<p>I have heard horror stories of Johns Hopkins academics. As a prospective engineering student, how do you feel the difficulty of getting A's at hopkins is vs. Cornell, Duke, CMellon or HPYS. Are there any advantages to a JHU engineering degree vs. the others listed? since I want to go to Medical school, is it wise to go to a school famed for its difficulty? Also can you look at my stats and give me chances at various schools Can I get into Johns Hopkins Engineering ED?</p>
<p>why are you studying engineering if you want to go to medical school? studying a less demanding subject will make it easier for you to get your A’s.</p>
<p>what kind of other subject? What are some easy subjects to get As in and will med schools look at the rigor of the course load?</p>
<p>You should major in what you think you enjoy most, for any number of reasons. Among these are that you might change your mind about med school (it happens a lot), you will do better in what keeps your interest, and the point of an undergrad education is not to mark time for med school. If you have the qualifications to get accepted into JHU engineering, then you have every chance of doing well. Med school admissions committees are well aware of the relative dificulty of a JHU BME degree, for instance, vs. a philosophy degree from Podunk U.</p>
<p>an engineering degree is a lot of work. only do it if you know beyond a doubt that you’d enjoy studying it more than any other major and would be willing to do the extra work that an engineering degree requires. </p>
<p>it would be much smarter to pick a non-professional degree where you don’t have to put so much time into school. medical school admissions don’t weigh major difficulty very heavily–they mostly care about GPA. study something you enjoy!</p>
<p>LOL at engineering being an easy subject to get As in.</p>
<p>It’s possible the OP wants to do biomedical engineering, in which case the engineering/med school combo would make sense.</p>
<p>But you know what they say about Johns Hopkins once you get there…it’s like unprotected sex. You’re ecstatic that you got in, but horrified you came.</p>
<p>I don’t go to Johns Hopkins, but I certainly second the opinions expressing that you will do better in subjects that you are genuinely interested in.</p>
<p>As an example, a guy I met freshman year was pre-med but chose to major in business because the classes were “easier.” He didn’t actually have much interest in the business courses, and unsurprisingly, he didn’t do as well as he wanted to in them. (He didn’t do poorly by any means, but he was expecting all A’s and got some B’s.) Since then, he’s switched majors three times and has left the pre-med program.</p>
<p>Of course, nobody says you “have” to major in X if you want to pursue a medical career. But if you’re picking your major based on its supposed easiness rather than your true level of interest, beware. Those “easy” classes might not get you the A’s you expect.</p>
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<p>just because a lot of people do it doesn’t mean it makes sense. why go through 4 years of engineering school when you know that you will throw most of what you learned away when you enter medical school? Medical schools don’t even care that you studied a more demanding major. </p>
<p>Doing a professional degree when you know that you want to enter a different profession is silly.</p>
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<p>I bet he probably just wants to study engineering because he heard that it was hard and that that’s what medical schools expected from him.</p>
<p>silence - Your entire post is nothing but supposition about someone you have no idea about. For example, a lot of people that do research in the areas covered by BME get medical degrees as part of their career prep. Ever heard of an MD-PhD? So he might not be “throwing away” his undergrad degree at all. Also, please provide some support for the statement about medical schools not caring about the strength of the major. Because I know for a fact it is not true. Just like highly competitive undergrad schools look at how much you challenged yourself in assessing whether to accept you (for example, many people get turned down by Ivy’s, Chicago, Duke, etc. even with 3.9-4.0 and strong test scores if they could have taken many AP’s but took none or one), med schools go through the same process. Who do you think is on the admissions committees for these schools? They know the ropes, having gone through them themselves in most cases.</p>
<p>As people have already said, you should do something you enjoy. I’m a second year engr’ing student–and its freaking demanding, I won’t suggest you stay in engr’ing, although I know people who are biomedical engr’s, but do it only if you really, truly like it!</p>
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Can you provide a source for your claim that med schools heavily weigh the “difficulty” of the undergraduate program? I am not an expert on this, but I have heard from several sources that professional schools care much more about GPA (and the science GPA in case of med schools) than the actual courses taken. Of course the GPA would be taken in the context of the school - a 3.8 from MIT is different from a 3.8 from third-tier XYZ State.</p>
<p>Would that apply to all (say Engineering grad schools) as well, or is that just a Med school thing?</p>
