Best Major for Pre-Med

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
1

<p>Hello,</p>

<p>I have looked around and have understood that an individual may major in anything that interests them and still be able to apply to Med school.</p>

<p>But this doesn't make sense to me. Just say, if someone majors in Drama and wants to apply to Med school, why would he or she want to do that if he/she loves Drama? So does the Med School really not care what we major in?</p>

<p>What I always thought was, if a person majors in: molecular and cell biology, neuroscience, or human biology, etc. It would be better for the individual (including me), and have a better chance of getting into a Med school?</p>

<p>I mean, it seems almost as if I can major in something unimportant just to get into a Med school and then start studying medicine?</p>

<p>I am just a little confused about this whole structure, please someone clear these things up for me.</p>

<p>Thank You.</p>

2

<p>Med schools do not care about your major as long as your major is a serious, non-vocational major. However, the catch is: no matter what your major is, you need to be better than most science majors when you take their required classes (i.e., some of the introductory classes designed to fulfill the graduation requirement of a science major.)</p>

<p>An anecdotal example: One student had a 4.0 from Cal in his first year or two, and then transferred to an ivy and graduated from a non-science major. His GPA at graduation was close to 3.95 in both overall GPA and science GPA.</p>

<p>Med schools do not care about his major because he has demonstrated that he has excelled in the science classes when he took classes together with the best of science majors (and together with those grade-centric premeds, some of them have a well above-average study disciplines and test skills.)</p>

<p>Another anecdotal example (He actually did not go to a med school in the end. He went to Harvard Law. To be sure, he never declared he was a premed.) He took one of the hardest tracks for potential humanity majors in his freshman year, and took almost all med school prereqs and earned grades in these science classes (like orgo) better than the majority of premeds had got. He actually graduated with a chemistry major (thus orgo I and II as well as advanced orgo class are his required classes.) If such a student indeed pursued medicine track (i.e., doing some of the must-have ECs), he likely would not have any problem in academics. Med schools would not doubt that his academic capability is insufficient.</p>

<p>In other words, even though med schools do not care about your major, they care about your academic capability in and outside of sciences.</p>

3

<p>Your major really and truly does not matter for med school admissions. </p>

<p>Med schools use GPAs (both cumulative and science) to screen applicants. You are not penalized for having a “easy” major, nor are you given slack for having a “hard” major like engineering, mathematics or physics (or whatever you consider “hard”). Hard and easy are relative terms and are highly dependent upon each individual’s interests, preferences and academic strengths. </p>

<p>People major in all sorts of things because that’s where their interests and strengths and talents lie. In D1’s med school class, there are students who majored in music composition & performance, forestry, English lit, Spanish, anthroplogy, psychology, math, physics, electrical engineering, as well as the more typical biology or biochemistry. There are people with PhDs and people with MBAs. There are former truck drivers (!!) and former high school teachers. The common factor? These people are smart, dedicated and hard-working.</p>

<p>I think of medicine as being a “big tent” profession in that we need doctors who are more than cookie cutters, who have a variety of interests and skills, passions and approaches. Being a doctor requires more than just being knowledgable about biological topics. It requires an understanding of human nature (which the drama major may well be better at grasping than the biochem major), an unwillingness of judge others, compassion and excellent communication and people skills.</p>

<p>Med schools doesn’t especially care what your major is because the curriculum assumes you won’t have much specialized knowledge except for those pre-reqs that everyone has to take. (And if you do have coursework beyond the pre-reqs med school will blow thru that knowledge in about the first 2 weeks of a unit. Being a bio major won’t especially advantage you during med school. The material is new to everyone.)</p>

<p>And I’d be careful about the terminology you use. “Unimportant” majors? That’s a vague and insulting way of saying that only a handful majors have value–which is both judgmental and subjective.</p>

<p>FWIW, starting in 2015, the MCAT will have a whole subsection on “unimportant” topics that include psychology, sociology, human behavior, and ethics. (The human behavior subsection will hold equal weight with the verbal skills, biological sciences and physical sciences subsections.)</p>

4

<p>@mcat2</p>

<p>Thanks for that example, it made it clearer.</p>

<p>@WayOutWestMom</p>

<p>Thank You very much. Yes, I should have not called majors like Drama ‘unimportant’. My major was Computer Science…It requires all the math series and physics, which I can do easily. But it doesn’t require 1 year of Chemistry or Organic Chemistry which is needed for Med School. That is why I was changing my major to Bio, (Even though I find it uninteresting), to prep me for the future. So this is where I am a little confused, should I just pursue my computer science/engineering degree, because was focusing for a masters in Computer Science and then apply to Med School?</p>

