<p>hey another quick question. although i know it doesnt really matter what you major in to get into medical schoo but if everything is equal including gpa... and one was a biochem major and the others were poly sci, psychology, and biology would majors then come into affect. Im asking becasue this is the situation im in, i have a very similar gpa to my friends who are also pre-med yet im biochem and they are the other majors, i also have a higher pre-med gpa than them. I just wanted to know if when everything else is even does major then come into affect such that a biochem major would be given more wait as opposed to psychology or poly sci.</p>
<p>You do not have any advantage over any of those other majors (including the poli sci)- majoring in biochemistry does not mean you are more qualified for medicine than any of those other majors. What will come into effect are you ECs/leadership/research/etc if all grades were about the same.</p>
<p>Although adcoms say that your premed major doesn't matter, they also say that they do, in fact, look at the difficulty of your courses. Everything being equal I think biochem would help since it is one of the most difficult majors.</p>
<p>alright well let me respond with this than....being a biochem major i enjoy both the biological and the physical sciences, what would be the best major to prepare me for classes in medical schools. which major would give me the most experience to classes that i would take in medical school, such as physiology and biostats. i assume that biochemistry would prepare me fairly well but are there any others that might be more advantageous?</p>
<p>How do you know if they would pick the biochem major if all other qualities were equal? If they say something, don't they mean it?</p>
<p>Meg, who is to say that a biochem class is more difficult than another biology upper division course? It's a common myth that some people naively believe they have some sort of advantage by taking what they think is a "more difficult" major when it comes to medical school. All that is needed is for you to fulfill the required courses- a person who is passionate in english and majors in english while taking the required courses and showing his dedication to medicine through his EC's will be leaps and bounds better than a person who blindly drags himself through science courses he despises while hurting his gpa just because he falsely believes it'll help him get into medical school.</p>
<p>lampark, there is no such thing as an "advantageous" major for a premed. All that you need to gain from your years as an undergraduate is required by almost all medical schools in order to apply. Almost any science major will require you to take those courses anyways. Whatever else you may need to know in medical school will be taught in medical school. Biochemistry will prepare you for the one biochemistry class in medical school, but that advantage will be shortlived since everyone in the course will quickly be brought to speed. Your focus now should be on how to get into medical school as a premed, and not on what you should do now to gain a short-term advantage once in medical school.</p>
<p>well jyancy its not that i despise biochem....i actually love science and biochem is my top choice major... but because i love science any science major would be fine with me...i was just wondering whether maybe chemistry or biology would better prepare me for med school as opposed to biochem...i would get a much better gpa in a science class than an english class because its just wat im interested in...basically waht im asking is, of all the sciences or majors which one would give me the most exposure to material seen in medical school.</p>
<p>Lampark44- What is your GPA and what medical school do you want to go to?
Yes, I think if you and your freinds have the same GPA, the EC's and the community service hours will really come into being a big factor. You'll have an upper edge if you are a URM.</p>
<p>alright well my overall gpa is a 3.700 but my pre-med gpa is 3.764 (this is a little misleading as i am a freshman and plan on raising the gpa after i dont have to take english and other humanities courses because as you can see my pre-med gpa is higher than my overall). I would love to go to columbia college of physicians and surgeons but know that nothing i do will give me a great shot at goin there because everyone has the same grades. </p>
<p>furthermore i have yet to take the mcat but i have taken practice sections occasionally and have already scored around a 10 on both the physical and verbal sections, so with practice over the next 3 years i feel that those scores can be raised significantly (especially becasue i have yet to take physics but still managed to get a 10 on the physical sciences). Lastly i am in the honors chemistry program which gives me 3 semesters of organic chemistry, combining that with my requirements for bio such as intro bio, molec cell, and genetics i feel that i would be quite prepared for the mcat.</p>
<p>Lastly i should have about 600 hrs of volunteer/work experience and another 400 hours of research by the time i apply to medical school.</p>
<p>i know this sounds very hypothetical because im a freshman and much of this has not occurred but, i have had to work hard all my life to get where i am, becasue i came from a slightly disadvantageous backround, so im fairly confident that the amount of work that has to be put in to accomplish these hypotheticals will get done.</p>
<p>It's far too early to tell anything from your gpa as a first year, especially during your first term where you have not been exposed to any upper division science courses yet (especially since you want to be a science major and so both your overall and science gpa will be impacted). Those are also a lot of hours that you're predicting... how hours do you currently have under your belt? </p>
<p>Judging from your first post, and all the others that follows, you seem to still have the false stigma that somehow majoring in something that exposes you the most to what you will see in medical school will give you the advantage over other people. It doesn't. If biochemistry is what you like, major in that. What will expose you and help you out in getting to medical school is your outside experience to the medical field by finding out if it really is something you want to do. Shadow some doctors and there are opportunities for combined research where you can get clinical experience at the same time- you just have to know where to look.</p>
<p>jyancy you said "you seem to still have the false stigma that somehow majoring in something that exposes you the most to what you will see in medical school will give you the advantage over other people"</p>
<p>that wasnt exactly what i was asking, i know that if i take biochemistry or physiology or classes like that that it wont give me an advantage of getting into medical schoo, but i was curious as to which classes/major would give me the best advantage once i got in. like if med school makes you take biochem biostats phsyiology anatomy, etc which is the best major to prepare me for those classes.</p>
<p>There's a variety of classes that don't fall within one major. You can just take the biostats class or the anatomy classes or whatever and you may even get upper division credit towards your major depending on your university's policy- you don't have to be in that major to take their courses. If you're searching for some all-encompassing major to expose you to what you see in medical school, there aren't any, and you'd only be exposed to a small minority of the information that you'll be learning in medical school anyways. You can try to quadruple major or more in as many life and physical science courses, but you'd only be killing yourself w/ academic work only to find out it was unnecessary since you'll be taught all you need to know once in medical school. You can't really "fail" out of medical school, and even english majors who have only taken premed courses for their science background as undergraduates have become doctors.</p>
<p>Edit: There's actually another thread going on about premed majors. Maybe if you can find out if these are legitimate schools and a legitimate major, you can try and see what classes are suggested for their upper division work. If it even first of all exists, it'll probably be all over the map (so you may not graduate within 4 years if you try taking them all, but you can at least sample from each different area).</p>
<p>yea taking the courses could be another option but im not really sure what the classes or principles that are taught in medical school, most websites just say basic sciences. I know that biostats is one of them as well as biochemistry, other than that i would assume anatomy and physiology are some of them but i dont really know.</p>