I don’t think medical schools value thesis or double majors or double minors. So be conservative if your goal is MD only.
Have you considered activities to help gain/maintain fluency in Spanish such as study abroad, volunteering at the hospital ( you will have to pass the test once you are confident in your skills), etc?
@twogirls Yes. Back when I wasn’t sure where I was going, I looked into a program in Valencia with UVA. Chapel Hill, on the other hand, is willing to make studying abroad happen out of the blue. Long story short, yes.
Good… depending on where you go your classes will be taught in Spanish. Once you are fluent you could look into using these skills at the hospital.
Pre-med is tough, but where is the foundation-other than urban legend-for these numbers:
“…because 75% of them will be wiped out by the end of the year due to partying/poor time management, weed out courses, change of interests, etc, etc”?
Not urban legend. A quick google search on pre med attrition rates revealed this recent study.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.3102/0013189X19840331
Here is a quote from the article:
Over the time period of the study, “More than 5,550 women intended to pursue medicine in their first year in college. But only 194 of them took the MCAT; for men, about 2,690 men reported they were premed and 262 took the MCAT.”
Also the NCES reported that on a national level, 50% of bachelor degree seeking STEM freshmen failed to complete their STEM degree, instead either graduating with a non-STEM major or dropping out of college completely.
https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2014/2014001rev.pdf
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2013/11/27/study-tracks-attrition-rates-stem-majors
But keep in mind that it isn’t just people getting “weeded out.” People change their interests. It’s common for college students to change their prospective major 10 or more times for declaring. I think 25% of students who initially plan to be premed is a good estimate.
Refreshing: can’t access the article, but it apparently only applies to female applicants, and like so much else, offers no definition of pre-med, which is a necessary component for one to declare that 75% of pre-meds wash out.
WOW: You and I will never agree on this, and the studies you mention address STEM, not pre-med.
Simply put, there is no objective data to support the commonly used-at least on this board-number of 75% wash out rate. And your post says 50%; how does that apply to the 75% claimed here?
Pre-med is tough, but there’s no need to exaggerate how tough. And as HD points out, everybody isn’t washed-out; there are actually college students who just decide to follow a different path.
There are also students who do not call themselves premed… yet they take all of the premed classes and get A’s, do many relevant activities… etc. These students may wait until senior year or later before they officially state that they intend to apply to med school.
The article mentioned is, at best, what could be politely called “advocacy” research, as the title shows it ignores the facts. Per AMCAS, more women than men enrolled in medical school for both the 17/18 and 18/19 cycles. And does the article mention 75% attrition?
https://www.aamc.org/download/492954/data/factstablea7_2.pdf
And unless and until there is an agreed definition of “pre-med” there is no way to establish a percentage that is even vaguely reliable.
Suffice to say it’s tough, but using numbers which are completely unsupported is unnecessary and counterproductive.
Sorry, the article is behind a paywall. (my institution has access and I was able to read it). Although the objective of the study is to look at gender differences in the attrition rate, it still shows a significant attrition rate in both men and women overall. In the study, premed was defined as students who stated that they were pursuing medicine as a career and were enrolled in introductory premed courses in their first year of college(chemistry and biology). The study followed the students throughout their premed courses and even included their grades in the results section.
Other studies at Stanford and Berkeley also demonstrate that negative experiences in chemistry courses is a leading factor in deciding against continuing premed studies. In other words, weeding out.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2814029/
Students may remain biology or chemistry majors but no longer be premeds, the standards being quite different (ie., you can be a biology or chemistry major if you have a 3.0, you can’t be premed with a 3.0).
The 75% is an approximation due to changing interests, being weeded out, or other reasons. It’s not 75 vs 74vs.77… it means “the vast, vast majority”, something high school kids thinking “I’ll be pre-med” need to hear/read.
High school students who are bright, like science, and like the idea of helping people, think “I’ll be a doctor”. Some think it’ll make a lot of money. Some dont realize it means 10-12years of studies after high school- doubling the amount of schooling they’ve known so far.
Often, as is natural for young people without much work experience, students think they want to be doctors but it’s not based on the reality of the job. Some realize there are many jobs in healthcare, some start working with patients and realize they really hate sick people barfing on them, etc.
So, the percentage keeps things in perspective for high school Juniors and Seniors.
OP clearly had done his/her research and seems ready for the academic rigor. S/he is thinking of the other factors but may be jumping the gun a bit. Planning is good, but most important for pre-meds is Plan B.
