<p>^ I agree with you, Pizzagirl. I don’t think you have to be brilliant to do medicine.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, you are quite right about how to build relationships with pt’s. I have been a nurse for more than 20 years. I have always said that all MD’s need courses in both handwriting and human relations! </p>
<p>There are docs out there that are personable, but not always the best technical/ clinical doc. Some of the best technical/clinical docs are not personable. It is the rare MD that has brought the two skills together, and when they do, they are extremly successful and happy in their profession. </p>
<p>That being said, I will go to the best technical/clinical doc for specialty care, and realize I can get hand holding from other sources. Not everyone is confident enough with healthcare to do that. I need the human side of a doc in family medicine/ peds. My son has seen the same pediatrician since he was born because of her ability to deal with me. She is a good doc, without a doubt, but she is always there for me, and that is what I need in a pediatrician.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No. But I would if 90% of them are there for pre-law. Intellectual environment would be quite different with 90% pre-somethings.</p>
<p>Funny, in my own experience, very few students at top law schools these days majored in English. </p>
<p>Among ALL law students, biz is probably the most common major. At the very top law schools, with the exception of Wharton grads, there are very few biz majors. IME, which is admittedly limited, students at top law schools are more likely to have majored in econ than in English. Poli sci IS very common. So is any other kind of social science, history, and philosophy. </p>
<p>If I were forced to name the “pre law” major at Harvard, it would be social studies. See [Home</a> Committee On Degrees in Social Studies](<a href=“http://socialstudies.fas.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do]Home”>http://socialstudies.fas.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do)</p>
<p>“Medicine is not really that prestigious at Harvard.”</p>
<p>I think your son may be exaggerating a little bit – I think undergrads there generally respect the pre-med path and the people who take it. My latest data comes from '07, but at least at that time, seniors talked openly and with excitement about going to good but not ultra-prestigious med schools like Albert Einstein, NYU, and Buffalo. For law students, in contrast, going to a low-top-14 school like Georgetown was a deep disappointment expressed with some resignation, and if anybody was going outside the T14, they didn’t even talk about it. Students who got into med school at HMS, Hopkins, UCSF got the same claps on the back as law students going to YHS. All that indicated to me that the med school types got at least as much respect as the law school types.</p>
<p>My experience is the same as jonri’s, both directly and vicariously looking at my kids’ friends. Very few literature majors in law school (and I was one); lots of social science (econ, poli sci, sociology, anthro, psych), philosophy, history, IR, and a smattering of engineering (often as a second career) and math.</p>
<p>I don’t know what is really meant by “prestige”. When I was at Harvard medicine was looked at as a good way to make a good income without feeling guilty about it. I didn’t know any incipient investment bankers, so I may not have met the people looking down on the pre-meds. (Most of my friends were either arty types who have gone on in music, creative writing or art or they became computer scientists and scientists.) I know a handful who are pretty well known in politics. The law school majors I know all majored in social science things except one who was a math major.</p>
<p>"Harvard claims they have no pre anything (med, law, business) and so everyone has to pick a major "
-No UG has pre-med, do not know about others. Pre-meds are having any majors they wish, including Music, Business, English, Engineering…</p>
<p>“Medicine is not really that prestigious at Harvard.”</p>
<p>-Well, if #1 Med. School is not prestigious, then you are correct.</p>
<p>Hanna - Do you have any race specific numbers for premeds? I know several kids attending Yale, Harvard, Stanford who all expect to go to medicine but they are predominantly Asian Indians. I know atleast 3 of them who had to choose between HPME at NU and one of these three schools and only one ended up at HPME while the other two chose to go elsewhere, still planning to go to medicine down the line. I know one who is currently at Stanford who has been admitted to a couple of prestigious medical programs for this year, one from yale who already got into Stanford med for this year, one from Harvard who stayed at Harvard med.</p>
<p>My question would be whether it is mostly Asians pursuing medicine coming out of these top schools.</p>
<p>miamiDAP - there are schools specializing in admitting premeds and providing them the environment needed to get there and awarding them a degree in a major at the end which does not seem to be the real goal in their nurturing process. When you go to a presentation by Harvard, they make it a point to stress that it is not a focus of theirs as a liberal arts institution to promote a pre anything and they want to get you wellrounded.</p>
<p>^Huge Asian representations.</p>
<p>I don’t have numbers, but most of the Harvard College med students and doctors that I know are white, plus one who is an African immigrant. So I don’t think they are “mostly” Asian, though there are certainly plenty of Asians among them.</p>
<p>According to this paper:
[LSAT</a> Scores of Economics Majors: The 2008-2009 Class Update by Michael Nieswiadomy :: SSRN](<a href=“http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1430654]LSAT”>http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1430654)</p>
<p>The most popular major of 2007-2008 LSAT takers by far was political science, followed by English, psychology, history, criminal justice, and economics.</p>
<p>However, the distribution of undergraduate majors in matriculated law school students may differ, due to the different performance on the LSAT of students in different undergraduate majors (of the twelve most popular majors, economics and philosophy majors did the best on the LSAT, while criminal justice majors did the worst with business administration majors only slightly better).</p>
<p>Economics major do very well on MCAT also because of many passages on current state of economy. it is advisable to read The Economist before taking MCAT. Verbal section is one of 3.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>A function of where I was, of course, but I would add that I knew a decent number of theater majors who went to law school. They drew on their theater background for the ability to effectively communicate, particularly in courtroom settings. </p>
<p>A friend of mine was a linguistics major and went to Yale Law School, but never practiced. He’s now an author and pundit.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Gosh, whatever happened to the idea that you go into medicine because it’s something that’s of interest to you – not because you might make X income or because you think it’s what the smart people do or because you’ll win some prestige points?</p>
<p>^Everybody has to support their family. Unemployment check does not do it and it does not last forever.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This is just such a weird concept, it doesn’t compute for me - that you’d “look down” on pre-meds. If you weren’t interested in medicine, why wouldn’t you just be indifferent towards them and wish them well in their endeavors? “Look down” for what purpose? Can someone please explain what’s meant by this statement? </p>
<p>Of course, I say that because when I met my now-husband, I had known him for a short while (just as friends, not yet dating) and he got into med school, and I used congratulating him on that as an excuse to throw my arms around him and give him a hug and a kiss, so I guess I can’t see why you just wouldn’t be happy for someone else’s success :-)</p>
<p>Nice move.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, I’m not convinced anyone is actually looking down at premeds then or now. That said, I think a lot of people go into medicine not out of any burning desire to be a doctor, but because they are good at science, don’t want to go into academia and it’s a way to do good in the world. I suspect today’s med students are probably more dedicated since the insurance industry has made medicine much less pleasant and less lucrative.</p>
<p>No one in my day would ever have said I’m going into ___ for the prestige. And even if we were going into ____ for the money we probably wouldn’t have admitted it back then.</p>
<p>If 90% in sciences are pre-meds, it can’t all be interest that motivates them.</p>