<p>chandler: what are you majoring in again? lol</p>
<p>CayugaRed’s original post is an exceedingly thoughtful, well meaning, and generous statement. He, and many others, reflect Cornell in an exquisite light – despite the tangents and misinterpretations of some Williams proponents, and notwithstanding the occasional post-to-post debate in general.</p>
<p>Also, I have, over the last few months, read through thoughtful and well meant posts by both Chenrix and Oldfort, parent and student. Just because world views and interpretations can sometimes diverge for the generations does not mean that there cannot be validity in the sentiment of the various ages.</p>
<p>Resurgam: At Cornell, Human Bio, Health, and Society. At Williams, probably Spanish major with pre-med requirements (maybe a Bio major as well).</p>
<p>EATYOURCEREAL: Eat your cereal already…</p>
<p>Chandler – </p>
<p>Looks like the Day Hall weather machine is working in your favor tomorrow. Sunny, blue skies, and highs in the upper sixties.</p>
<p>Alright!!
I can’t wait… though I’ll have to get up at an ungodly hour tomorrow if I want to actually see Cornell, haha.</p>
<p>Chandler –</p>
<p>Yesterday was awesome too - Clearly, you should pick Cornell. (not spurious reasoning at all…lol)</p>
<p>Also, Appel’s sort of a walk…(at least, from where I see most of the tours), so maybe Synapse? It’s in a cool building! (it looks like it’s made from Legos!)</p>
<p>chandler…i can see now why oldfort(i think it was him) sort of blasted you…</p>
<p>those two programs are very different…</p>
<p>my med school friend (and maybe we can ask the other med schooler on here) regrets not taking upper level bio courses even though he was CAS BIO major because of the stupid CAS requirements…</p>
<p>i can imagine you’d be even more limited at williams…but as an HBHS the choices should be unlimited…</p>
<p>i would say that at williams you could expect to do so-so at med school admissions and in med school might be limited to general practitioner (top fields require top students)</p>
<p>i would seriously talk to doctors who are in fields you’re interested in…and see what they would advise…</p>
<p>What you do in undergrad has very little bearing on how good or what kind of a doctor you become. The data is pretty clear on this. Humanities majors who take the MCAT perform as well as the science majors. Although science majors perform slightly better in the first two years of med school (the pre-clinical years), humanities majors do better in the 3rd year (your 3rd year grades are most important for residency purposes). Overall, there is no statistically significant difference in the med school performance of humanities vs. science majors in med school. Hence, med schools do not have a preference for any type of major.</p>
<p>Med schools expect two things from your undergrad experience:
- To pursue an academic interest (whether it’s Spanish or bio, whatever)
- To demonstrate that you can succeed in science courses (hence, you have prereq’s); you don’t actually need to take a ton of science courses (ie be a science major) to prove this; your science GPA and your MCAT scores are enough proof; the extra knowledge you get from upper div bio courses will be almost inconsequential once you get into med school; for example, we covered half a semester of Cornell biochemistry in 4 days in med school. It was a b*tch of a week whether you had taken college biochem or not.</p>
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<p>I’m not quite sure I understand your argument. It is important that pre-med students take upper division biology courses (biochem, genetics, molecular biology, etc.), I’ve been told by some that biochem is becoming an unwritten med school requirement (that that for whatever it’s worth). My friends who were bio majors in CAS had absolutely no issues with their CAS requirements interfering with completion of a multitude of upper div bio courses. </p>
<p>Now, it almost looks as if you’re saying that your undergraduate courses will affect your chances at obtaining a residency in a competitive specialty. I hope it isn’t because nothing could be further from the truth. </p>
<p>I’ve spoken to many doctors since moving and from what I gather, the critical factors for gaining a competitive residency are your USMLE Step I and II scores, grades in your clinical rotations and your letters of recommendation. I would imagine that your basic science scores could be used as tiebreaker when it comes time to rank applicants. Nowhere in this process should your undergrad work hamper your ability to match into a great program. Even if you were only able to get an internal medicine residency, you can always specialize after that. I also know a few people who didn’t take many advanced bio courses, but are doing very well in med school and received very competitive scores on the first step of their licensing exam.</p>
