I am an undergraduate student on the prehealth track. I hope to apply to medical school or dental school. So far I have finished all my required courses for my computer science major and pretty much everything needed to graduate. The only thing is I still have to take General Physics 2 and Biochemistry to finish the prehealth sequence. I go to a pretty expensive college in NYC and I realized I would be going back for an extra semester just for these 2 courses. I was wondering if graduating from my college, but completing these 2 remaining courses at my state school in the Fall is an option? Would I be allowed to do that if I’m planning to apply to medical school? Or should I just stick to finishing the courses at my current college?
You can absolutely finish your pre-reqs at another college after graduation. Just make sure the coursework is completed at a 4 year college and not a CC.
There’s no rule against what you’re proposing and plenty of non-traditional and career changer pre-meds complete their pre-reqs after graduation and have very successful application cycles.
Just make sure that beside finishing your pre-reqs that you keep working on your ECs after graduation.
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Thank you, that’s very helpful!
I was talking to a kid today who graduated Ole Miss. He said today they want English majors - because they want people who can read, write, and communicate better. Where and how you do the pre-reqs is secondary. Yes, you have to do them…but he’s like they prefer non-science majors today.
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Med school adcomms are completely agnostic about what undergrad majors applicants have. Adcomm aren’t “looking” for English or any other particular majors in applicants, nor do adcomms “prefer” non-science majors. That’s just not true.
While it’s true that humanities majors (46% acceptance rate) and mathematics majors (48% acceptance) have marginally higher acceptance rates than biology majors(43% acceptance rate), there is considerable selection bias in the data and the number of applicants with humanities or mathematics majors is extremely small. (Only 1738 humanities majors (3%) and 342 math majors (0.6%) applied to med school in 2020 out of 54,000 applicants.)
(see: Table A-17 of 2020 AAMC FACTS: Applicant and Matriculant Data)
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I found it odd that med school would want “non science” majors - it’s just what he told me.
Like law school is heavy on poli sci (also not needed), i thought with doctors - science would be the must have thing…I mean, what does humanities have to do with medicine.
He was saying - it’s all about communication - from that POV I get it. But it was an unknown to me.
BTW, adcomms do care where applicants take their pre-reqs.
Many medical schools do not accept community college credits for pre-req classes. Those that do accept CC credits require/recommend those credits be supplemented with additional UL coursework in the same field at a 4 year college.
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By my understanding, as long as a student has the proper prerequisites, high grades, and good MCAT scores, it doesn’t matter what they major in.
Being a doctor is not all about knowledge. A HUGE part of it is being able to write and communicate clearly. I’m sure we’ve all met doctors who totally lack in bedside manner and who are useless at explaining things in a manner non-medically educated patients can understand. I have left more than one doctor who only understood medicine and not people.
Science course work is generally a must-have thing for pre-meds, but the science course work does not require one’s undergraduate major to be a science (even though a biology major may be “convenient” for pre-meds due to most of the pre-med courses also counting for the major).
Please provide data to support this.
Major doesn’t matter, but one thing my guy noted is some med school courses were easier for him than some of his peers. They were wondering “how he knew what he already knew.” His reply, “We had it in class in college, didn’t you?” This happened due to both the level of college he went to and specific classes for his major that weren’t in the pre-req courses. He majored in Brain & Cognitive Science + Bio and had minors in Psych/ASL though I’m not sure those were as useful this way. He was one course short of a minor in Chem.
I wouldn’t let that change anyone’s mind about a college or major though. You’re likely to do best where you “fit” and in a major you like, plus Plan B is a super important consideration when choosing. Med schools teach everything you need to know. What you don’t learn in college classes can be learned in med school. His friends are also heading to residencies now.