Hey guys I had a quick question and was wondering if anyone could help me out,
I am currently in a community college finishing up my natural science associates degree. I plan to transfer to a four year school by next Fall, I want to go to medical school after finishing the four year school and study neurology. Should i transfer into a neuroscience major or to a pre-med (bio or chem) major? I want to do neuroscience more than premed, but which one will help me go to med school the most in the future? Also is getting into either major the same or is it harder to get into pre med than it is for neuroscience? My top school choices that I want to apply to as a transfer are boston university, northeastern uni and umass amherst, I’m not sure if that’s enough info, but any advice?
First, there is no such thing as a pre-med major. Second, your major won’t matter for med school so study what interests you. What is important is that you take all of the prerequisites for med school.
What will get you into Medical school will be having a High GPA on your Medical School course requirements, High MCAT score and some Medically related EC’s. Major will not matter as stated by @happy1.
Here’s a tip - neuroscience is a fascinating subject but really quite difficult to master. It generally requires the student to be extremely good at both “hard” science (chemistry including organic chemistry, molecular biology, math and statistics, etc.) and also soft sciences which require more reading and writing skill (psychology, behavioral biology, etc.) You need to be very good at both types of study of you want to maintain the high GPA necessary for medical school admissions.
If you are genuinely interested in neuroscience, go ahead and major in it. If you are taking it because you think it will get you into med school, think again. Better to major in a subject that interests you, take the medical school course requirements as electives, and maintain a high GPA. My friends who are doctors were all sorts of different majors, including economics, English, math, and even religious studies.
While in med school people change their minds about what they want to do post med school. Don’t be so set on neurology. In med school education, med school is considered the “undergraduate” part of medical training. Med school is actually quite broad in scope and will give you exposure to all sorts of specialties, neurology included. But the real hands on ”graduate” med training in any particular specialty like neurology comes post med school, and for neurology I think it involves 4 years residency training post med school
Adding to above posts, being premed means you hope, dream, intend to go to med school. It’s not a major and your major doesn’t matter to med schools. You can be an art history major and have the same chance as long as the rest of your app is competitive (eg GPAs, MCAT, ECs, etc). Consider a major that provides you with a Plan B should you change your mind about med school. Most people choose a major like bio, maybe out of interest, but also because major reqs and premed reqs get satisfied at same time. Hopefully you’ve done well in community college because all college grades, even if taken in hs, will be considered by med schools. Good luck.
^ there are also 'pre health ’ majors at some universities. Those are usually for lower stats students who can’t handle an actual major and premed pre-reqs… Which is not a good sign.
Fun fact: ~2/3rds of MS1s (to say nothing of pre-meds) who “know” which specialty they want to do change their minds by the rank order list deadline. Another fun fact: Many many medical students love the neurosciences classes in their pre-clinical years, but often find that this does not match up to liking neurology itself (or neurosurgery, for that matter) for various reasons. Keep an open mind.
…of course, there’s also the issue that most students who enter college as pre-meds end up graduating as something else. At Stanford, it was a pretty consistent ~50% attrition rate.
Funny thing is my D did just the opposite, she started with a neuroscience major and ended with going to med school. When she started the UG, you cannot twist her arms to do clinical medicine or pre-med track, research was all she wanted. After two years in the lab, she decided to do clinical medicine.
D2 was a neuroscience major, did neuroscience research in college, did volunteer work with neurology and psychiatric patients, did 2 years full time research in neuropsychiatry after college graduation at a Top 10 med school, told her med school interviewers she wanted to go into neurology… So a she’s neurologist, right?
Um…no.
Although she found she still is fascinated by all things brains and enjoyed the intellectual part of neurology, she found her 3rd year neuro rotation to be incredibly depressing, particularly pediatric neurology. (“The patients are never going to get better, mom.”) She’s chosen another specialty, one she finds more life-affirming and one where she can actually “fix” her patients.
To answer your questions:
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I want to do neuroscience more than premed, but which one will help me go to med school the most in the future?
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Pick the major that you like better and which offers you better prospects for a job should med school not happen for you.
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Also is getting into either major the same or is it harder to get into pre med than it is for neuroscience?
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Generally unless there's no difference in getting accepted into either major unless the department is impacted and the college requires you to have certain grades or certain pre-reqs done before accepting you to the department. At both the colleges my daughter attended, neuroscience was a sub field within the bio department. So if you were accepted into the bio dept, you were automatically accepted into the neuroscience dept.