<p>My point was just that it doesn't seem fair to judge a biology major who can get away with algebra based physics with biochem and engineering majors who take calc based physics and physical chemistry. Sure its not excuse for a lower gpa but surely med schools must understand the challenges of certain majors. I know that med schools consider how much of a course load you take so it would be a bad idea to continually skate on 12 credits a semester, and also i'm assuming their reasons against going to a community college is similar, so how come they don't consider majors? some of which are obviously easier than others.</p>
<p>Beats me. Who knows? Probably because what's easy and what's not depends on people's strengths. I know engineer majors who are absolutely brilliant but can't write worth much and would probably get a bad grade in English classes or any other non-math based classes. What's easy and what's not really depends on someone's strengths and weaknesses I guess. Also, some majors are harder than others at different schools. One school can have an extremely hardcore english program but a relatively light chemistry program, if it's easier to get a higher grade in chemistry, then is chem still considered a "harder" major than english? I guess it's just a way for med schools to account for these inconsistencies. But that's just guesswork on my part. But everyone I know and pre-med advisors and everything I've read leads me to believe what you major in really doesn't matter. Plenty of "easy" majors still get into medical schools and statistics don't show an overwhelming bias towards engineering majors or "hard" majors when it comes to acceptance rates. So nothing really leads me to believe medical school care. So basically to the OP pick the one you like best, it'll make your 4 years more enjoyable and you'll most likely get higher grades studying you like.</p>
<p>I choose biochemistry over a biology major because 95% of premeds at my school are biology majors. I think your right about different majors having different difficulty levels because at my school, the biology curriculum is ridiculously easy. Biochem majors take courses in their freshman year that bio majors are suppose to take in their junior year. Biochem majors take calc based physics in their freshman or sophomore year while bio majors take algebra based physics in their junior year. But I assume at all schools, physical science majors are harder than biological sciences. I enjoy my major because its intellectually challenging, but its no Disney land. If med schools don’t look at your major, surely they must look at the classes you take and have an understanding of the difficulties. Are you telling me they won’t stare longer at a transcript with quantum physics in it than a transcript with all painting and gym classes? I mean med schools consider the prestige of your school as mentioned somewhere else on this forum. And I find that its ridiculous that they consider something so trivial as race more importantly than a student’s major. I’d just like some assurance that my taking physical chemistry and biochemistry and instrumental methods isn’t in vain when I could get more sleep as a biology major and party my ass off getting drunk.</p>
<p>If you are taking very challenging courses, that most other premeds don't take, and do well in them (A's) then the adcom members will take note of this and look favorably upon it. However, if you are taking hard classes and not excelling in them then they may question your ability to do well in med school classes which will be harder than most classes you will have ever taken.</p>
<p>Most people do major in science and not in ceramics because you would need a hardcore background in science and Math.... to do good in MCATS and it is a little easier for science majors to do good in MCATS then say a ceramics major!</p>
<p>You only need to take the pre-reqs to do well on the MCAT. Things like advanced organic chemistry and quantum physics don't show up on the test.</p>
<p>Also, Humanities majors admitted to med schools also tend to do BETTER on the MCATs than bio majors admitted. They have an average of 31 and bio majors averaged 30.1. Even humanities majors applying had a higher MCAt than bio majors applying. 53% of humanities majors who applied got in whereas only 43% of bio majors who applied got in with a national average of 44%. In fact, I think bio majors usually have the lowest rate of acceptance almost every year just becuse there are way too many of them. Humanities majors also have a lower average non science GPA and lower overall gpa than bio majors and yet a higher percentage of them got in. Only social science majors got in with a lower gpa and physical sciences major had a similar gpa. You can of course try to say those people who got in were URM, but unless you play the race card and say URM usually do bad and always majors in humanities (neither of which is the case IMO), then I really see no bias in the admissions process that favors science majors over non science majors based on these statistics of matriculants.</p>
<p>Most people seem to major in bio because their major pre-reqs are the exact same as med school pre-reqs. Also, some people just "go with the flow" and do what all the other pre-meds are doing.</p>
<p>Humanites majors tend to have better reading/critical thinking skills, which i think would account for the MCAT disparity.</p>
<p>corbis11 is right. No extra bonuses are given for harder majors and no sympathy is given for doing badly in tougher classes. However, if math/science are your strengths, and if you think you could do well in engineering classes, might as well utilize them by being an engineering major; it can only help. At the same, it might benefit you to stand out as an engineering major in a crowd full of biology majors at your school (assuming you do well).</p>
<p>Thanks for all the info.</p>
<p>I'm still in high school and I'm wondering - what are humanities courses exactly?
