title. for ex: my ec’s are medical and environmental science based (emt but also lead a climate justice organization) so should i find more extracurriculars that would combine that interest (research in environmental health) and apply to colleges for environmental science or public health and write my essays talking about environmental health and wanting to study that specifically? or should i go with the traditional route and apply to colleges for biology and strictly focus on premed ec’s like i have been this entire time and just include my other interest with environmental science in my application but not put a huge focus on it? because i am interested in med school but idk if i want to 100% go that route so for me my main goal is to get into a good college and decide there but idk what would be the best strategy to actually get into a good college (apply strictly as pre med or apply with an interest in environmental health)
Please please please rewrite that. You’re asking a good question (I think), but without capitalization and correct punctuation I’m getting a headache trying to parse your query.
Don’t overthink it. Pursue your interests. Don’t pad your resume for pre-med.
You can do pre-med anywhere so I would focus on colleges that have good environmental science, since that is not strong everywhere.
It’s nice if your application fits a nice neat package with a defined interest and skill set but I wouldn’t go out of my way to make it like that, especially if you are already a Junior.
You have several different threads asking about your ECs…and how that can be crafted better.
Do what you love, love what you do. If you do this, it will be apparent in your ECs that you are doing things that you care about.
Echoing advice above…you can have a pre-med intention at almost every college in this country (arts conservatories excluded). And you can major in ANYTHING as long as you take the required courses for medical school admission.
Do what you like, the rest will follow.
i agree -do what you like.
I also agree, a punctuation and caps help you make your point or ask your question.
I agree with other posts that you will want to participate in the ECs that make sense for you. Do not do something to try to impress university admissions. Do something that you want to do and that makes sense to you. This will help you do it (whatever “it” is) better.
Also, premed classes are tough at a very wide range of universities. Premed students are very strong at a very wide range of universities. If you are serious about medical school then you do not need to attend a top ranked university where the other students are mostly academically stronger than you are. For a premed student there is something to be said for attending a university where you can reasonably hope to be in the top 1/2 or even top 1/4 of the class (and if you do this expect to need to work very hard even if you do come in as someone in the top 1/4 of admitted students). There are LOTs of universities that are very good for premed. This should take some of the stress off of university admissions.
One daughter did attend a university originally as an environmental science major, and did attend a university that is very good for all of environmental science, animal science, premed, and pre-vet. Starting off as an environmental science student, she did complete the pre-vet requirements (which implies that she completed nearly all of the premed requirements as well) and she did get accepted to multiple DVM programs. There appears to be at least a bit of overlap between the classes that you need to take as an environmental science major and the classes that you need to take as a premed student.
Of all of the students who originally arrive at university intending to be premed students, the majority change their mind and never apply to medical school. Of the ones that do apply to medical school, the majority never get accepted anywhere. This implies that having a “plan B” is a very good idea, bordering on essential. From what I have been able to find out (back when one daughter was an ES major) it appears that environmental science is a reasonable plan B.
I think that all of this is just a slow way to say: Participate in the ECs that make sense to you; Take your education very seriously and try to get good grades; Apply to a range of universities including safeties; and relax. Try not to worry about this too much. There are LOTS of very good universities with strong premed programs.