If someone can discuss here the pros and cons of premed major
Con: If you don’t get into Med school, what is Plan B?
My D wants to be a Dr., but is majoring in Bioengineering for this reason.
Sorry I think my question was not clear! what premed major has higher acceptance rate into med school?
There really isn’t anything such as a premed major. Med schools only require in part, a BA/BS degree and completion of premed reqs. As a premed hopeful, you should consider majors that you are interested in as if you like material, you’ll tend to do better GPA wise, which is something med schools will care, in part, a great deal about. You also might view your major choice with a Plan B in mind should you change your mind about med school. What will give you a higher acceptance chance is a competitive applications in all respects (eg GPAs, MCAT, ECs, PS, interview, LoRs), not what you major in…
If you want data, go here:
[Table A-17: MCAT and GPAs for Applicants and Matriculants to U.S. Medical Schools by Primary Undergraduate Major, 2017-2018](https://www.aamc.org/download/321496/data/factstablea17.pdf)
It’s mathematics and humanities in a near tie.
However, the is considerable selection bias involved in the above data. Few math or philosophy majors apply to medical school so those that do pursue medicine are a highly self-selected, highly motivated group who are not representative of the larger pool of mathematics or humanities majors.
What @Jugulator20 said above is correct. There is no best pre-med major.
My daughters have among their med school classmates, individual with majors as diverse as forestry, music theory & performance, Spanish, physics, mathematics, business, women’s studies, public health, theology, computer science, English lit, and sociology as well as the more common, biology, chemistry, biochemistry, neuroscience and biomedical engineering.
Thank you all for your input
If you are a straight A or close to straight A student, it does not matter which major you take, you have a good chance at med school.
For some one who is on the boarder line, its not which major that has higher acceptance rate. Its which major has better chance to recover from some low science grades. The answer is biological sciences. Non-science majors has only one shot at the medical school requirements, if they got low grades (ie, C or lower) in two or more critical science courses, its very difficult to recover from it. The biological majors have a chance to recover from low grade in lower level classes by taking higher level classes whereas the non-science majors probably don’t have that option.
While generally true, there are a few colleges that offer a pre-med major, such as http://science.nd.edu/undergraduate/sample-curricula/preprofessional-studies-sample-curriculum/ .
However, such a major seems ill-advised, since if you major in such a thing and do not get into any medical schools (most pre-meds do not get into any medical schools), that major will tell everyone that you are a failed pre-med, which may limit your other options.
Wouldn’t other science majors (i.e. chemistry, physics, math) also have the opportunity to raise their BCPM GPAs with the upper level courses in their majors?
Non-science liberal arts majors may also be able to take upper level BCPM courses in their free elective space. This may not be as doable for majors with voluminous requirements (e.g. engineering majors) that leave little or no free elective space.
@ucbalumnus
ND’s preprofessional curriculum looks rather bio major generic (ie GEs (writing), typical premed reqs in bcpm, and even the most highly recommended UD courses being bio related). However, to avail oneself of this program requires getting admitted to ND which is its own hurdle. So yes other schools offer preprofessional even premed majors (eg Penn State). But it doesn’t seem to change the fact that these programs, certainly not always, but tend towards being bio major generics with some twists. They just have fancy program names (eg preprofessional/premedicine)
Yes, other science or liberal arts majors also will have chance to make up in higher level classes, but as a bio major you can concentrate on gpa repair and not to worry about other majors requirements. IMHO, Bio major has the highest probability to overcome early gpa shortfalls.
And I agree if any school has a “pre-med” major (ie. Penn State or ND), they are basically a derivative of a bio major with a fancy title.
Why would a biology major have an advantage over a chemistry, physics, or math major in terms of trying to use upper level in-major courses to boost BCPM GPA?
IMHO the curriculum in a Bio Major is most close related to apply for a med school, other majors have to take classes out of their normal curriculum to become a premed. Therefore, Bio Major has the largest number of applicants for med school.
Thank you all