<p>hey. i'm a female interested in going to medical school and have always thought i would be a pre-med major. now i am starting to realize you can major in just about anything and still go to med school. i love both math and science, so i am considering something like biomedical engineering. my dad is an engineer so he is ecstatic to hear the news. i feel that one of the pluses of this major vs. pre-med is that it will make it easier for me to get into the top colleges i want to apply to. </p>
<p>so i was wondering if there is an edge for females in engineering over pre-med when it comes to being accepted at top schools? also i'm asian (indian)</p>
<p>also, i haven't really explored the options of engineering. how do you guys suggest i look into the option. thanks.</p>
<p>I have a female friend who's going to major in engineering. She's going to Calvin College, in Grand Rapids, Michigan. But that's really the extent of my personal experience with female engineering majors, and I know nothing about the college (except that it's Christian), so I'm not advocating it or anything.</p>
<p>Most colleges don't take it very much into consideration what you mark as your intended major when you apply for a spot in the freshman class. Almost everybody changes majors. That said, lots of people--men and women--have pre-med ambitions, and I would assume that it's more unusual for a woman to be interested in engineering. And unusual is good.</p>
<p>At most Engineering schools, such as Georgia Tech or MIT, men out number women. the female acceptance rate at MIT is about 25%. Compare that with about 15% overall, and you will see that women have a huge advantage in acceptance at engineering schools</p>
<p>Large numbers of engineering schools treat woman as URMs (i.e., you have a plus factor)for the purpose of admission. However, you should not assume that means it is easy to get into top engineering schools as a result. At any given university, the mid 50% range (rank and test scores) for admission to engineering is generally higher than the range for other colleges at the university. As a female you would still need to be close to what the engineering school's range usually is. Example: an MIT admissions officer once said that being female essentially adds about 20 points to your SAT score. When you consider that MITs mid-50% SAT range (old SAT test without writing) was usually about 1430 to 1570, you can see that "20" extra points still means you need to be very high to begin with.</p>
<p>Another factor to consider is that you generally need a high college GPA for admission to med-school and the average and median GPA for a university's engineering students is usually lower than it is for graduating A&S students, i.e., it is more difficult to get and maintain a high GPA in engineering. Nevertheless, many engineering students do go on to med school and go on to do well there.</p>
<p>Yes, being a female in engineering makes it easier to be accepted (only if you apply to that college's engineering school/program specifically). Should you go into engineering because of this reason? Heck no.
Girls usually account for 15-25% of the engineering school in larger schools, and vary widely (but are usually ~10%) in smaller schools. At Virginia Tech, I was the only girl in two labs and a class, but I'm doing EE which is typically very short in the number of girls, followed by mechE. BioE, systems, chem, and civil generally have the highest numbers of girls. But, as long as you don't mind not sitting around in your pink underwear and tank top listening to kelly clarkson on your fuzzy rug when you want to do your homework with another person, it's not a big deal.</p>
<p>On a side note: engineers usually have below average GPAs. A 3.0 is considered a great achievement in engineering, a 3.5 stellar, and a 4.0 is very rare. If you want to do med school, either find a school with grade inflation, or chose another major where you can realistically maintain a 4.0.</p>