<p>How are you doing? Looking back, was engineering a good choice for a pre-med major?</p>
<p>I am, and I am doing decent. I am second semester Biomed and this semester was umm, interesting. Engineering work combined with Calc II and Bio II and Chem II definitely lowered my grades, but they are still fairly decent for now at least. Your GPA will suffer though, its extremely difficult to keep a high GPA (3.8+), but a 3.5 ish is pretty manageable and puts you in good shape for med school.</p>
<p>Thanks, bigndude. </p>
<p>I'm considering BME, but after reading a lot of CC posts, I'm getting scared of ruining my chances at med school, which is ultimately the most important thing for me. </p>
<p>I might decide to do a BME minor (esp. if I attend UVa).</p>
<p>hey, i'm a bme major at columbia...as u may have gathered from some of the posts you'v read on this topic. It all comes down to your willingness to work hard and your confidence in your abilities in engineering classes....i recently posted about this...look for it</p>
<p>If you enjoy physics and engineering-type classes but still would like to go to med school then go for BME because as Shraf stated you better be confident or it will shred your GPA to bits and pieces (from a med school vantage point) like 85% of the BMEs at my school.</p>
<p>Gah, I'm planning on going pre-med BME this coming fall too. Any pre-med BMEs as of now that manage to balance a decent GPA and have a social life?</p>
<p>once again if physics and intuitive thinking is your thing then yes, it is entirely possible.</p>
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Gah, I'm planning on going pre-med BME this coming fall too. Any pre-med BMEs as of now that manage to balance a decent GPA and have a social life?
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<p>It comes in waves. Dont expect to be the kind of person who goes out every wkend etc. but u can and should have your share of fun and having a healthy social life will keep u sane. I think i keep pretty social and have/have had gfs and go out occasionally and i still maintain a decent gpa (avg for med school though). You will have to disappear every now and then and there may be a whole month when u dont go out and drink but its not too bad.</p>
<p>I'm not pre-med, but I managed to pull of a 3.85 GPA (4.0 scale) after 1st year engineering. I didn't do much first semester (which is where the 0.15 came off of), and I don't see why I couldn't get into Med school. I did roughly two hours homework per night, on average.</p>
<p>If you are naturally brilliant at physics and mathematics, go for it. If you aren't, don't bother. I don't see why many people couldn't do it... after all, in the USA, the average GPA's of acceptance to Medical school aren't that high.</p>
<p>1.) I'm told GPAs tend to sink after freshman year.</p>
<p>2.) Premed courses include things like biology, organic chemistry, etc. Depending on what type of engineer you are, you might not have ever taken those.</p>
<p>3.) Being premed also requires you to balance a lot of other things besides schoolwork - clinical experience, research, watching House/Scrubs, etc. These take time away from studying.</p>
<p>haha! Watching House and Scrubs... I love it =).</p>
<p>I am a bioengineer premed at UCSD.</p>
<p>there are a lot of bio E. pre-meds in uc berkeley. What I hear is that their gpas are usually lower than usual pre-med majors (biology etc). Doing Engineering and pre-med is usually difficult b/c people who are good at biology tend to do poorly at physics/programming courses required for engineering (atleast from what I personally observed).</p>
<p>And I can vouch for this. I am a pre-med biomed, 1st year. My GPA is lower then it could be were I not a pre-med biomed, and even lower then it would be if I were not a eng. major at all. The geniuses at my school like to plan biology and chem tests the same day so that always wreaks havoc on grades. Tons of people can have high gpas as engineers, throw in the pre-med curriculum and gpas do go down.</p>
<p>I'm a chemical engineering and biochemistry major and I'm doing fairly decent. I have pretty much all A's in my chemistry and biology classes. The thermo rotation docked my gpa some, but I'm still at about a 3.7 coming out of junior year. If you can get some A's in the major classes sophmore and junior year, you will be fine. That is the hardest time. Senior year is usually fairly easy.</p>
<p>Mozilla, that's good to hear. First year MechE I got a 3.9 (higher than originally thought it'd be), and I'd like to keep my options open. Who know what I'll want to do in 3 years? Right now the plan's to go into law, but I might want to do dent or med later (I really do like biology). Here in Canada I'll need at least a 3.7 for dentistry, and a 3.8 for med. I'll just work my ass off and hopefully end up with a 3.7+.</p>
<p>What was your first year GPA?</p>
<p>At the end of freshman year I had a 3.93. My suggestion is do your best to space out the hard classes sophmore and junior year. I probably could have worked harder to do that on some of my quarters here. Don't wait to take all your humanities senior year. Even though it might seem nice to not have to write papers or read, sometimes I would rather do that than have multiple classes that assign huge problem sets.</p>
<p>Hello, I am a HS senior this year considering BME as a premed and was hoping for some advice. Reading many posts have given me doubts about BME as pre-med. Is it true that the rigor of BME is not accounted for in med. school admissions? If I am competitive at top schools (Duke, Penn, Stanford) for undergrad and take BME and have a GPA drop, will I have ruined my chances at a top med. school somday? The acceptance rate for BME's to med. school is still high compared to other undergraduate majors. Does this mean people in BME have a better chance, or is it actually harder as a BME due to the difficult course load?</p>
<p>The killer in my decision is that I am not entirely sure I want to go to med. school because it is long and costly. Maybe BME with an MBA is better for me. Are first year classes in BME typically centered around that major, or do most school leave room for exploration and change early on, without 'ruining' someones GPA the first year?</p>
<p>Any comments on any of this would be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks!</p>
<p>Your major doesn't matter in med school admissions. This does NOT control for GPA - meaning BMEs with lower GPAs do just as well as English majors with higher GPAs. Don't worry about it from that angle.</p>
<p>Show me the data about BME admission rates being higher - because it contradicts what the AAMC data would indicate.</p>
<p>if BME majors really had higher percentage acceptance rates, it might be b/c because if they went through the rigor that comes with majoring in BME, PLUS all the premed requirements, the MCAT, ECs etc... and still thought they had a shot at medical school, chances are they are pretty darn smart. i'm pretty sure med schools aren't that much more lenient towards engineering majors, but who really knows...
at my school the first year for BME majors does not contain actual "engineering" classes, and it might be the same for others....maybe look at the BME websites of the colleges you are interested in and see the required classes for the major. freshman year you're mainly doing premed requirements....if you really do enjoy BME then I would start majoring in that, and just remember it's certainly not impossible to major in BME and get into med school, you might just have to work a bit harder than other people....</p>