<p>General wisdom is that your major will matter more than any minors, perhaps because the work it takes to get a minor is highly variable among schools whereas the work it takes to get a major is probably pretty similar (ie, a large number of a variety of courses).</p>
<p>You should definitely major in something you care about and are passionate about, because that will make it much easier and much more rewarding to study the upper level courses of that department. You may consider looking at the upper level classes of both bio and psych to determine what to major in (ie, what sounds more appealing?).</p>
<p>Regardless, if you want to have a legit shot of getting into med school, you need to set aside plenty of time for completing extracurricular work. No major will give you a “pass” on doing extracurricular work, so you must find a way to make this work. Ideally, you should be working on your extracurricular work as early as possible (without becoming too stressed or over committed or burnt out). If you can hit most of the following areas in terms of solid extracurricular work, you’d probably be a reasonably strong candidate for medical school provided you also hit the GPA/MCAT marks (of appx 3.7/30+):</p>
<p>-Research: bench or clinical would work here. A summer experience would probably suffice, but the longer the better (up to a point–no reason to continue with a project you don’t like if it’s preventing you from doing other things). Publications aren’t necessary but certainly are nice. Cleaning petri dishes doesn’t count, but having your own project (or your own portion of a bigger project) would. You can probably get course credit for this too.</p>
<p>-Volunteering: aim for a consistent experience with a few agencies. Dropping off canned food at a food drive doesn’t count. Volunteering at a blood drive doesn’t count. (Unless perhaps you organized your state’s largest blood drive and held similar drives a few times a year.) Volunteering 3h/week for 2yr at a local shelter, giving you an opportunity to get to know their clientele and their unique struggles, as well as how the agency functions in your community, would count (for example). </p>
<p>-Campus involvement: find a club or a hobby or something to do that isn’t related to academics. Ballroom dancing, fencing, Quidditch, improv team, whatever. Greek Life would count here too. See if you can’t “climb the ranks” and tack on a small leadership position too. </p>
<p>-Leadership: significant leadership experience is not necessary but certainly helps. I consider significant leadership experience to encompass activities such as starting a campus organization that lives on past your tenure as director/president/whatever, being in charge of something large (such as a Greek chapter or perhaps even an international mission trip program or something), winning a prestigious leadership award for being recognized on campus, or holding multiple high-quality but smaller leadership positions. </p>
<p>-Clinical/medical: this one can be tricky for premeds to figure out. You definitely need to shadow some physicians (I went the route of shadowing a few docs for a long time each, but that doesn’t mean that’s the best way to do it or that you should do it that way) and learn about health care from a provider perspective. You also need to be in contact with patients. You can do this by volunteering at a hospital, but if you go that route, you need to be very proactive about making your time there worthwhile. Some premeds go the route of becoming phlebotomists, nurse’s assistants, or EMTs. I personally think training to become any of those is a waste of time.</p>
<p>-The point is, you need to show medical schools it’s worth their while to invest a huge amount of time, effort, and money into your training. A good way to do that is to show them that you are a well-rounded individual capable of achieving a high level of scholastic success while also paying attention to growing as a person and making your community a better place to live in. You can prove to them that you are such a person by showing them your track record of community activities. (This will also give you plenty to write about on your applications, and if done right, will be incredibly personally satisfying.)</p>
<p>In conclusion: whatever major or course of study you choose, it’s imperative for serious premeds to realize that there’s SO MUCH MORE to your application than your undergraduate degree, your GPA, and your MCAT score. So if you have reason to believe that one course of study would allow you more time or energy or flexibility to accomplish all the other things a successful premed must do, I’d choose that one!</p>