Stellar population synthesis has reached a high degree of sophistication that has been exploited to understand to a certain extent the mechanisms of formation, assembling, and evolution of galaxies in our universe. Progress is based on solid results in the field of stellar evolution and spectrophotometric observations of large numbers of stars and galaxies. However, there are certain phases of stellar evolution, like the thermally pulsing asymptotic giant branch (TP-AGB) phase, the Wolf-Rayet stage, and the presence of interacting binaries, whose treatment is either ignored or extremely simplified in galaxy evolution models due to the uncertainties in their description. In this talk I will present results from models that add the state of the art in the treatment of these evolutionary phases to traditional population synthesis models.