5

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<p>This reminds me of an old post at SDN (a popular site for premed.) A med school student had obtained a PhD degree in some branch of biochem before he attended med school. He posted that, after he had been in med school, he found a new deep respect for these premeds. He even admitted in his post that he needed to adjust his study habit in order to keep up with some of these “crazy” students, whose study disciplines are beyond amazing. (BTW, I do not know whether this is true or DS has exaggerated it: He said one of his fellow students at his med school could study for 13 hours a day regularly. Gunning for ortho or plastic surgery?!)</p>

6

<p>If your interests lie more strongly in comp sci than bio–and your GPA is strong–I see no reason to change your major. It’s hard to force oneself to excel at material you find boring. Simply add the chem and bio to your course of studies–but make sure not to overload yourself so that your GPA takes a hit. Perhaps considering applying after graduation and taking a glide year.</p>

<p>I would not get MS in comp sci and THEN apply to med school. (It looks like med school is your Plan B–and med schools hate that.) Take your pre-reqs and jump thru all the other pre med hoops (research, shadowing, medical ECs, community service, etc) and apply. If you get accepted, you’re fine. If you don’t get accepted, then you can still pursue your master’s in comp sci. Or you can get a job, regroup, strengthen your app and try a second time.</p>

<p>There has been some talk about requiring some computer skills competency for all incoming med students because of the all the electronic charting, electronic records and the presence of IT in all phases of patient care. </p>

<p>(And true story–family friend was interviewing at JHU which has [or at least had] a foreign language competency requirement. He was a elec engineer and had never taken any foreign language classes. When asked at his group interview what his foreign language skill was, he solemnly replied that he spoke “advanced mathematics”. It was a nice try, but JHU didn’t buy it.)</p>

7

<p>

This is interesting. I always thought the younger generation should become more “literate” in this area.</p>

<p>When DS was young, and still lived at home, I tried to get him familiar with some basics in computer programming. But we did not get very far on this front (a part of the reasons was my own knowledge was somewhat outdated.) But in one year, I did receive a “Christmas Gift” from him in the form of a very simple “PacMan-like” computer game he developed (using a variant of Logo computer language for kid, with my help on the side.) I also tried to get him started on assembly language programming (I myself has no problem with this obsolete “lost art” which seems to be out of favor these days) but did not get anywhere.</p>

<p>Later on, his exposure to computer applications was mostly because of his interests in computer recording. But I was totally out of the loop by then – but I did contribute by introducing the first few software/hardware gears (but ironically, I did not know how to use any of these at all – too old for me to learn this kind of stuff). I think he even took one electronic music class in college, in which many music/multimedia applications were learned and used.</p>

8

<p>Alright, tell me if i got my route straight please:</p>

<p>I currently attend my local college, majoring in Computer science and will be transferring to a university once I have completed my courses. Upon transfer, I will finish my Bachelors degree in Computer Science and will take pre-med courses along with my comp. science classes, like (Organic chem, Bio, etc). Once I have that done, I will apply to Med School.</p>

<p>Does that seem logical to you guys ^ ?</p>

<p>Another quick question, If I already finished 1 year of General Chemistry + lab at my home college, I don’t have to re-take those courses at the University correct?</p>

9

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<p>Can you just fit the pre-med courses around a CS major, since you presumably find CS more interesting? If you do not find biology that interesting, you are less likely to get a medical-school-acceptable GPA as a biology major, and may then graduate with a biology degree with much worse job and career prospects than CS majors have.</p>

10

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<p>Don’t forget that the pre-req coursework is only one thing that pre-meds need to have. You’ll also need physician shadowing, hospital volunteering, community service, clinical or lab research, strong LORs from your BCPM profs and leadership experiences to be a competitive candidate for medical school.</p>

11

<p>@wayoutwestmom</p>

<p>Okay, thank you. It almost seems a lot to take in at this point seeing I have a long way to go because this is my first year of college. I feel a little nervous now seeing all this information because these forums are the only place so far I have talked about this future of Med school, hopefully I have support when I transfer to the University for the research and hospital volunteering, where I can be explained in depth on how to carry out these procedures and have greater chances of getting into a Med School. If you have any more information or personal suggestions, please let me know, it will be greatly appreciated. :)</p>

<p>Thank You.</p>

12

<p>You can getting involved in community service right now. You don’t need to postpone that. You can also contact your local hospitals, public clinics, group homes or nursing homes to see if they are accepting volunteers. Again, no need to postpone this. The more experience you can get the better. Get started now.</p>

