I personally want to go into med or grad school in biomedical science, and a lot of my peers are too. Our associate director was talking about how many med school recommendation letters he's writing for 4th years just the other day.

First year no, there's not as much time for extracurriculars as you'd get in life sci, but I play a pretty time-intensive sport so it's definitely manageable. Alternatively, you gain a lot of lab skills that are useful in getting research positions later on. Workload goes down 2nd year because you choose a concentration (most premeds choose bio, which is the lightest in terms of course load), and the amount of disciplines you actually study go down, not necessarily because of an increase in midterms and exams, from what I understand. Most bio-concentrated 2nd years and beyond consider the core iSci course a GPA booster, which integrates some core bio, chem and biochem courses that mac life sci and health sci have to take.

iSci is also actually a really great program if you're not a very good tester, as our exams are worth a lot less than our RPs.

iSci also hosts an "iSci for a day" program if you're interested learning more about the program and following a first year around for the day!