<p>hi, i'm hoping to go to one of the UC schools of medicine, and I'm wondering which of these majors might work out better:</p>
<p>Neurobiology, Physiology & Behavior
or
Psychology</p>
<p>i'm also wondering which generally has higher acceptance rates to UC schools, because I need to get into undergrad. first :P</p>
<p>I heard major doesn't matter much for medical school, but I'm thinking psychology might help me more in dealing with patients but the other may be more textbook related?</p>
<p>any help would be gretatly appreciated, thanks</p>
<p>Major doesn't really matter. Pick the one you like better - chances are, you'll do better in it, get a higher GPA, and thus increase your chances of getting into med school.</p>
<p>Acceptance rate by major is hard to quantify, aside from the fact that engineers seem to have a harder time of it. Pick the one you like better - chances are, you'll do better in it, get a higher GPA, and thus increase your chances of getting into med school.</p>
<p>The Neurobiology one might help you succeed in med school. Interacting with patients is important, but you need to understand what's going in the body first.</p>
<p>I know it's hard to gain admissions to some UC schools, such as Davis with a bio major
could it be the same for Neurobiology, Physiology & Behavior?</p>
<p>Unless someone has specific information about unusual preferences at specific UC's, the general advice about majors is as indicated above: does not matter for most fields, be wary of engineering, avoid vocational majors.</p>
<p>Note that, depending on the program at your college, psychology might teach you a lot about experimental and theoretical psych and nothing about dealing with patients. This is not an argument against it, just pointing out that it may not be particularly useful for medical practice.</p>
<p>Speculation: I can imagine that UCSF would have a preference for non-science majors. The rest of the UC's should be well in line with national norms.</p>
<p>I know majors does not matter if you get into med school, but what about those who do not get into medical school and need a back up? Correct me if i'm wrong but if you choose an easy, popular major like psychology and you don't get into medical, your screwed because a BA in psych doesn't do much unless you go into grad school. At least with a biology major, you can prob get some kind of work at a pharmaceutical company or something. Even better if you have a biochemistry degree or a bioenginnering degree. The latter degrees are more difficult but I can imagine that its easier to find work with those degrees than the former.</p>
<p>Is BS in Biochemistry more marketable than BS in Biology? Because I really love biochemistry, but still hesitate since I don't know what jobs you can get with it.</p>
<p>biochemistry and kind of like majoring in biology and chemistry. At least in my school, biochemistry requires all the bio classes that are in the biology major plus the hard classes that bio majors don't dare to touch i.e. physical chemistry. So I would think biochemistry is much more impressive and useful. Any job you can get with a bio degree, you can definitly get with a biochem degree.</p>
<p>From what i understand, some med schools require/highly recommend biochemistry. So it may be a good idea to take a biochem course even if its not your major.</p>
<p>hmm
thanks for all the info.
i'm still stuck deciding whether i should go for psych because i'd probably like it more and do better in it, thus a higher GPA
or neuro because it may help more with the bio side of medicine...</p>
<p>does neuro require a lot of tough in -depth science classes?</p>
<p>doesn't your school provide some kind of outline to specifically what classes are required for your major? I don't think neuroscience is tougher. Either way, your going to take the prereqs for pre med. Anyways i'd say go for whichever you'll enjoy more but keep in mind your options if you don't end up going into medical school.</p>
<p>what's so bad about engineering. I mean, obviously, a lower GPA is expected, but I've read that medical schools take this into consideration (i.e. they know that engineering students could have a 3.7 GPA and still be at the top of their classes, while a 3.7 GPA as a biology major is not so impressive)</p>
<p>I think you should do the one you like better because then you would do better in classes, however you need a hardcore background in science to do good on MCATS so make sure you take a lot of Math and Science!</p>
<p>You know, you think Medical Schools would give extra points for harder majors/bigger course loads, but I've heard they don't. All they care about is your gpa, science gpa, and whether or not you did you pre-reqs. Really, even an ad-com member told me you rmajor really doesn't factor in their decisions, so double majoring in electrical engineering and biochemistry just to impress medical schools while getting a lower gpa lowers your chances. So basically, major in what you like better, statistics show no bias in acceptance rates for majors and just get the best possible gpa that you can and enjoy it in the process. Even if they gave bonuses for harder majors, it wouldn't be a big boost for you to major in something you hate just to impress schools, and it certainly not enough to compensate for a substantially lower gpa.</p>
<p>^^^
if that's true then whats my incentive to stay a biochem major and not change to a ceramics major and take the bare minimum amount of the easiest possible science courses and take the minimum 12 credit hours each semester?</p>
<p>Um, plenty of humanities majors get into medical school and end up taking just the pre-req science classes. I'm sure someone on these boards will confirm that. Some students I know stay a hard major or even double major in "tough" majors because they think majoring in something else is the "easy way out" and they're hoping for some tangible benefit during the admissions process. Not to mention, ceramics might be a really hard major in some colleges so which subjects are "hard" depends on the school. The med students I know said their major was never discussed in interviews either. I really don't think they care what you major in and I don't think it's an excuse for a substantially lower GPA either. </p>
<p>And I'm assuming you're majoring in biochem because you actually like it, which should be a good enough reason for you to major in it.</p>
<p>"if that's true then whats my incentive to stay a biochem major and not change to a ceramics major and take the bare minimum amount of the easiest possible science courses and take the minimum 12 credit hours each semester?"</p>
<p>Who's to say you'd be great as a ceramics major if you don't have any interest in it? Why would you want to spend 4 years studying something you have no interest in? College isn't simply a stepping stone to medical school. Use your 4 years of college to actually do something productive and maybe learn something.</p>