My son (senior) is pretty sure he wants to go to med school. 2 Questions:
- Whether your son will be to earn a high GPA as BME major is really dependent on your son, his preparation, his native ability in math and the sciences, and his work ethic. Are there engineers who make it into med school? Heck yes. Some do very well as engineering majors with near perfect 4.0 GPAs. (Ask Mom2–her younger S was ChemE with near 4.0 GPA.) OTOH, some top performing HS kids crash & burn in college. We can’t guess how successful he will be in college because we don’t know him.
Please realize, though, that engineering majors or any other --insert name of difficult major here-- will not get any leeway when it comes to GPA considerations from adcomms. (I had a physics & applied math major kid and a applied math & neuroscience kid–both of whom went to med school–so I have had a front row seat to this.)
- Every 4 year college in the US offers the required pre-med coursework so he can attend just about any school which offers his desire major.
Understand that the purpose of undergrad pre-reqs for med school is not to prepare a student for med school and the MCAT, but to give a student the necessary exposure to the topics which he will need to know in order to teach himself what he needs to know for med school and the MCAT.
pre-reqs ≠ MCAT prep
There’s a thread in the FA forum for merit scholarships and lower cost college options here:
Thank you for the reply and advice. I can’t predict the future but I don’t think he will be one of those that crash & burn (at least I pray he doesn’t). So my concern is that I’ve read some of the med schools prefer having students with non-science backgrounds so they can increase their diversity at their med-school. Have you heard this and do you think there is much truth to it? He is really passionate about the sciences so I’m sure he will want to go that route, just trying to figure if the bio-med track is a good idea. I’m hoping this summer intern will give him some exposure to the field. THANKS so much for your help, this stuff is stressful for the kids and the parents. It was so different when I went to college.
Med schools want future doctors.
There has been a growing realization/acceptance over the last two decades that many fantastic doctors did not want or need to major in the sciences as undergrads. The schools don’t care about having a diversity of backgrounds. They simply want the best future physicians they can get and unlike 2 decades ago, know to cast their net beyond the bio and chem majors.
I want to emphasize what IWBB said:
Med schools don’t care what an applicant’s major is.
Adcomms are looking for mature individuals with great communication and people skills as well the necessary critical thinking skills and scientific aptitude to become excellent physicians. They’re also looking for evidence of empathy, compassion, perseverance when faced with adversity, and the ability to work well within a team. This is stuff no college major can teach.
So—tell your son to major in what he enjoys, what he’ll do well in, but some consideration for a Plan B career in case he doesn’t get an acceptance to med school.
Every pre-med needs a Plan B. Why?
-
Because 75% of freshman pre-meds never get to the point where they actually apply to med school. (Academic issues, a change of interests, unwillingness to jump thru pre-med hoops, poor standardized test scores are just a few things that trip up pre-meds.)
-
Because among those who do apply, 60% will get rejected at every single medical school they apply to
Is he prepared to go to grad school if he doesn’t decide to do medicine? BME bachelor’s is said to not get you very far.
Yes, he is prepared to go to grad school.
WOWM: Good advice! That’s pretty much what I’ve been telling him and it’s good to hear others confirm that. I see him more in a research environment than in a clinical setting. With that being said, I could see him pursue a masters or phd in that field as opposed to going the med school route. We have heard also that there are better opportunities for scholarships (or company paid) to grad schools but not much for med schools. What is your opinion on that? Thanks for you input 
Science and engineering PhD programs are typically funded. Funded means tuition & fees will be covered and the student will received a living expenses stipend (not a ton–usually in the $20-30K range) in return for working either as a teaching asst or a research asst.
Engineering Master’s program are sometimes funded, but this varies widely by program and engineering discipline. Many (most?) engineering employers will reimburse tuition costs as an employee benefit.
Master’s degree programs in bio, chem and math are usually not funded since serious students will apply directly to PhD programs. Bio Master’s degrees, in particular, are big money-makers for most colleges and are seldom funded.
Med school–expect unsub loans and more unsub loans plus a student and family contribution. Very little merit available. The average med student graduates with around $200K in loans, not including undergrad or other debt. (And the average is skewed because 16-18% graduate with ZERO debt.)
https://www.aamc.org/download/152968/data/debtfactcard.pdf
Med school costs here:
https://services.aamc.org/tsfreports/select.cfm?year_of_study=2015
Undergrads do not prepare students for med school.
