<p>I am a senior in highschool and plotting out my college years. I plan to go to either med school or pharmacy school.</p>
<p>I am try to figure out which is more of an advantage when it comes to pharmacy/med school admittance. I originally was planning to major in Biochem with a double minor in Spanish and 'Health, Medicine, and Human Values'. However I am wondering if it would be better for me (and I would probably have a better gpa) to get my major in Nutrition instead. Simplified my hardest classes in the Nutrition major would be the same classes I would take my sophomore year in the biochem.</p>
<p>I would still get all of the pre-req's accomplished but would pharmacy/med schools see me as taking the easy way out?</p>
<p>-sigh- If I didn't have to worry about my gpa I would jump head first into the biochem. BUT I do have to worry about my gpa so....</p>
<p>Take what you will succeed in. Nutrition seems a bit vocational to me but not too bad. Bio is most common. It really doesn’t matter what you major in as long as you get a 3.65+ GPA.</p>
<p>take what interests you. If I’d have spent the last 3.5 years as a bio major just for the sake of med school, I’d have stabbed forks in my eyeballs by now.</p>
<p>To be fair, I’m a cell bio major, which is essentially the same thing, except that I love cell/biochem/etc while I hate invertebrate zoology with a fiery passion.</p>
<p>Your major isn’t going to make or break admissions.</p>
<p>Assuming that your interests in a hard major and an easy major are about the same, as a rule of thumb, the only benefit by being graduated from a hard major is you have a better backup plan.</p>
<p>People always claim that they prefer a hard major because of their interests. Although some may do, I believe a high percentage of these students choose a “hard” major because (even though many of them won’t admit it):</p>
<p>1) the hard major gives them a more secure backup plan.
2) they may not be fully committed to the medical career while they are freshmen.</p>
<p>For the most committed, the most confident, and less paranoid students, many of them may choose a somewhat easier major (e.g., XX Studies) as it is easier to stand out academically, due to the fact that there are no heavy concentration of premeds from their department (e.g., the grades are not so important/useful for a higher percentage of students there.) They only need to compete in the medical school pre-req classes and then cherry-pick a couple of upper-division bios that are relatively “easier.”</p>
<p>Do not under-estimate the benefit of having a backup plan because, in the end, many premeds will pursue other career path for various reasons. Thus, there are no lack of premed students who choose a hard major every year.</p>
<p>OP: Since you mentioned pharmacy, I may use that major to explain what I mean by a hard major. At one of state universities, there is a semi-official pre-pharmacy major. The students in it may be as competitive as premed students. The caliber of these students tend to be very high also (many of them may have 2200-2300 SAT and rank 1-10 from their high school.)</p>
<p>After taking two years worth of heavy science classes mandated by their department (sometimes 3 science classes per semester, not all of them are not qualified for a premed class though, as I believe), about one out of six students are admitted to their pharmacy school. There is a second-chance after the junior year but I do not know their admission rate. I think it is likely that one-half to two-thirds of the pre-pharmacy majors fail to get into the pharmacy school before they graduate. Maybe the only good thing (for an academic grind at least) is that the students only need to compete academically, as, unlike being a premed, ECs are not that important.</p>
<p>A seemingly vocation major (like a pre-pharmacy major) could be a hard one as well, as long as it guarantees that you have a relatively “secure/good” career.</p>
<p>I actually have a related question: instead of hard major or easy major, does it make any difference if a student takes mostly (apparently) easy classes or many hard classes within the same major?</p>
<p>Since there are a lot of bio major premeds here, let me use the bio major as an example. Most bio majors know that the classes like ecology, diversity of life, developmental biology are likely easier than cell biology, biochemistry, mostly because of the students in it. For a more advanced class, we may guess that a seminar-like class such as surveying landmark papers in biology or a research credit may be easier than, say, the immune system or physiology class in which the students may even compete head-to-head against some students from the graduate or professional schools and all the grades come from two or three tests like in an orgo class.</p>
<p>Assuming that a medical school adcoms have chances to evaluate all kinds of applicants from your school year after year – for example, when you apply to the medical school associated with your own college, don’t they know at least to some extent the “value” of the GPA of an applicant from their past experience (assuming their GPA are exactly the same, say, 3.8)? I am mostly talking about, stat-wise, competitive students and competitive medical schools here.</p>
<p>Within the science/premed circle at a school, almost all premed students know which class may be harder (mostly due to the students in it), which class may be not so demanding (also mostly due to a lower concentration of high-power, e.g., MD/PhD-type, students in it.) It is hard to imagine that adcoms would not know it if their medical school admit many students from there each year.</p>
<p>The thing is many med schools recommend students taking biochem, genetics, phsyio, cell and mol bio, and if the students aren’t taking those classes and instead doing like what you wrote “ecology, diversity of life, developmental biology,” i figure it doesn’t help their chances. Further, im sure if you apply to the medical school associated with your own college, they would understand the coursework the applicants take and have a better understanding of the “value.” However, i am no med adcom so i cant confirm anything, but just stating my opinion and reasoning.</p>