Question about pre-med major

<p>I'm attending a community college right now, and my current GPA is 3.85. I'm planning on applying for transfer to University of Rochester. They have both an undergraduate biochemistry program, and a medical school. They are ranked fairly high as far as research and the school size is relatively small. In looking over their academic programs I noticed that they have a Neuroscience degree. Neurology has always been an area of medicine that intrigues me but I've seen so many posts on here saying not to decide on a field of medicine before med school. Would I be doing any harm to my shot at med school if I enrolled in Neuroscience? Is Biochem to popular a major? Any feedback would be great! Thanks.</p>

<p>No undergraduate major disqualifies you for med school. They go to great lengths to tell you that and demonstate it by showing that the acceptance rate of non-science majors is higher than the scientists. This is frequently because the MCATS require very good reading, writing, and reasoning skills while most everyone can conquer the 100-200 level chem, bio, and physics that they ask.</p>

<p>That being said, once you get to med school it is all science, all the time. If you are not a scientist beforehand you will need to become one soon. This is one big reason that bio is the largest major of all med school apps. The second is that you still need to take all of the pre-requisites that are heavily math and science. A bio major pretty much says you have the pre-reqs covered as part of your basic degree program. The farther you stray, the more classes you will have to take in addition to your cores.</p>

<p>Neuro won't be far off the true path. Probably more psych than necessary but you should be able to show enough concurrent science and labs to get the pre-reqs out of the way.</p>

<p>Do what you like to do. Much more likely that you will achieve the 3.6-3.7 GPA that you will need if you are enjoying the subject matter.</p>

<p>Is a 3.6-3.7 what I would need to get into the med school, stay in the med school, or what?</p>

<p>It is what it takes to be safely in the 50% of applicants that actually get accepted to a US Med school, plus somewhere slightly either side of 30 on the MCATS.</p>

<p>Once you are accepted to a med school they go to great lengths to keep you there. It's a very bi-polar realization when the people who seem to been so intent on keeping you out are providing tutors, time off, etc... to keep you in. There is such a premium on med school slots that they really don't want to create a hole in the curriculum by having someone drop out. Most people who leave med school do it on their own rather than at the school's request.</p>