[QUOTE=""]
We thought it would be a great major to fall back on in case he decides to not go the premed route. <<<
[/QUOTE]
Why do you think that? I would think ChemE or MechE would be a better major to have as a Plan B. BioMedE isn’t that marketable. BioMedE grad schools readily accept students with ChemE and MechE undergrad degrees.
Not to mention, if you want large merit awards, there are far fewer schools that would give strong merit and would have BioMedE. There are many, many more schools that give large merit that have ChemE or MechE disciplines.
I agree that every premed needs a Plan B. My son’s Plan B was Chemical Eng’g. If he hadn’t gone to med school, he would have easily walked into a job paying $85k+ per year…with just a BS. If he had wanted to get into a fully-funded PhD program, he very likely could have because he had the stats for that.
We hardly paid anything for our son’s undergrad. His merit scholarships paid for nearly all of his undergrad costs.
As for med schools…Some do give some merit scholarships to help protect their yield. I think one reason my son was offered merit awards from all of his accepted med schools is because once the other schools learned that one med school offered him merit, the others made their own offers.
We were looking at BioMedE b/c he really loves the medical aspect of it. He said he isn’t really interested in mechanical or other common engineering fields. He loves the biology/physiology. I suppose he could major in biology but I’m afraid if he decides against med school, there may not be as many higher paying jobs in the biology field even with a PhD. I think he would enjoy the research end of it more than dealing with patients.
What is your opinion on where the medical field is heading? That is a concern for me. I have heard numerous times that doctors are dealing with more paperwork, stress and Obamacare has made things more challenging for them.
I think he has a great shot at a merit scholarship with his high gpa, ranked #1, 35 on ACT, he is an Eagle scout and has been very active in his school.
Thanks for your advice
Medical practice is nothing but dealing with patients. Of he doesn’t like that part, medicine isn’t the right career for him.
Your son needs to spend some time doing volunteer work in a clinical setting where he will be dealing with the chronically ill, physically and mentally disabled, the elderly, the infirm. These are his future patients. Until he knows if he can stand to spend huge amounts of his time dealing with the injured, the sick, the mentally ill, the dying and their families, he shouldn’t plan on a medical career.
The medical profession is certainly changing. The days of the solo practitioner are long gone. The trend is toward physicians becoming salaried employees of large group practices. The trend is also toward increasingly narrow specialization. e.g. an orthopedic surgeon who only does shoulder surgeries. Non-emergent, routine illnesses (a simple strep throat) will be handled by mid-level providers (NPs or PAs), not physicians, and often in non-traditional settings like “Doc in a Box” clinics in WalMart or CVS.
Medicine has always been a stressful profession. (That’s partly why physicians have such a high divorce rate and a high suicide rate.) That part hasn’t changed. Nor have the long hours. 60-90 hour work weeks are the norm in medicine, not the exception.
Thanks! I absolutely agree with everything you said and I will have him read it… great advice. We know several physicians, I wonder if they might be open to having him shadow them a few times. Do you know if this is common? Thanks!
Shadowing is expected of all med school applicants. In fact, shadowing primary care physicians is very important.
However, shadowing is a very limited experience and often the doctors who allow students to shadow them (particularly if they’re family friends) often take pains to show only the “pretty, happy, shiny” side of medicine.
Your son needs to volunteer routinely at a nursing home, a hospice, a rehabilitation hospital, a group home for the disabled or mentally ill, a cancer center, stand alone public clinic (Healthcare for the Homeless, county public health clinic, Planned Parenthood or something similar) or hospital. Volunteering on a rape or suicide hotline are also useful experiences.
The medical schools were saying that more than three decades ago. Apparently, people just don’t listen too well.
Well I know Sinai’s Humanities in Medicine program is <30 years old and they seem to be the only one with such a program so I figured it wasn’t really a widespread thought until more recently.
<<<
We were looking at BioMedE b/c he really loves the medical aspect of it.
[QUOTE=""]
[/QUOTE]
Is there much of a “medical aspect” to biomedE undergrad? That seems to be the grad school aspect.
I don’t know, Mom2. D2 has classmate friends who were BS-level BMEs at her undergrad. Each had to complete a senior project which had direct patient applicability.