I know it’s kind of early, I’m still a freshman in high school, but I’m planning to apply to med school. In the case I am rejected from all of them, which isn’t uncommon, how do I go about approaching another job? I don’t think I’d reapply to med school, I’d probably abandon it, but maybe pursue healthcare fields. Most probably I’d want to pursue business.
Should I double major? I don’t have much knowledge on this.
First of all, you will KNOW if your gpa and mcat is strong enough way before your apps have been rejected. You will have premed advisors in your college holding your hand every step of the way, if you attend a school that has that service.
Secondly, the whole purpose of med school don’t care what major you are having UG, so take anything you like and will provide you a Plan B or C or D… in case the premed does not work out. A D of a friend of mine, she started with premed, but after one year, she found that is not what her wanted and dropped all the science courses and concentrate on Economics, now she is a successful Investment Banker. You just don’t wait for all the rejections, you will know if that is what you wanted.
Third, in case you were on the borderline and got rejected by all MD schools, you still can get into DO schools or take a Post bacc and reaply. But you will know it way before you hand in those med school apps. Like anything else, you will have some safety schools in your list of applications so you will get some where when time comes.
Thanks artloversplus,
So if I took a business major for UG, but took the required med school courses, it wouldn’t make a difference if I majored in something like chem or bio?
Absolutely not. You can take a survey of courses in your first year to find out what your interest is before committed to premed. Even if you graduated with a Business degree and found that you prefer med school, you still can “make up” all the premed courses in a 4 year college post-bacc, we call it career changers. That is providing that you have a HIGH GPA from your Business Degree.
I said business as a filler, but I will find a major I like. I really want to do pre med, but still insecure about not getting into med school.
So theoretically, I could do another major while doing the pre med required courses, then not apply to med school and still have a full chance at a job with my major? and vice versa, I could make it into med school with a business degree and still have an equal opportunity.
Pretty much. It would really depend on what the other field is. For example if you want to do i-banking you need to do summer internships at banks but summer internships at banks won’t really be appealing ECs for med school.
Certainly when it comes to the classroom, you can study whatever you want as long as you do the pre-reqs and you’ll be fine for med school.
Yes, Premed is an intention not a major. All students went to UG can have their major in UG as a backup, if med school did not work out. However, certain UG major has limited marketability so choose your major carefully. Another kid I know, with her UG bio degree, could not find job in her field, she ended up selling clothes in the mall and after 5 years of post bacc, she finally got into a dental school.
As IWBB said, you can do any major in college for pre-med, but there are limitations. Some times, you have to choose one to pursue. I banking is one, Engineering or CS is another, Business probably is the third and anything to do with professional training do not mix with premed well. Most of the premed are taking Bio or Chem as majors. You can have a major that is not related but there are few things against you:
I think you’re downplaying the opportunity costs of following a pre-med track. Yes, there CAN be loads of time to figure out whether med school is right for OP, BUT even one year lost stumbling around a path can put one at a disadvantage for other opportunities. Jobs like summer internships, but if the OP wants to boost their med school applications, they’d have to spend those summers doing biomedical research. EC’s? More like hospital volunteering and shadowing. Jobs also like research experience, but what if biomed research isn’t relevant?
Moreover, if the OP switches because of low grades in college courses, OP’s lower GPA would look bad on ANY summer opportunity, be it research or internship. Bottom line is, following a pre-med track doesn’t leave as much room for exploration for other fields (beyond healthcare and biomed sciences) as much as one would hope.
My advice to OP is give alternatives serious consideration. If your future college offers a career center, USE IT. Unlike the clear-cut path of medicine, landing a job in other fields is nebulous at best and can go in so many unknown ways. People there will guide you for alternatives. If you decide medicine is where you absolutely want to be, by all means pursue it. But it behooves you to be smart about pursuing it.
First of all, you are a freshman in high school (or were until sometime around about now). You have a LONG time to think about what you want to do with your life. Most students who are starting university (like, three years older than you) are still going to change their major at least once, and in many cases more than once.
Secondly: If you walk into a hospital or medical center, you will see a LOT of medical professionals. The majority of them are NOT doctors. There are a lot of other options in the medical field.
Take classes that you are interested in. Keep ahead in your classes and do well in them. You will figure this out over time.
Avoid majoring in Bio, because so many of them apply to med school and are rejected that there’s an oversupply of them.
Majors like biostatistics or philosophy actually do very well in med school admissions, as well as Math, English or Music majors.
In short, you don’t have to pigenohole yourself into a major - figure out what you like and are good at, then dive into it. Whatever you choose and are good at will be good for med school admissions.
Then you add the premed pre-reqs, which generally match university gen eds (ie., math, social science, English, lab science, diversity-focused class…)
Do you have a high school 4-year plan? What does it include?
