Don't care about rigor of major?

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
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The real problem, as I said, is that the med-school adcoms perversely punish those students who take difficult courses as, for the purposes of med-school admission, it is better to not take a difficult course at all than to take it and get a bad grade. Sad but true. The blame rests entirely with the adcoms.

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So, I'm pretty sure that I want to do BME during undergrad (I like math, I like science, biology majors have plants -> boring), but I've heard that BME is the hardest path to med school. The courses in BME (and BME itself) sounds interesting, but I want to go to Med. school in the end, not be a Biomedical Engineer (or a Biochemist, or whatever I may end up majoring in should BME not be what I actually want). I was talking about this with my parents, and they told me that Engineering being very rigorous, clearly Med. school adcoms will take into account that it's not as easy to do stellar in Engineering majors (BME, Chem.E, etc.) as it may be in Biology or Nutrition or some humanity (to name a few). After all, they (med. school adcoms) are human and they'll understand that a, say, Biology or Nutrition major will not have as much work to do as a BME (though clearly, nothing to make up for like a 3.7 vs. a 4.0). </p>

<p>I mean, what I want to do is go to Med. school, but at the same time, I want to do BME while I'm in undergrad but I don't want to end up with a low GPA just because I decided to do something I like rather than something that is easier. Do med. schools understand that engineering is a bit harder than other disciplines or will they think the same as a BME major than someone with a, generally less rigorous, major?</p>

<p>Sorry if this post makes no sense.</p>

<p>sincerely,
ansar</p>

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<p>Yes, they understand. If you have a passion for BME, do it. You will ultimately do better and connect better with profs. Consider doing it in five years, or taking a year off though if you feel like your ECs aren’t up to par. I know plenty of kids who do it in 4 with plenty of time for ECs.</p>

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<p>Why study engineering if you have no intentions of becoming an engineer?</p>

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<p>Enjoyment. I study history and dance but I never intend on making a life out of being a dancing historian.</p>

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<p>Well, you’re not, right? You’re presumably going to be a doctor, for that’s why you’re going to med-school. That is, unless you want to be the world’s first dancing historian doctor. </p>

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<p>Regardless of whether they understand, the real question is, do they care? They can understand the issue backwards and forwards, but if they then still admit the guys with high grades in the cheesepuff majors anyway, who cares if they really ‘understood’? </p>

<p>As for evidence, I would point to the premed admissions data from engineering-heavy schools such as MIT. One would expect, given the well-known rigor of MIT engineering, MIT premeds would clearly be admitted with lower average GPA’s compared to admitted premeds from other schools. But this is not so: if anything, the necessary GPA’s may actually be higher than that of other schools. That’s right - higher. </p>

<p>[Preprofessional</a> Stats - MIT Careers Office](<a href=“http://web.mit.edu/career/www/infostats/preprof.html]Preprofessional”>http://web.mit.edu/career/www/infostats/preprof.html) </p>

<p>Now, obviously, not all MIT premeds are engineers. But given the plethora of engineering students at MIT - comprising over half of the entire undergrad student body - one would expect a disproportionate percentage of engineering premeds and therefore a clear difference in the GPA’s of admitted premeds compared to premeds at less-engineering-oriented schools. Yet the fact remains that no discernable GPA compensation seems to be provided by med-school adcoms to MIT premeds, and by extension, to MIT engineers. </p>

<p>To highlight the issue at hand, just think about what we’re talking about - we’re not talking about any old scrub engineering program. This is MIT - arguably the most famous and most rigorous engineering program in the country. Yet med-school adcoms don’t seem to care about that. So if they don’t care about even the rigor of MIT engineering, what chance do you think there is that they would care about the rigor of a less prominent engineering program? </p>

<p>Nor do I think MIT is an outlier. Data is scarce, but I suspect that if you found data from other engineering or natural-science heavy schools, you would again find that the premed admissions data would tell the same sad tale. Med-school adcoms don’t seem to care about rigor.</p>

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<p>As a bioengineer going to med school next year, I disagree with the previous post.</p>

<p>I think engineering stood out on my application, and always came up as a strength in my interviews. It’s by no means solid evidence…but my friends in engineering also seemed to have better results than my friends in biology with similar backgrounds. </p>

<p>Engineering isn’t easy, but neither is med school (or the MCAT…in my opinion BME will keep you on your toes, and the test won’t be that bad). I didn’t do any coasting through college, but at the same time I think I’m well prepared for med school.</p>

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<p>You made it to the med-school interview stage. But how many engineers didn’t? Perhaps even more importantly, how many engineers didn’t even bother applying to med-school at all because they knew their grades were too low to get admitted? </p>

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<p>Sure…with similar backgrounds. But that’s precisely the point: what if you don’t have similar backgrounds, that is, what if your grades, as an engineer, are significantly worse than the other applicants’? You may not be admitted, heck, you may not even apply because you know you won’t be admitted.</p>

