<p>I've heard from multiple sources that medical schools applaud students who get their bachelor's degree in one of the humanities. My question is, if one majors in one of the humanities for their undergraduate, how does one manage to do well on the MCAT if she doesn't take many science courses? Would there have to be a lot of self-teaching?</p>
<p>I was thinking about this, and now I'm considering possibly being a double major in a humanity and a science, or just majoring in a science and minoring in a humanity.</p>
<p>Select a major you are passionate about - a science or not, then take enough sciences (elective credits) to assure you have covered all content needed for MCATs.</p>
<p>Theoretically, any major would do provided the student is capable. Realistically, the timeline would serve better for a student with science major. I think that one of the recommendations I came across was to take MCAT in the beginning of the junior year, which allows time to review for the test in summer. This would provide an early indication of the probability of success in the pursuit of the medical school. If necessary, the student can improve the weakness or more onto other career paths. Otherwise, it may drag out longer than 4 years as UG if one’s major does not cover the required courses even if it works finally. If it does not work out, switching to something like Pharmacy/dental late in UG may not be looked upon favorably due to the voluntary/work experience issues. </p>
<p>I have a son in his HS junior year. He is going to Chemistry and I will ask him to take AP (cal AB & BC and others) credits for most college math classes (not science) and possibly defer the foreign languages (but not composition) to make it (MCAT by early college junior year) happen. </p>
<p>Please let me know if this plan has any potential issues.</p>
<p>Don’t just get a humanities major/minor because a lot of other pre-meds are doing it. This doesn’t mean anything and won’t help you in your admission to med school if it’s not something you are interested in. If it’s something you can see yourself doing should you not go on to medical school, by all means do it. If you want some sort of science career (or think you do as of now), you’d be fine with that.</p>
<p>Major in whatever you want. The MCAT isn’t really so much a test of science as it is of verbal and reading skills (just taking the basic science courses is all that’s needed in terms of knowledge).</p>
<p>No major will hinder your taking of science courses and taking the MCAT “on time”, except perhaps majors with stringent sets of course requirements such as engineering.</p>
<p>So much potential for self selection along the way, its hard to assume that those majors are causing differences in acceptance. For example, BME is perhaps among the hardest majors. People who can’t hack that major quickly switch out or don’t both to go into it to begin with. So, when all is said and done you are left with a much more competitive applicant pool by fourth year because the students that made it to that point and still have a decent GPA were among the most academically talented of the original group.</p>
<p>Good points. I glance through Purdue’s courses for BME. Most of them are pretty much related to medical school/career except the following courses as a reduced version of ME curriculum:</p>
<p>These are good background courses to have. Nonetheless, these four would be one semester’s effort at Purdue. The question is how would a intense timeline of “Pre-med” be able to accommodate these 4 and other humanity interests. If the student can make it with good GPA (with Organic Chemistry), MCAT in 4 years, he/she deserves to have a place in medical school. It is more difficult with EE, ME and ChE since the courses are more demanding (no reduced version anymore) and perhaps less relevent to medical school career. Still, I think if a freshmen has the medical school in mind, BME could be a possibility while EE, ME, and ChE should be carefully evaluated.</p>
<p>*My question is, if one majors in one of the humanities for their undergraduate, how does one manage to do well on the MCAT if she doesn’t take many science courses? Would there have to be a lot of self-teaching?
*</p>
<p>Most colleges include a list of recommended courses that pre-med students should take regardless of their major…those courses include a variety of bio, chem, physics & math courses. </p>
<p>I notice in that PDF file above, a high % of students with Interdisciplinary Studies majors are accepted. At some colleges, that can be a self-designed major which could include courses in humanities, sciences, business, & math.</p>
<p>I have a son who is an HS junior. I am looking into college planning for him. I got the following ideas regarding the medical school admissions from various threads:</p>
<p>1) Majors do not matter.
2) UG schools do not matter much.
3) MCAT’s science is not very difficult. MCAT’s verbal/reading is more difficult.
4) GPA and EC’s are important.
5) The maturity and concerns for the society/unfortunate of the student matter quite a bit.</p>
<p>I then looked into the key milestones in the medical school and found the following descriptions of the Step 1 License test from Wikipedia:</p>
<hr>
<p>USMLE Step 1 assesses whether medical school students or graduates understand and can apply important concepts of the sciences basic to the practice of medicine. As of 2007 it covers the following subjects, in both systemic (general and individual anatomical characteristics) and procedural (functional, therapeutic, environmental, and abnormality) themes:
* Anatomy,
* Physiology,
* Biochemistry,
* Pharmacology,
* Pathology,
* Microbiology,
* Behavioral sciences,
* Interdisciplinary topics, such as nutrition, genetics, and aging[4].
While not recommended by the creators of the USMLE, the Step 1 score is frequently used in medical residency applications as a measure of a candidate’s likelihood to succeed in that particular residency (and on that specialty’s board exams). More competitive residency programs such as Radiology, Ophthalmology, Anesthesiology, and Dermatology usually only accept applicants with high Step 1 scores. The Step 1 exam is arguably the hardest and most important examination a medical student will take during his/her career.</p>
<hr>
<p>My questions are:</p>
<p>1) The Step 1 test occurs at the end of the 2nd year in medical school. I would tend to believe that a student with an UG major of Biological/Physical sciences/BME would have an advantage for the above-listed subjects. Is that not correct?
2) For the above excerpt, the residence program could consider the in-depth knowledge as reflected by the Step 1 test or even the UG major especially for the specialty programs? Is that not correct?</p>
<p>If one of these answers has the possibility of being correct, then UG majors may not be totally irrelevant.</p>
<p>1) Maybe a little, but it’s very marginal. The first two years of medical school teach you FAR more than any science major over four years of undergrad possibly could. There might be a slight advantage, but it’d be overwhelmed by the medical school curriculum itself.</p>
<p>And even then, it would only favor biology. Physical sciences and biomedical engineering would be at a disadvantage along with economics, English, etc.</p>
<p>2) I don’t understand. Residencies definitely do not consider undergraduate major, if that’s what you’re suggesting.</p>