Is psychology in the category?</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>No, psychology is a social science. Humanities are disciplines that do not rely heavily on empirical data (like art or English or philosophy or language).</p>
<p>So med schools don't understand that engineering majors are one of the msot grade-deflated majors? The reason for this deflation I believe is because your grades are basically all your employer sees since most engineering majors only go to school and employers only care how good you are at doing engineering rather than whether you volunteered or not.</p>
<p>how do you expect admissions officers to differentiate the rigor of engineering courses among thousands of colleges. Some college transcript may only display the course name so how would they know if you took calc based physics as opposed to algebra based physics. They may not realize that college XYZ has a relatively easy engineering program compared to that of its English program. From what I have gathered, if you apply to your own university's med school, then the admissions officers WILL take a closer look at your courses. They simply know which courses and majors are difficult within the university and can therefore accurately judge you.</p>
<p>@skp21</p>
<p>They will know all of that as long as your program is ABET-credited. ABET is basically the health inspector of restaurants but for engineering and other applied science programs.</p>
<p>To get your degree, you will have to do hard calc-based physics in any ABET program.</p>
<p>Of course med schools know that engineers take calc-based physics. But how would they know if the bio major or the psych major took calc-based physics? At my school, the algebra based physics course appears as "General Physics" on the transcript while the calc-based physics course appears as "Fundamentals of Physics." There's no way to distinguish between the two. Premeds are fairly split as to which physics they take.</p>
<p>Not only do I think you're making too big a deal about this calc vs. algebra-based physics thing, there's no way adcoms are going to invest any amount of time trying to figure out what kind of physics an applicant took.</p>
<p>This sucks for those who want to be intellectually challenged. Harder work but no pay off. What this sounds like to me is that we should just choose easy courses that sound hard.
Anyways, I'm sure many students also take the harder courses because they actually want to learn, but that desire to learn comes at a price obviously and that means less time to do other things like research or study for your other courses. But it pays off in the end for taking the harder route. I have not taken the mcats but wouldn't it easier and faster to do physics problems with calculus than algebra? Can someone who's taken the mcats confirm this so I don't have to feel like i'm wasting my time when I could be taking bs courses?</p>
<p>I think you need to get off your high horse. Some people find calc-based physics easier. Some people find algebra-based physics easier. If you enjoy calc or you're an engineer, take the former. If you don't like calculus, take the latter. Neither gives you an advantage for the MCAT. If you get a 15 on the PS section, then you can talk about how you're so much better than all those people who took algebra-based physics.</p>
<p>What?! People find algebra-based physics harder than calc-based physics?</p>
<p>The MCAT only tests algebra-based physics, so as a pre-med, what is the benefit of taking calc-based physics other than challenging yourself?</p>
<p>Your prob right norcalguy. I do find calculus easier than algebra, but thats why I thought it would be an advantage to use calculus on the mcats. But since the mcats test algebra based physics, can you still use calculus on the physics section of the mcat? because if not, it seems to me like its a disadvantage to take calc based physics for the mcats and I don't remember anything I learned in high school physics. I have not taken calc based physics yet but I can imagine that on the mcats, its like how in calculus we use algebra to learn it first. For example, find area by adding up the riemann sum piece by piece using end points vs simply integrating the area using calculus. Is the mcats like that? Like you can use algebra but it would be a lot easier to use calculus. I hope that made sense.</p>
<p>^^^Now you're getting it. Learning physics the algebra way is like memorizing a poem w/o comprehending it. To truly appreciate the essence of physics, you'll have to use calculus. Yes, MCAT physics problems are algebra-based but that doesn't mean you have to use algebra to solve them.</p>
<p>I love calculus. I think it's elegant and useful and very, very powerful, and I think all people -- including premeds -- should take up through Calc III because it's so elegant and useful and powerful.</p>
<p>I never ran into an MCAT problem where Calculus was useful.</p>