<p>Barium - I didn’t say they weigh it heavily, I am saying it is a factor that they will use in comparing students. Certainly GPA counts for a lot, MCAT’s also. But you are kidding yourself if you think a person that gets a 3.9 in a “soft” major is considered as strong a candidate as someone that gets, say, a 3.7 in a major that is known to be very demanding. How do I know this? Two sources. I have an very good, old friend (since high school) that is a professor at a major midwestern med school who has also served on their admissions committee off and on over the years, and one of the professors I did research for (recently passed away) used to advise pre-meds. This topic has come up in the past so I just asked them. They were emphatic that there was nothing wrong with majoring in education, for example, if a person wanted, but there was an extra burden on that student to do extremely well on the MCATs, and otherwise demonstrate outstanding qualifications for med school. In sifting through applications and narrowing the field they absolutely looked at the course record in some detail. If they saw a quantum physics major or a BME, and that student did very well, it was like bonus points, everything else being equal, or even nearly equal.</p>
<p>So you are mostly right. A strong science GPA is a bonus (obviously doing well in the core requirements is a must), and a strong GPA from a top tier school beats the same or even slightly stronger GPA from a lower tier school. I mean if you think about it, the last thing a med school wants is someone that will wash out of what everyone knows are very demanding programs with very demanding hours. Who will they gamble on for that, someone with a softer major that might not have needed to put in the long hours, or a BME that they know had to work their ass off to get those grades?</p>
<p>Qwerty - this is mostly specific to med schools. Grad schools will look much more heavily at how you did in the major you are pursuing, although they won’t ignore it if you did badly in almost everything else. GRE scores are important also. But with a few exceptions, you are not looking at the same kind of competition for grad school as you are for med schools and law schools.</p>
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And how do they know just how demanding a major is? Just as an example, an English major at my college is arguably harder than a math major, both grading-wise and by the amount of work/effort expected from a student. (And I am saying this as a math major, not an English major!) It’s probably the other way round at many other college.</p>
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<p>I may be full of crap–below I’m just restating what I’ve read in the pre-med forum.</p>
<p>Statistically, the med school admittants from “harder” majors don’t fare much better than everybody else in medical school, and that’s why medical schools don’t weigh major difficulty very heavily in admissions.</p>
<p>@fallenchemist - from what I’ve heard, they don’t really take rigor of major into account that much. Plus how would they know which is harder? there’s thousands of colleges and hundreds of majors - everything doesn’t fall into a “hard” or “soft” category. </p>
<p>What silence_kit said is true; it’s not like physics majors do better in med school or anything. I know med students who studied engineering, physics, architecture, you name it - all seem to agree med school is brutal. So why would they favor the BME majors more? I’m double majoring in 2 sciences and will probably go to grad school, but I’m considering med, and my advisor told me med schools will look at my gpa no differently than if I had 1 easy major. A 3.8 in Physics = a 3.8 in Psych, even if one student worked harder. </p>
<p>@the OP - honestly, study whatever you want. Most people don’t decide their careers at the age of 17 or so. The majority of “preMeds” change their mind or never actually get into med school, whereas others like me who never considered becoming a doctor before develop an interest as a result of their major and ace the mcats. Just major in whatever you want, and cover all of the requirements - then if you’re still interested in medicine a few years down the road, apply. Don’t decide to not major in Engineering or something you want because you think it’ll be harder to get into med school that way. </p>
<p>And it will be harder with an engineering major, don’t get me wrong. JHU has a reputation for being difficult as well, whereas several top schools have reputations for grade inflation.</p>
<p>They know from experience which majors tend to challenge students more. Is it perfect knowledge? No, of course not. How many college admissions officers really know which teachers at a high school are toughest? They don’t, but they do know the general reputations of the schools in their area of responsibility and they absolutely look at how much you challenged yourself with AP courses and the like. Does that mean your Spanish II teacher or your civics teacher wasn’t an SOB? No, but no one can analyze things to that level. The med school process is not quite the same, but again, remember who is on these admissions committees. These are people that are well aware of the reputations of the various schools and in general, how challenging different majors are. Sure, some of it is perception. Welcome to the real world.</p>
<p>“But you know what they say about Johns Hopkins once you get there…it’s like unprotected sex. You’re ecstatic that you got in, but horrified you came.”</p>
<p>Hahaha, that just made my day XD</p>
<p>Something else the OP should consider: Even if I am incorrect about med school admissions committees and how they judge “harder” majors (although I don’t think I am, but anyway…), suppose the OP simply doesn’t get in to med school? So here he is with a history major or whatever and now what is he supposed to do? It still goes back to major in what you like and can see yourself doing, because that will serve you best in both the short term and the long run.</p>