students half my age.

Now, I have the opportunity to retake calculus I and III on the quarter system at a more rigorous school than the one at which I took the original calculus courses. However, because of my work, for the Spring quarter which starst next month, I cannot taken Calculus I before Calculus II. Only Calculus II fits my schedule this Spring quarter. I could then take Calculus I during the summer. I have asked others in my program who have gone through the same sequence, and some took them simultaneously. (Some also took other mixtures of classes, for example, several other students were taking biochemistry and general chemistry at the same time. Usually general chemistry comes before biochemistry.)

Any ideas?

TIA.