Difference between engineering and premed application

College Majors
1

Do engineering students and pre med students apply to the same college? Are there more engineering seats in a given college than medicine seats? Or does everyone apply for the same places?

2

Pre med is not a major. You can major in and apply to any program you wish as a pre med. It simply means you intend to apply to med school after undergrad, and you complete the med school prerequisites in addition to your degree requirements.

3

Your other thread indicates that you are international. If so your chances of being admitted to a US medical school after obtaining a bachelor’s degree are virtually zero.

4

@TomSrOfBoston their other thread indicates that they are a US citizen attending high school in another country. I believe that makes them a US applicant for med school.

5

@guineagirl96 Yeah Im planning to come to the USA for undergrad, and I am a US citizen. So everyone applies to the same college, for the same seats, regardless of their future career?

6

Depends on the university. Some admit by major, some admit by college (ex: college of engineering, college of arts and sciences, etc), some have you apply to your major once you’re already a student, and many have single door admission, meaning you just apply to the university and can choose almost any major you want.

7
  1. in the US, you apply to med school after college. You do NOT apply to med school after high school.
  2. Med schools expect a set of pre-reqs, a major (any traditional major - if you major in philosophy or music you’re expected to take a few advanced science classes on top of the pre-reqs), clinical experience (volunteer at a clinic or through RAM, work as an EMT or CNA, shadowing doctors…) and if you want a MDPHD program, significant research. You need to rank top 10-20% in all your classes to have the college GPA med schools expect.
  3. most students who want to be premed never make it. Of those who make it through the pre-med gauntlet, only about 50% get any admission to any med schools.
  4. don’t major in biology. There’s an oversupply of biology majors who couldn’t get into med school on the market right now. Major in whatever you’re very good at.
  5. engineering is a great plan B in case you don’t make it into med school. However engineering GPAs tend to be lower than in other majors and med schools will NOT cut you any slack because of your major (in fact an algorithm may cut anyone who doesn’t meet GPAMCAT thresholds, where major isn’t even input as a variable).
  6. LACs don’t have engineering.you apply to the college in general and choose your major during sophomore year once you’ve tried many university classes. They’re also kinder to premeds since they’re undergraduate-focused. If you choose well, they may support you rather than weed you out. However classes will be hard everywhere and at the end only the best are selected for med school.
  7. Large state universities typically want you to apply to a major or a college. Some may have ‘undecided’ pathways but admission to the major becomes competitive for these. They’ll offer a large choice of majors, including engineering, agricultural science, etc. However, because so many students arrive with the intention of being premed and the univerdiry simply doesn’t have the resources to accommodate them all, the pre-req courses purposely eliminate as many students as possible during the first two years - this is called weedout (which is different from natural attrition, ie., it’s by university design not by student change of heart or lack of effort). At large state universities, the engineering seats tend to be the most restricted. You can see if there are engineering-adjacent majors in other colleges (ie., Mining may be in college of Mineral resources, environmental science/Engineering may be in college of agriculture, CS may be in college of math&science or liberal arts or Information Technology. All of those would be easier to get into than Engineering yet provide you with an engineering/similar degree.)
  8. med school is expensive. Therefore you need to choose the best combination of value (qualitycost*support) and prospects if you don’t make it into med school.

You thus need to apply to a variety of colleges.