<p>Put another way, according to the MIT data, the applicant with the lowest GPA who still got admitted to a med-school had a 3.2/4 GPA. Now, I’m quite sure that some MIT engineers with 3.1/4’s surely would have gotten higher grades had they simply gone to an easier school, or, even if they had stayed at MIT, majored in something besides engineering. Yet, as it stands, no engineer (or anybody else) with less than a 3.2/4 were admitted. </p>

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<p>Engineering may prepare you well for med-school. But that’s unfortunately irrelevant because it doesn’t matter how well prepared you are if you can’t even get admitted in the first place. As bluedevilmike and others will surely concur, practically nobody actually fails med-school. By far the hardest part of med-school is simply getting in, and if you can’t do that, the you’ve already lost the game before it even started. Sad but true.</p>

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<p>sakky- I don’t understand your response. I was simply saying that there are other reasons for majoring in something besides the goal of med school. Were you trying to make the point that my other interests should not have been a factor in my choices of study before med school?</p>

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<p>It was a partially tongue-in-cheek response, but also a serious one. After all, the presumption is that the OP is going to be a doctor - why else go to med school - in which case he would never have become a dancing historian. </p>

<p>Now, I think what you meant to say is that the OP may not be sure about med-school - or, even if he was, he may not get in - in which case it is entirely valid to choose a major based on how one might utilize it later. However, if we are sticking with the assumption that the OP is indeed going to med-school, then frankly it doesn’t that he won’t want to be a dancing historian, because he isn’t going to be one even if he majors in dance and history. He’s going to be a doctor.</p>

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<p>It is true that he wants to be a doctor, but that does not preclude the OP from having other interests besides medicine. Studying something that he is passionate about will only help the OP in the long run, regardless of if he ends up going into medicine or not. It makes life easier over the next four years, if nothing else. I don’t intend on being a dancing historian doctor, but I can be a doctor who still studies history and dance as a hobby. My point is that a career isn’t the only reason for taking classes, nor is taking classes or majors out of enjoyment a hindrance of the primary goal of getting into medical school (not considering GPA flucuations due to difficulty).</p>

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<p>Studying engineering is way different than studying history or dance though.</p>

<p>The major difference is that studying engineering is a lot more work. If you are on the semester system and need 120 credits to graduate, you’ll need ~100 credit hours of required classes and tech electives at most schools to get an engineering degree. </p>

<p>That’s a lot of work for a hobby and I think it would be tough to stay motivated, especially knowing that you will not work as an engineer. sakky argued that it doesn’t help you get into medical school. I don’t understand why someone would put themselves through that. You’d have to really have a love of engineering (but not enough to consider it as a career, I guess).</p>

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<p>If you really like math & science, study physics as an undergrad. The program isn’t as time-consuming.</p>

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<p>So if given the choice, one should major in underwater basket weaving?</p>

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<p>Come on, actually read my post. You’ll have to sink a lot of time and effort into doing well in an engineering program. You may not be motivated enough to do this, considering that you aren’t even considering engineering as a career.</p>

<p>Study biology, chemistry, or physics instead if you like science, or physics if you like math & science.</p>

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<p>No, because there is bias against majors that are perceived to be vocational. Adcoms want to see an academic major. So if given the choice, one should major in Underwater Basket Weaving Theory. :)</p>

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<p>Physics isn’t exactly a cakewalk major either, and is also very time consuming.</p>

<p>People make it sound like engineering is this major of death that can’t be tackled. Plenty of engineers make it into medical schools, even the top ones (check out MITs data. 11 in Harvard).</p>

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<p>It isn’t as time consuming as engineering. Look at course requirements for both. Physics is heavier on the mathematical analysis though. Most would say that it makes the courses harder (I agree). My point is though that compared to engineering, you have to take fewer of them.</p>

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<p>And plenty of engineers don’t get in anywhere at all. Check out MITs data: about 25% of those who applied didn’t get in anywhere. And that’s just those who applied - plenty of others didn’t even apply because they knew they wouldn’t get in. Let’s face it, if you have a 2.5/4 GPA, you know you’re not going to get in anywhere.</p>

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<p>A 75% acceptance rate is pretty freaking good. Berkeley’s is only in the 50s I believe. Cornell’s is also about 75%, I’ll see if I can find some other top ones.</p>

<p>Further, all schools have self selection that removes applicants. Considering that 130 from MIT applied, and other schools like Harvard only have about 300 applicants total, I think they are doing pretty well.</p>

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<p>An interesting question is: Out of 130 from MIT, how many of them are one of the engineering majors, especially those traditional engineering majors which do not have much overlap with typical premed courses?</p>

<p>I had an impression (I could be wrong though) that MIT is quite special in that ALL students, no matter what their majors are, are required to take a quite high percentage of medical school pre-reqs. That is, they are not allowed to take an easier version of science course. Any students can add just a couple of science courses (orgo, maybe) and they have fulfilled the requirements for applying to medical schools (ECs are another matter, of course.) If most of their students are good at getting good grades in science classes (not likely true though), MIT can pump out a lot of applicants.</p>