<p>I am currently considering majoring in bioengineering pre-med.
While I plan on going to med school as of now, I'm pretty realistic and realize that I may change my mind later or my grades may not be enough to get me into any med school. I am, however, sure that I want to go to a graduate school in general. Assuming that the worst case scenario occurs and I go through three years in the pre-med program just to decide in the fourth that I don't want to apply to med school (and can't switch majors), how would having been in the pre-med program affect my admission to graduate schools? Will I still be able to present a competitive application? I've heard that many grad schools don't consider a bioengineering pre-med degree to be a full fledged engineering degree. Is that true?</p>
<p>bumping this up... I'm curious as well.</p>
<p>Also, I've heard that medical schools want to see you do something you are passionate about, not just go to undergrad so you can go to a medical school. So, does that mean having a degree in "Bioengineering: Premedical" would be counted against me in terms of getting accepted to medical school?</p>
<p>thanks!</p>
<p>Something like "Bioengineering: Premedical" will put you at a disadvantage should you want to find employment as an engineer or go into graduate school in the field. You can major in any traditional engineering discipline and go into BioE for graduate school, but the opposite is not necessarily true. <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=222845%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=222845</a></p>
<p>If med school is your goal, major in what will earn you the highest GPA. That is usually what you enjoy most.</p>
<p>^ thanks!
The thing is, if I switch out of engineering majors, I will be forced to take 6 more general requirement courses, which is really not an ideal situation for me since I wanted to save some money (I have a good chuck of freshman year courses waived due to AP).
Any disadvantages of finishing undergraduate in 3 or 3 and 1/2 years in terms of medical school admission?</p>
<p>My goal is either get into medical school, or get into graduate school for bioMEDICAl engineering (my undergraduate school does not offer the major biomed engineering)....</p>
<p>
[quote]
Any disadvantages of finishing undergraduate in 3 or 3 and 1/2 years
[/quote]
For three years, yes. You'll be applying the summer after your sophomore year, and so they'll only have 2/3 the academic track record for you that they have for anybody else, leaving them with a great deal of uncertainty.</p>
<p>Of course, a gap year solves this problem nicely and still gets you out of paying tuition.</p>
<p>Well, most poeple I know of who are interested in biomedical engineering and pre-med take a biomedical engineering major and at the same time take required courses for med schools as electives.</p>
<p>Eg, Biological Engineering Major at cornell with Biomedical Engineering Minor option and pre-med study</p>