OK, how about this then @crankyoldman
D2’s private undergrad (top research U known for its pre-med program) does track pre-meds. Per the university’s own internal data (published on the Admission Dean’s blog), between 30% to 40% of every incoming class indicate “medical school” or “pre-med” as a career goal during their freshman registration. There are ~1500-1600 incoming freshmen each year. Or approx 450-640 freshmen pre-meds. The number of med school applicants this school produced last year (available thru AAMC FACTS) ~170–and that number includes alumni applicants (who may or may not have done additional coursework post-grad). That’s a minimum of a 63% drop off rate between freshman and senior year. Not all of these students are washed out due to weeding, but a significant portion are, since lower level science & math coursework have grade caps (15% As per class) and grading curves centered at C+. Pre-med attrition is so commonplace, it’s a longstanding joke at the school.
You can argue this school is atypical, but I think it’s more representative of the situation than you might want to admit.
Ok, maybe I’m missing something but…
MYOS: where did the number come from? How is the 75%(or thereabouts) established?
Refreshing: Does the article mention a 75% attrition rate? And how does it reconcile its obvious gender bias with the fact that more women than men enroll in medical school?
WOW: Ok, so your number is 63% at best. That’s not 75%. And as you mention, reducing pre-meds isn’t always people washing out; it’s people changing their minds. And it’s entirely unreliable to rest your argument on freshmen “career goals”(see below). If this standard were to be applied to every other freshmen in every other major, what would the “wash out” rate be? If someone said they were wanted to be an education major but switched to a business major, would that be considered “washing out” of education?
It’s clear that I’ve challenged one of the sacred cows of the CC pre-med section. But unless and until someone shows me data that reflects 75% of the pre-meds wash out, it’s still my position that it’s nothing more than urban legend. And in order to do that, you’ll need to establish a working and reliable definition of pre-med, which nobody has done.
But how about a 95% attrition rate? Based on observation and Google/social media data, here goes:
Several years back, attended a local scholarship ceremony where the community assn gave nominal($1000) one time scholarships to HS seniors who were nominated by their local HS. A total of 25 were awarded, and a nice ceremony was held. At the ceremony, every kid got to say what s/he would be doing in college. Of the 25, 23(!) said they were pre-med and were going to go to medical school.
So, using Google and social media(people publish wayyy too much, but that’s another story), was able to track down 20 of the aspiring physicians; of the 20, apparently a grand total of one-as in 1- went to medical school. So out of that cohort(ok, the 20 I could find), 95% “washed out” of pre-med. A ridiculous number, of course, as we don’t know if they ever actually enrolled in any premed courses, or took any, or flunked them, or just got lousy grades…or changed their minds.
Again, pre-med is tough; there’s no need to exaggerate how tough.
@crankyoldman, you say you have challenged one of the sacred cows of the pre med section of CC? What is a sacred cow?
ETA, just looked up sacred cow. There is no unreasonable idea in the premed weed out percentage.
University of Houston admitted 10 people with guaranteed seats to medical schools around Houston a few years ago. 2 years ago I was advising someone on CC deciding whether to admit their kid who was concerned a low percentage was matriculating based on 3.8 GPA and 508 (510?) MCAT requirement. I checked on the previous two year attrition rate and it was 50+ percent and this was for guaranteed seats.
Turns out they are all required to be in honors program and chemistry and may be physics departments were only giving 20% As and everyone else was B or below. The only people actually getting As were those majoring in their own departments. How do people maintain 3.8 GPA with that type of grading irrespective of how bright you might have started out?
Cotton-have to disagree; repeatedly citing a number-specifically 75% in this case-as if it were established by objective evidence is inherently unreasonable. It’s one thing to say pre-med is tough; it another thing entirely to announce that 75% of pre-meds wash out, which is what was stated on this thread.
ALL- what DIFFERENCE does it REALLY make regarding the PRECISE % of “pre-med” students who change their minds or are weeded out? Pre-med classes are hard [!!] and being able to get A’s in ALL of them AND get top notch MCat scores mean that a LOT of former “pre-Med” students eventually move on to other majors.
Lets not split hairs here over who is right or wrong.
Extensive research is part of the path…not the best path. And not the only path.
@WayOutWestMom has noted the ECs you need to have to be a competitive medical school applicant (anywhere). I haven’t read here that you are planning anything that will distinguish you…except research.