<p>Hey all,</p>
<p>The question is a bit vague, so I'll elaborate. I'm approaching my senior year in electrical engineering at a school known for that (Purdue). I have a very high GPA overall, especially for this major. My first question is whether or not medical schools take the undergraduate degree difficulty into consideration - the reason I ask is because it has somewhat limited my ability to be as involved in extracurriculars as I'd like.</p>
<p>Second question - I'm going to finish my prereqs quite late (I'll have a year in between graduation and medical school, if that's the path I choose). I've looked on a few school websites, and the prereqs seem to be mostly the same, with a few requiring biochemistry, english, etc. Is an advantage given to people who've taken more courses beyond the prereqs in Biology and Chemistry? </p>
<p>I apologize if these questions have been asked and answered - I'd like to get a discussion going so I can ask further questions if needed. Thanks alot, appreciate it.</p>
<p>Alex</p>
<p>You are not going to get any special advantages or consideration for having a tough major. Med school adcomms are going to expect the same sort of activites/GPA/leadership positions/volunteering/research from engineers as they do from every other major.</p>
<p>Ther is zero advantage to having upper level bio or chem coursework. In terms of admission, that is. There may be some advantage to having those courses once you’re doing your med coursework.</p>
<p>Since you will have a slide year between graduation and [hopefully] starting med school, you should take that time to work on improving your ECs.</p>
<p>Ok great. Thanks for the quick response. I’ll have plenty of time and desire to focus on some of those non-academic ‘requirements’ this coming year. </p>
<p>One other question - being a teaching assistant has been one of my more significant and time consuming activities over the past year. Will something like this carry much weight as far as those extracurriculars go? I have other stuff to supplement and plenty of things planned in the future, but this has certainly been one of my main activities.</p>
<p>A TA counts as a “leadership” activity w/r/t to ECs.</p>
<p>Both my Ds (one is a current med student; one is doing 2 years as a research asst before applying for med school) worked as TAs. D1 for 1.5 years; D2 for 4 years. (Yes, she was a TA as a freshman.)</p>
<p>A TA is a good activity to have on your CV, but it is not as important and will not carry as much weigh with adcomms as other medically related ECs will.</p>
<p>The advantage to upper division classes in math & science would be to allow those additional grades to potentially improve the science GPA, if you take the pre-reqs at a school with tough weeder courses, by the time you get to the upper division classes, you may see a different type of teaching, smaller classes, etc. But other than that, no advantage.</p>
<p>If you are taking a slide year look for a position that enhances your application, for example my DD did not make time to do research in undergrad, she found a medical research paid position for that slide year and was a great experience, but also looked good on apps.</p>
<p>It is a plus to have several upper Bio classes for MCAT as first Bio is not on MCAT at all.<br>
D. was also SI for Chem. prof. for 3 years in UG. She gained whole lot from it. Her classes sometime were reaching 40 kids. She polished her communication skills considerably and did not need to study Gen. Chem. for MCAT. It was not very time consuming for her. I have no idea if she ever was asked about it during her Med. School interviews. The most discussed topics were her Music minor and her unusual for pre-med volunteering (which she also did for 3 years). D’s Med. Research internship (also multi-year) was not a paid position. So, at least she got paid for SI and she also got one of her recognitions at graduation for this job and great LOR from prof. You need to decide if “being a teaching assistant” has advantages for you personally. It definitely was for my kid. But she was NOT engineering major and engineering is the hardest of them all.</p>