How do non-hard science majors that are pre-med create a strong resume for med school?

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
1

I am a Statistics and Data Science (SDS) major going pre-med. It’s not uncommon to hear about undergraduates majoring in English, math, music, etc that are going pre-med - but how do students majoring in these fields create a strong and competitive application for med school? I would think that, for example, a researcher who is researching alzheimer’s disease would look more favorably upon a biochem major than an SDS major (me) when looking for students to help out with the research.

I suppose my main question is this: how do non-hard-science majors (like myself) compete for internships and research positions that relate to the medical field? Don’t hard-science majors, like biochem, physiology, chem, etc. have an advantage in this respect over non-hard science majors?

Additionally, would med schools even value any research that I would conduct that purely relates to SDS? Quality healthcare greatly relies (and will only increasingly rely over time) on big data, so I would think that they would value research in this area, but I’m not 100% sure.

2

Med schools are entirely agnostic about majors. Biological science majors are not preferentially admitted to med school over students with other backgrounds and are definitely not favored in admission or by interviewers (most of whom are practicing or retired physicians or medical students, not academic researchers). Interviewers assigned randomly to files so there’s no attempt to match your interests/research with someone who has the slightest interest in your field. Someone with a strong biochem background may be interviewed by a retired orthopedic surgeon or a med student going into family medicine.

Med school adcomms are looking for strong students (as demonstrated by their high GPAs and sGPAs) who are capable of handing in-depth, complex, difficult material and who demonstrate excellent critical reading/reasoning and analytic think skills (MCATt score).

Research is overvalued by pre-meds. It’s not of critical importance in a med school application and ~15-18% of accepted med student report on the MSQ each year as having ZERO research experience. An annual survey of med school admission officers show they rank research as among the "least importance"factors when considering applicants for interviews. (HINT: non-medical community service, paid or volunteer clinical experience, physician shadowing and leadership are listed a “most important”.)

Med schools are much more interested in your reasons for pursuing medicine than they are in what you’ve studied in college. Interviewers are assessing you for the qualities they believe make a good physician, not what you studied in undergrad.

D1 was a physics & math double major who did research in medium energy particle physics in college. During her med school interviews not a single interviewer even mentioned her research (her cynical comment__“Probably because they didn’t understand it”) D2 did research in computation neuroscience. But it wasn’t her research that got her accepted to med school; it was all her other ECs.

If you want to develop a strong portfolio for a med school application, you need:

Academics

excellent GPA (3.7+)
excellent BCPM GPA (3.7+)
strong MCAT score ( >87th percentile; 512 was the median for accepted students last year)
have strong writing skills

ECs:
physician shadowing
paid or volunteer clinical exposure (“close enough to smell the patients”) where you can observe first hand doctor-patient interaction
non-medical community service to the less fortunate
leaderships role in your activities
research (any field: basic, applied or clinical) that demonstrates an understanding of the research process

Personal qualities & skills
be a normal person with interests & hobbies outside of medicine and your major
develop good inter-personal communication skills
be a good “team player”
resilience, self discipline, compassion to the less fortunate, cultural competency, dedication to service

3

@WayOutWestMom gives an excellent answer, but to answer how do English majors get into med school? They usually do take science courses along with there required major courses so that med schools can get a sGPA.

4

@lukewildcat

  1. Though pre-med is not called a major or minor, for all practical purposes, a student accumulates more credits when completing all pre-med courses than a major. It comes around 45+ credits in hard science along with another 20+ for Writing, Sociology etc. Though major may be just 36 to 48 credits.

2.To get in to research or internship, they are going to look at what courses you have done and how strong you are in whatever you have done than your major. For example, my D History major, but she got selected in Chem lab as a research student from 2nd semester based on her HS courses and scores etc., So you can get in anywhere. But do what you like than just for med school.

  1. For med school, more important is your EC. Not for adcomms, but more for you to validate, is that what you want to do and spend all your life. Especially for you, with your SDS, you can easily get a pretty decent job and make a good living.
5

As a non-hard science major, AdComm expect your GPA to be higher than hard-science/engineering, which should be your top priority. Research is actually optional for most in-state med schools unless you shoot for the top (which are all research-heavy). You can forget about research if your GPA (particular sGPA) is not strong enough and your MCAT is not high enough. In other words, research won’t save you if your GPA & MCAT are not strong enough (3.7+ & 512+).

6

Medical schools want students who are passionate about medicine and who can sincerely answer the question “why medicine.” Medical related research is not as important and students can even do research that has nothing to do with medicine. I was recently told of a student who was premed ( now in medical school) and majoring in religious studies. He did undergrad research in his major…and his medical school interviews revolved around his research in religious studies.

I think science research is over-valued by premed students. It is more important to show sincerity and passion, to volunteer with underserved populations, demonstrate leadership, shadow, volunteer, have strong grades etc.