My son will begin UA in the Fall 2018. He’s trying to pick a major that will prepare him for medical school. He was leaning towards Biophysics or Biochemistry but I just saw there’s a premed track for Chemical Engineering majors and they get extra scholarship money that he would qualify for. Does anyone have experience to know if one program is harder than the other? His main goal is to earn the grades and prerequisites to apply to med school.
Chem eng is just brutal, anywhere though, not just UA. Not an option to take just for the money when pre med is the end game unless your kid is super excited by the idea of chem eng. What are his HS school stats like?
He has a 4.5 GPA with honors, AP, and duel enrollment classes and a 1520 on the SAT. He took 2 Chemistry classes at our community college that would give him credit for CH 101 and 102 earning A’s in both. He’s a great student but I don’t want him to take on too much just for money. At this point, he doesn’t even know what chemical engineering is about.
I am a senior premed with very similar interests. I chose biophysics and I’ve had a very successful cycle applying to MD-PhD programs. I’ll post some brief comments but feel free to message me if you want more detailed info! Depending on his high school stats and interest in research, I would recommend looking into the Randall Research Scholars program. The student presentations will be next week and they are streamed live.
Most of these would have pretty similar classes until sophomore year—bio, general chem, cell bio, organic chem, physics. This means that he could delay his decision making a bit, and even apply in as ChemE and then change his mind later. I would make the decision about biochem vs. biophysics after he has taken organic and maybe the PH 253 Modern Physics class. Those will give a pretty good idea about the upper level coursework in their respective departments. Most people are pretty sure about their feelings about ChemE after taking the CHE 254 Calculations class.
My son was a chemE premed at Bama. It’s a tough gig so only someone who really loves the subject matter (chemistry and engineering) should go that route. My son loved all things chemistry and eng’g so it worked out for him, but I’ve seen many GPAs crash as eng’g majors.
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He’s trying to pick a major that will prepare him for medical school.
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Just to let you know, majors don’t prepare students for med school.
Thanks for the advice everyone!
My daughter is a ChemE and Chinese double major for her premed. Chemical Engineering is as brutal as any other engineering major. Someone considering medical school should be aware of the GPA consequences of pursuing any engineering major since no undergrad major will ever adequately prepare them for medical school.
I’m concerned that your son “doesn’t even know what chemical engineering is about” but may pursue it for premed. I would recommend that he watches Engineered Truth on Youtube to learn more about chemical engineering. Regardless of his choice of major, preserving good grades should be the priority for medical school acceptance.
I know several students at UA who are applying to med school or have been accepted to at least one. Varied majors - they just make sure to take the core courses required for med school application along with all the other things to do including making sure to prepare and do well on all the things reviewed with applicants (GPA is one of these things).
Could declare eng or CS for the additional scholarship at UA (need to come in as engineering major to obtain scholarship) and always change if one realizes their abilities are better with another major.
My medical oncologist had a ME degree from Ga Tech before he went to medical school. Another physician specialist I use to work for got UG degree at Duke in Math with piano performance; he decided to go on to med school because he was like Condelezza Rice - knew he could not be tippy top concert pianist.