13

<p>Major in whatever you want, including, Music, Art, Business, English Philosophy, whatever, I am sure you have certain interests, Bio or Zoology, math, chemistry, whatever…you heart desires.
“where I can be explained in depth on how to carry out these procedures and have greater chances of getting into a Med School.”
-will not make any difference whatsoever, they will not ask. they might discuss pop music with you though. What if you have no interests whatsoever? Keep in mind that primary focus of interview is to weed out anti-social hermits. The rest about you has been determined from your application. They want to see the person, who you are besides your GPA/MCAT score, all kind of shadow/volunteering/research/publications…etc, but do not get me wrong, without all of these you are locked out, will not be invited to interview. So, take care of your application, make it competitive, but also take care of developing as a person thru intractions with variety of peoply engaged in various activities.</p>

14

<p>Do not be fooled into thinking that a Biology/Life Science major will prepare you best for the MCAT. Mathematics and Statistics majors had the highest MCAT scores in 2011. </p>

<p>Source: <a href=“https://www.aamc.org/download/161692/data/table18.pdf[/url]”>https://www.aamc.org/download/161692/data/table18.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

15

<p>^^Old news. And please remember that math & stats majors who take the MCAT are a very small, self-selected and highly motivated subset of all math majors.</p>

<p>(For the record, I have 2 math majors–one in med school and one taking her MCAT in January. I don’t think that either one would claim their major “prepared” them to take the MCAT.)</p>

<p>Mark Twain once said, “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”</p>

16

<p>"Do not be fooled into thinking that a Biology/Life Science major will prepare you best for the MCAT. "
-Yes, it will not. However, taking upper Bio classes, including Genetics and Physiology is highly recommended before you take MCAT. Do not need to be a Bio major though and again, some people are very good at learning lots on their own outside of classroom. You need to know what works the best for you personally.</p>

17

<p>

Does this also mean people who are stronger in Math, Stats and Biology/Life Science have better chance at scoring high in the MCAT?</p>

<p>In turn, does it mean the major you choose matters?</p>

<p>eg, if you major in music, I assume your concentration is in music and you are stronger in music and not as strong in the above compared to a science or math major?</p>

18

<p>Bio majors may not have the highest acceptance percentage but there is a reason that it still has the highest number of applicants and doctors. It may not be a great major for those who don’t make it but my son is one of those and his ONLY plan is medical school. Whether he has to do post-bac or reapply after one or two years to improve his weaknesses, that will still be his plan. </p>

<p>The main reason there is so many Bio majors is it satisfies almost ALL the “pre-med” requirements. My son has to take a whopping 1.5 credits outside his major (two physics labs and one orgo lab) to meet those requirements. Also, he loves the field and that is important for one’s major, regardless of what it is. I think science is what fascinates many who want to become doctors and that is why they are drawn to the field. Can you major in anything? Sure, but you may have to plan a lot better as your major will require a certain number of credits and you still need about 12-15 credits to satisfy pre-med.</p>

<p>P.S. The fact that his major satisfies almost all of the pre-req’s allows him the freedom to take at least a half a dozen classes that are also fun and interesting and unrelated to science or medicine. See example below:</p>

<p>Introduction to the History of Art: Renaissance to the Present
Great Hoaxes and Fantasies in Archaeology
Philosophy and the Science of Human Nature
Sex, Evolution, and Human Nature</p>

19

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<p>It does not matter what major you choose if you want to go to medical school.</p>

<p>The fact that math & stats majors score well on the MCAT is reflection of the fact that the group of math majors applying to med school is a small, highly motivated and self-selected group. It doesn’t mean that math majors automatically score better on the MCAT. </p>

<p>Also if you look at the AMCAS tables, you’ll see the group that scores next best right behind the math majors are philosophy majors. Again the number of philosophy majors applying to med school is small relative the number of bio majors and that group tends be a small, highly motivated, self-selected cohort.</p>

<p>As for whether a music (or history or lit or psych) major is only strong in one area—Maybe. Maybe not. It depends on the individual and their personal strengths and interests.</p>

<p>In D1’s med school class there, about 1/3 of the students do NOT have a biology major. (There are PhDs, MBAs, former truck drivers, and former high school teachers. Also majors ranging from Spanish, anthropology, poli sci, English lit, forestry and music composition to electrical engineering, physics, biochem, neuroscience and biology.) Among the non-science/engineering students, many have a a minor in a life or physical science. The music major, for example, had a minor in biochem and perfect 4.0 sGPA. He also won awards for his senior thesis in music theory.</p>

20

<p>Building off Kdog, I was a bio major and had time for plenty of fun classes–Grapes and Wines of the World, Italian Renaissance Art (in Florence and Rome, no less), mammals from my state, a computer science class about cognition and consciousness, a random humanities class about contemporary art perspectives on the Holocaust…etc etc.</p>