I have been browsing the forum for the past hour and haven’t found any specific answers yet. I am planning on pursuing premed as a humanities major in college. My question is, would I be expected to take just the pre-reqs for med school or should I also take upper division courses that a bio major would generally take? I know I will be competing with alot of bio majors who will have taken many upper division courses. Will not taking any, or taking very few put me at a disadvantage? What are the recommended upper division courses I will have to take to be a competitive applicant for med school?
Medical school admission committees really don’t care what your undergrad major is.
The MCAT is the great equalizer. Doing well on the MCAT will remove any concerns that the adcomm may have about your ability to do well in med school.
You will not be at a disadvantage when it come to gaining a med school admission as humanities student so long as your MCAT score is strong and your sGPA (bio, chem, physics and math GPA) and GPA are excellent. (And, of course, you’ve got all the expected pre-med ECs, strong LORs from your science profs, and are able to write persuasively about why you want to become a physician.)
BTW, you really won’t be at much of a disadvantage when it comes to med school science classes. The amount of material covered in med school is enormous. A single med school class will cover an entire semester of upper level bio class material in 2 or 3 lectures. (A week or less.) So any advantage your science major classmates have disappears pretty quickly.
If you want to take an additional upper level elective (and have room in your schedule), genetics is probably the most useful for MCAT.
Thank you for replying! So to clarify, medical schools won’t choose an applicant that has more upper div sciences courses over an applicant that has less/none if all else is equal?
Talk to graduating seniors who took the MCAT to see what helped them prepare. I read biochemistry and physics help with the MCAT. Go on the AMCAS website and Student Doctor Network website to find out what classes will be useful to take to prepare for the MCAT. I read that you don’t want to take the MCAT too many times and preferably once - when you are ready. So, even though you can be any major, taking additional science courses could help with the MCAT.
Even if you’re not required to, try to take a class each in Biochemistry, neuroscience, and genetics. Check the pre-requisites(they should be the typical premed pre-reqs.)
With those and a strong humanities major who has all the expected medical ECs you’d be a very interesting candidate to interview.
@ucstudent77 at my school at least, correct. As long as the BCPM GPA is high, no one cares that it’s only the prereqs vs. upper-level courses.
@SeattleMom1 I believe physics is a requirement for almost all med schools anyway. Many also require biochemistry.