@MYOS1634
I go to an IB STEM schools in pa, formerly #2 ranked in the state. It’s known for its rigorous curriculum, but I doubt that’ll give me an edge in college.
AP classes are not provided, you can start taking IB’s in 11th and 12th grade. All courses taken freshman and sophomore year are set with the exception of one elective and blended/traditional courses, and are all honors.
Where it’s different, in sophomore year, we select one of four pathways for junior and senior year, these include:
o Academy of Corporate and Mathematical Innovation
o Academy of Health, Medicine and Biology
o Academy of Applied Science and Engineering
o Academy of Technology, Media and Communications
I’ve done a lot of reading and research and have decided I want to do pre med as a major in which if I fall back on it I can make into six figure range reasonable number of years after college. Here are some degrees I am interested in, but each I have found that there is a downside
-accounting, has been said to “not fit” with pre med, 3rd year will be tough
-chemical engineering, hard to maintain med school worthy gpa
I’d like to find a well paying major that will give me the best chance the med school. I don’t know if it exists, but I’ll look as long as I can.
My school provides 4 IB pathways to enter in junior and sophomore year. These are:
o Academy of Corporate and Mathematical Innovation
o Academy of Health, Medicine and Biology
o Academy of Applied Science and Engineering
o Academy of Technology, Media and Communications
Basically I want a major that is well paying, which is opinionative, so six figures a reasonable number of years after college. I’ve been doing a lot of reading and research and just can’t find a good degree that I can do well enough in for med school and at the same time be able to fall back on it and have a good salary.
But of course if it was that easy everyone would do it.
Here are two degrees I really like, but have drawbacks, to give an idea of what I’m searching for. My forte is math and robotics (engineering).
Accounting (“does not match with pre med”, 3rd year is tough")
Chemical engineering (hard to maintain med school worthy gpa)
Hopefully based on the degrees and description I gave some of you guys can provide some other degrees that I may be interested in.
Look into UNC Asheville’s Mecatronics major: does that look like something you’d be interested in?
IMHO any major will prepare you a six figure salary immediately upon graduation will not be suitable for premed. The most popular majors for high salary are CSEE and Investment Banking, all need intense curriculum and internship during UG study. Probably will not leave enough time for premed classes, and medical EC’s or research.
You can take a year or two gap year as post bacc career changer to prepare for med school, if you found med school is more appealing.
@MYOS1634 sounds interesting I’ll keep it in mind, thanks
@artloversplus
Med school is truly what I want to do. If that means simply giving up a good backup plan in order to have a better chance, and if there’s truly no suitable major with what I stated above, that’s fine. What do you suggest I should major in?
As for the year or two year gap, how will that work? Will I study as a investment banking (example) major, and then take 2 years to prepare for med school? Would that mean I would get the investment banking degree and could get employed?
There is a saying that you cannot have a cake and eat it too. In other words, you have to decide which career you want to pursue and concentrate on that. As I said, the post bacc years you are taking is a “career changer”, that is if you decide “X” career you choose in your UG is NOT what you want, you want to change your career to medicine, then you go for that post bacc route. If you are happy what you have, then just take a job in X.
For example, my neighbor did not have medicine in mind and he was pretty successful in sales for over ten years. One day he woke up and decided he was not happy in sales, so he took a post bacc program and applied successfully into a med school. He has been a doctor ever since for over 30 years.
If you took a 2 year gap, that would mean applying at the end of your first post-grad year. Let’s assume you’re a rising sophomore, meaning you will graduate from high school in 2020. You go straight onto college and will graduate from college in 2024. If you were going to go straight to medical school (i.e. start in Fall 2024), you would submit your application to medical school in the early to mid summer of 2023 - i.e. right after your junior year. If you were taking one gap year (start medical school Fall 2025), you would submit right after you graduate in 2024. Two gap years means starting medical school in Fall 2026 and thus submitting your application in June/July of 2025, a full year after graduating college.
Thee issue that artlovers is referring to above is that IB and med school both require a fair amount of commitment outside of the classroom such that it’s incredibly difficult if not impossible to pursue both simultaneously. Everyone I know who pursued IB spent every summer working at a bank because most of the big ones offer jobs at the end of the summer internship following your junior year. If you’ve spent every summer working at a bank how do you rack up pre-med ECs? During the year ECs are not as big in IB as they are in medicine but my friends were still doing things during the year to make themselves more competitive for those summer internships. The things IB wants to see you doing are not at all the things med schools want to see so how are you going to be competitive for those summer internships AND be competitive for medical school?
You would not be able to commit your college life to a career in IB and then in one year - while working as a first year associate (aka the hours of a resident but at 2-3x the salary with half as much education required) - prepare yourself for medical school.