Hi LightGrenades.
I was also eager and bought books in the holidays and read them, but it wasn't really of much use in terms of preparing for HSFY (only my experience of course). The lecture material is very specific and sometimes very distant from what is in the books. I hardly used the books, and if I did use them, it would be just to check up or clarify something really minor. Everything they want you to learn will be the stuff they state in the lectures, not in the books. Hardly any of the stuff in the books actually overlaps with the precise content in the lectures from my experience. I concentrated all my time on learning lecture material and it worked out very well (didn't do the prereading from the textbook they expect you to do from the book before each lecture because I felt it was a waste of time).
If you still want to go ahead and do a bit of reading I took this from an earlier post of mine. It only gives you an idea of the topics but no idea of how detailed you'll have to go into it. Knowing what level of detail you need for the tests/exams is
very important, and you'll find that out in the lectures themselves. You'll find Arutha's experiences with the book earlier on in the thread too.
[offtopic]CELS191
I wish I hadn't thrown away my objectives at this point. I have some of them but the rest I'll have to throw together from memory. Cell biology and genetics bit and some of microbiology are decent covered by L3
Cell biology - cell structure and stuff like organelles etc etc, theories on origin of life, plant vs animal cells, plastids, plasma membrane, cytoskeleton, nucleus structure
Genetics - mitosis, meiosis, polyploids, aneuploids, X-inactivation, human chromosal abnormalities, mendelian genetics, inheritance, Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, biochem of genetics, lots on genetic techniques
Microbiology - classification, bacteria structure, ecosystems (chemoautotrophs and all that), genetics of bacteria (transformation, transduction, conjugation), Winogradsky column, applications of microbes, cheese (there was a whole page on this lecture in the mid-semester test lol), resistance, viruses, viral reproduction, infectious disease
PHSI191
Mechanics - all the equations of motion, forces, circular motion, simple harmonic motion etc etc
Thermodynamics - heating/expasion, heat transfer equations, ideal gases, humidity (urgh), lays of thermodynamics
Bulk materials - not covered in NCEA at all, stuff like stress and strain
Fluid mechanics - don't think this is covered in NCEA, bernoulli's equation, equation of continuity etc etc
Electricity and DC circuits - really basic stuff, the most complicated it gets is equations for capacitors
Optics - the basic reflection/refraction, then diffraction and interference, then some things like rayleigh criterion
Radiation and health - equations dealing with half life and activity and stuff
HUBS191 (there's bound to be mistakes about if L3 covers this or that so bear with me lol)
Homeostatic principles - should be familiar with this? repeated over and over and over again
Musculoskeletal system - not covered in L3?
Nervous system - the "hardest" module, which is true for many people
Endocrine system - not covered in L3?
Immune system - not covered in L3
HUBS192
Cardiovascular system - not sure
Respiratory system - not covered in L3
Gastrointestinal system - not covered in L3
Renal and urinary system - not covered in L3
Blood system - not covered in L3
Acid base - not covered in L3
Reproductive system - not sure
BIOC192 (pretty much all of this isn't covered in L3 except for the really really basic stuff)
Protein structure - primary/secondary/tertiary/quaternary structure, domains, motifs, prions, immunoglobulins, haemoglobin, myoglobin, haemoglobin variants, collagen and elastin
Enzyme kinetics - michaelis menten kinetics, inhibition, mechanisms (fun fun lol), applications of enzymes in health
"
Drugs" (I can't remember the name of this topic) - muscle proteins, muscle dystrophies, membranes, targets for drugs, stress response, drug discovery and therapeutics
Food and digestion - energy calculations, digestion and absorption of carbohydrates/fats/proteins, fat transport, heart disease, vitamins, minerals
Oxidation (hardest part for alot of people because it's so new if you did NCEA) - energy calculations, glycolysis, citric acid cycle, oxdiative phosphorylation, electron transport chain, beta oxidation, metabolism of amino acids, reactive oxygen species
Integration - alcohol, storage/mobilisation of fuels, starvation, exercise, diabetes, obesity
HEAL192 (I've said it a few times but alot of it just learning new things and alot of it is common sense)
Every lecture is like different and it's not really split into topics, but there's two big sections to the paper (split by the mid-semester test)
First section - internal validity (bias/confounding/chance), causation, external validity, measures of occurence/assocaition, study designs
Second section - (an application of the stuff in the first section) - ethics, disease prevention, alcohol, infectious disease, HIV, animal/human interactions, physical activity, suicide and self harm, obesity, oral health, climate change, patterns of disease, Maori health, poverty and health, social epidemiology, ageing[/offtopic]
If you are gonna do reading, don't get caught up trying to understand anything if you can't get it, and definitely don't get caught up in memorising any details. For the CELS book the amount that is actually relevant is maybe 1/10th of the book or maybe even less I'd say. I found I hardly used this book and just went with what was in the lectures. The HEAL book was the exception for me and I found it much more useful than the other books. I read it before starting the course and struggled to understand some of the concepts. It was only after actually starting the paper when the book was actually helpful to me.
HSFY sounds intense, but really if you stick to the lecture objectives and you stick to lecture material, you can't really go wrong.
If you did NCEA then I would suggest doing light reading on the topics that look completely new to you, so when you start the course and come across it again it won't be completely new then. If you did cambridge or IB then I'd say don't sweat it. Holidays are good for getting tons of sleep. Unless you're a genius, you'll be missing those long hours of sleep when you start HSFY
Carrington is one of the "academic" colleges. I've never been there but it sounds like a nice college. They have many students from that college getting into med each year; maybe cause the people who go there are more likely to get in, or maybe the college atmosphere is better or something. Anyways don't get too caught up in what college you're going it. In the end it's yourself that determines what marks you're gonna get.
Obviously skyglow had to have both to achieve such wonderful results.
I was thinking about doing some light holiday reading to prepare for next year because HSFY sounds pretty intense from what I have heard. 
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