<p>Bit more tailored information that the previous poster gave you.</p>
<p>First, the application process for med school is quite different than that of undergraduate colleges. Once you are at your undergraduate school, you will want to let your adviser know that you are a pre-med major. You will want to find out whether there is a group that helps pre-med (or pre-health) majors navigate the process of applying to things like med school, dental school, and vet school. As a freshman, it won’t matter a great deal to you, except for learning what kinds of internships and shadowing experiences you will want to look for as an undergraduate.</p>
<p>Next, do some google searches on the academic requirements that you will need to apply to med school. They are typically something along the following:</p>
<ul>
<li>two semesters of calculus—usually doesn’t matter if it’s the math/physics/engineering track or the non-math/physics/engineering track</li>
<li>two semesters of general biology—the two introductory courses for the biology major</li>
<li>two semesters of physics with lab—typically either a sequence designed for physics majors or a sequence designed biology and/or chemistry majors</li>
<li>two semesters of general chemistry—typically the two introductory courses for the chemistry major; sometimes it’s a sequence designed for biology majors</li>
<li>two semesters of organic chemistry—requires the first year of chemistry as the pre-requisite.</li>
<li>one or two semesters of English—typically your freshman writing course(s) satisify this requirement.</li>
</ul>
<p>If a school is on a quarter system, “two semesters” may mean “three quarters”. If the school is on a trimester system, (which looks similar to a quarter system in many ways), the “two semesters” may be “two trimesters” or it could be “three trimesters”----it really depends on how much the place crams into each trimester course. Your adviser should be able to help you figure it out.</p>
<p>These requirements are loose enough to first of all fit into most undergraduate majors without requiring any additional credit hours or additional time to graduation.</p>
<p>Med schools do not care what you major in as long as you do well in the core pre-med courses listed above. Many med schools and many pre-med advisers will strongly urge pre-med students to select their major based on their academic interests and academic strengths. So if you want to major in psych or neuroscience, go for it. And majoring in psych will not force (or guarantee) you will eventually become a psychiatrist if you successfully complete both med school and your residencies.</p>
<p>Med schools do care about both your overall GPA and your GPA in the pre-med core. Admission to med school is extremely competitive and you will need really strong GPA’s both overall (hence, choose a major you do well in) and the pre-med core. </p>
<p>Med schools also care about your MCAT scores. The MCATs are typically taken during your junior year, if I recall correctly. You need to have completed the entire pre-med core before taking the MCATs as I recall. Many people pay for MCAT review classes; some colleges offer MCAT review sessions possibly for free. The MCAT is a big deal. Low MCAT scores will kill a student’s chances when applying for med school.</p>
<p>Letters of recommendation for med school are typically written by a pre-med/health advisory committee, not individual faculty members of your choosing. Each campus is set up somewhat differently. At the college I teach at, the pre-health advisory committee asks each pre-health student to have several faculty members send letters to us about the candidate and we require an interview with one or two members of the pre-health committee. We also look carefully at the MCAT scores (in the context of our other students) and the candidate’s transcripts. We also require our pre-health students to submit drafts of their application essays to us and we look at those—both from the recommendation point of view and also in order for us to be able to give the student feedback on what we think should be done to strengthen the essay.</p>
<p>Med school applications require you to write about why you’ve chosen to pursue medicine as well as describe any shadowing or internships that have taken place within a clinical setting. These are critical parts of the application.</p>
<p>Finally, specialization in medicine is actually done pretty late in med school or during your residency. Residencies (which follow graduation from med school) are competitive and some specializations in medicine will require more than one residency. While you are a resident, you will have no life: You may be on-call for 100+ per week; you may have 24 hour shifts at the hospital on regular bases; and you won’t be making that much money either.</p>