<p>So I am currently a high school senior and I was accepted early decision to Washington University in St. Louis, where I (right now) plan on doing Biomedical Engineering. However, it is only in the last year that I decided I wanted to do engineering. Before that, I had always planned on going to med school.
Now I am thinking that I might still want to go to med school, but I still want to try BME just to see if it's really what I want to do. But, obviously, an "engineering gpa" can sometimes be quite different from a "normal" gpa. And, again obviously, med schools are very concerned with GPAs and MCAT scores and while my MCAT score (talking 4 years in the future) might be good, if I can't maintain in the 3.7-4.0 range as a BME major, would my chances at top medical schools be compromised?
I guess what I'm asking (and I'm sure this has been asked before) is if doing BME would ruin my chances of getting into a top med school?</p>
<p>There are plenty of students doing BME and pre-med here. It’s challenging, and a lot of work, but it’s doable.</p>
<p>No matter what major you are in, you will be doing fine as a premed as long as you ranked among the top 20 percents of the BME students at a school like wustl. Forget about what your exact GPA is; most med school will likely admit the top X percents of each major at a school of a caliber like wustl. (Isn’t the same thing, you high school rank, that helped you to get into wustl in the EA cycle? Even if your high school does not rank the students, a college like wustl will know , roughly at least, what your rank may be. Why would you think med school is different in this regard?)</p>
<p>BME may be more challenging; but it is equally challenging for all BME students at your school who have had the same preparaton before college. So, when you talk about the rank, it is not much different than the rank for other majors.</p>
<p>With this said, one difference for BME is that there may be more demand for math preparation, and also, at the UG level, there is less vocational focus in BME than, say, in EE/CS. (that is, EE/CS or Chemical Engineering is more marketable than BME right after UG. BME is like a little bit of too many things if you only complete the UG program, while the company tends to give the preference to a student who is more hands-on and specialized in a specific area.)</p>
<p>Actually, at some med schools, I heard that many med students would be quite turned off by the way a BME professor teaches their students (too much math and derivation) - unless the med student is very much into academic medicine.</p>
<p>Thanks for the info. I am worried because I was actually not very highly ranked in my high school. I am only in the top 20%, maybe 18% or so, and my GPA was a 3.4UW and 3.74W. I really only got into WashU based on my ECs, essay, and test scores (though my SAT and ACT are only on the higher end of average for WashU). That said, I am afraid that I won’t be highly ranked at college (like in high school), which worries me because I think that med schools look more at grades/rank and scores, as opposed to the more subjective parts of the application.</p>