<p>Do most pre-med students at Penn major in chemistry, biology, biochemistry, or biophysics? Also, can someone order the programs from the most students to the least students in total regardless of whether they are pre-med students or not (basically order according to size of the programs in relation to students)?</p>
<p>this has been addressed before. use the search engine.</p>
<p>i don't know any biophysics majors in general, let alone biophysics premeds (i might do the minor for kicks)</p>
<p>a ton of bioengineers are premed.</p>
<p>and biological basis of behavior is full of premeds.</p>
<p>BBB is all premeds; its basically designed for them.</p>
<p>I'd say Biology has the most premeds of the 4 you listed, but they're probably only like 50-60% of bio majors. A lot of bio majors want to do research and teach.</p>
<p>[PLUG] Don't forget, the Anthropology Department has a Pre-Med concentration!! /[PLUG]</p>
<p>Apparently Classics majors do well in pre-med. Guess all that Latin helps....</p>
<p>Major in whatever you want and just take the required pre-med courses. Med schools like to see passion for a subject and diversity.</p>
<p>I want to major in bio, but I was just curious.</p>
<p>The BBB major looks very intriguing.</p>
<p>Is the BBB major unique to Penn?</p>
<p>The BBB major is unique to Penn, but don't be surprised if it undergoes some dramatic revisions in the next couple years. Among the professors who run the program, there is a lot of concern that BBB is too soft as a program, and they generally fail to see the point of having it when there is already a Neuroscience concentration in the Biology major (this is what I'm doing) and that doing a Psych/Bio double major is relatively easy. While it is incredibly popular, the concern is that there are in fact too many options; some students can opt for a very Bio oriented track while others for one that is Psych-oriented, and the difference in difficulty is quite large. This is particularly evidenced by BIOL/BIBB 251, which is easily the most difficult course required for BBB. BBB majors tend to fare rather poorly in the class because they tend to lack a lot of the advanced biology foundation that the bio majors have. This issue is one of consistency.</p>
<p>I'm currently applying (though really am done, just waiting to hear back from a few more schools) to med school this year, so if you have additional premed questions, you can direct them to me or head over to the premed forum, which is quite useful.</p>
<p>On the question of majors, major in whatever you want, but I will try and give you some idea of what most Penn premeds (in the college) do:</p>
<p>BBB-big major (meaning lots of people) almost exclusively premeds</p>
<p>Health and Societies-pretty small major, almost exclusively prmeds</p>
<p>Biology-big major, four or five sub-concentrations, many premeds, probably about 60% of total</p>
<p>Psych- huge major, lots of premeds, but tend to to get screwed when they apply to med school when they find out that none of their advanced psych classes count in their science GPA for AMCAS.</p>
<p>Social Science/Humanities - relatively few premeds, but it's not difficult to complete the requirements as these majors require less coursework in general</p>
<p>Chem - medium-sized major, VERY FEW PREMEDS. Lots of highschoolers on this forum throw out chem as a good or common premed major, and at many schools this is simply not the case. The Chem department here is a) very PhD-geared, and has a lot of bias against premeds and b) has the harshest grading policy of any department (curve set to a B- until you get to 2nd semester P-chem). If you're talented at it and love it, go for it, but it is not for the faint of heart.</p>
<p>Biochem - small major, same comments as for the chem major but even moreso, there is a 400-level biochem class that has 6-hour long exams that take place on weekends, plus the Vagelos program (NOT LSM) ups the ante even more</p>
<p>Physics/Math - I have actually never met a premed majoring in either of these, and most premeds actually take Physics 101/102 instead of 150/151, which cannot be used towards the physics major. Again, if this is what you like, go for it, but these programs want you to get a PhD.</p>
<p>Hope that helps a bit</p>
<p>Thanks, that was really helpful!</p>
<p>what about the biomedical major (not bioengineering--its listed under applied sciences) offered at SEAS?</p>
<p>it's basically identical to the bioengineering major, just not so hardcore... aimed at premeds, pre-business, prelaw, whatev...</p>
<p>this is the bse (bioengineering) curriculum</p>
<p>Penn</a> Engineering \ Bioengineering Undergraduate Program</p>
<p>and the bas (biomedical science)</p>
<p>Penn</a> Engineering \ Bioengineering Undergraduate Program</p>
<p>as you can see not that different - if you're premed definitely go for the biomedical science route, no use taking the extra hardcore engineering classes</p>
<p>I would beg to differ.
The “eas[iest]” route is not necessarily the best.
The percentage of biomedical engineers being admitted to med school is astronomically higher than those who majored in biology.
And wouldn’t you want to stand out amongst the crowd by doing something “out there”?</p>