<p>Sure, plenty of advanced coursework helps…but if you don’t’ get it, it won’t necessarily impede you from becoming the surgeon general. </p>
<p>Ok…that is the end of my rant that probably had more info than anybody would ever want to know at this point in their life :)</p>
<p>Norcalguy…I’m sure I missed some important points or made statements that might not be totally correct. You’re more than welcome to chime in since you’re further along on the M.D. path than I am :)</p>
<p>thanks for the quick responses and clarifications of misconceptions norcal and dewdrop! </p>
<p>i guess this is what i was trying to say ==></p>
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<p>ahhhh…norcalguy beat me to it :)</p>
<p>I think it’s useful to take a couple of upper div bio courses (biochem, physiology, and genetics would be most useful since you’ll actually see those in med school). But, my point with the biochem thing is to demonstrate that taking upper div bio courses does not actually save you much effort in med school.</p>
<p>As I said, my med school taught biochem in 4 days. Let’s say that you are a biochem expert from having majored in biochem as an undergrad. So, in the end, what does that save you? A whopping 4 days of effort. You’ve just majored in biochem for 4 years in order to save 4 days. So, it makes no sense to major in something you don’t like solely for the sake of med school.</p>
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<p>^ There are actually some university/college affiliated teaching hospitals that will outright tell this to academic advisers to forward to students.</p>
<p>I never did figure out where you were studying, norcalguy…</p>
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<p>In attending a LAC similar to Williams, I didn’t find this to be remotely true.</p>
<p>Thanks for the awesome med school advice, guys.</p>
<p>If there were a Physiology major in college, I would take that SO fast. I absolutely love Physiology, so I’ll definitely take some in college wherever I go.
As far as biochem, I might take one or two classes in it, but definitely not a major.
There’s actually a program (at Williams) where you can apply to Mt. Sinai med school as a sophomore if you’re a humanities major with an interest in medicine. I think that’s definitely something I would want to pursue: I’m a humanities guy, but also very interested in a career in medicine.</p>
<p>Isn’t it true that you can easily be a humanities major in college and be fine in med school admissions? It would make sense for med schools to want a fairly diverse class, and if every successful applicant was a Bio/Chem major, that would make for a very homogeneous generation of doctors.</p>
<p>I knew a doctor who was a fine arts major and eventually became a plastic surgeon - very fitting I think. Both BA and MD were completed at the same top 20 east coast university.</p>
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<p>I’ll concede that I tended toward hyperbole here, but I graduated knowing probably close to a thousand people on Cornell’s campus. I can’t think it would be that difficult at a school the size of Swarthmore or Williams. Hell, my friends at Middlebury, Williams, and even Colgate have said as much – by the time they are a junior they feel like they have met everybody ‘there is to know’.</p>
<p>Perhaps I am just a social guy.</p>
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<p>Maybe you should have applied to the Ag School to be a bio major, Chandler. A good friend of mine studied physiology at Cornell and is now getting his Phd/MD in nephrology at Cornell-Weill</p>
<p>[Cornell</a> Biology :: Animal Physiology](<a href=“http://www.bio.cornell.edu/academics/animal_physiology.html]Cornell”>http://www.bio.cornell.edu/academics/animal_physiology.html)</p>
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<p>Absolutely. I thought I read somewhere that entering med school classes were split 50/50 non-science/science majors…but, I could just be making up numbers in my head :)</p>
<p>Maybe I should have, Cayuga. It’s too late for that, though, and I can definitely take Physiology classes no matter where I go.</p>
<p>dewdrop: I’m glad 
I think being a Spanish major could only help me in the long run: I can be a more diverse and unique applicant to medical school with my skills developed not only in the sciences but also in Spanish.</p>
<p>Well, at the rate the Spanish-speaking population is increasing, oral proficiency in Spanish can definitely give you a leg up in med school admissions. It will definitely help when it comes to apply for your residency, especially in states like California, Texas and New York. </p>
<p>I’m not sure if it’s still offered, but Cornell has a course in medical Spanish. </p>
<p>1,000 points for Cornell :D</p>