<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I put my major down as EECS for Berkeley and was accepted with regents, but I have always wanted to become a doctor. </p>
<p>I did not know really what to major in to do so so I just selected my #2 choice, EECS. Is it still possible to become a doctor if I go to Berkeley, and how would I do so. Lastly, how good are my chances at making it? I heard it is next to impossible.</p>
<p>Switch to the biology major in the L&S college, then take the standard pre-med route (Bio 1A, 1B; Chem 1A, 3A, 3B; Phys 8A, 8B; MCB 100, 102; Math 1A, 1B; English R1A, R1B).</p>
<p>It's definitely possible to become a doctor. Over 60% of pre-meds do. But to be accepted to a top-tier medical school like HMS or JHU is close to impossible.</p>
<p>Why's it near impossible to get admitted to a top-tier med school? Is it because it's hard to maintain a good gpa?</p>
<p>Wait why don't I see UW from top tier med school?</p>
<p>"I did not know really what to major in to do so so I just selected my #2 choice, EECS. Is it still possible to become a doctor if I go to Berkeley, and how would I do so. Lastly, how good are my chances at making it? I heard it is next to impossible."</p>
<p>Yes, it's still possible. You have two choices:</p>
<ol>
<li> Stay in EECS and take med school prerequisites. This will be extremely tough, but it's still doable.</li>
<li> Transfer out of EECS and take med school prerequisites. I suspect most people would want to do this if they were in your position. This way, you wouldn't have to go through the difficult engineering courses and have to deal with competitive premeds.</li>
</ol>
<p>GPA matters a lot; major doesn't matter at all. Go and major in what you're good at. I don't know what you're good at, but if it's not EECS, leave as soon as you can. There's no point in majoring in bio unless you have a genuine interest in the subject since the curve is usually hard to beat.</p>
<p>Why do you say the general med route is MCB?
According to what I heard from IB Prof. Tim White, Med schools haven't been differentiating between MCB and IB. The only thing about MCB is that it forces you to take the extra math you need for med whereas in IB anything beyond 16A is optional.</p>
<p>What about studying bioengineering? Is that a viable option?</p>
<p>Thanks guys...</p>
<p>
[quote]
Why's it near impossible to get admitted to a top-tier med school? Is it because it's hard to maintain a good gpa?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It's because of the competition. Even if you do get a good GPA and good MCAT score, you * still * may not get into a top med school. Heck, you may not get into * any * med school that you apply to.</p>
<p>Consider some of the following reported stats. In particular, take the top left box of the following graph. Of the 13 reported applicants who were graduating seniors in 2006 who had 3.9+ GPA's and 35+ MCAT scores (both excellent stats), * 4 of them got rejected from every single med school they applied to. *. That's right - * every single one. * </p>
<p>Now to be fair, part of that has to do with the fact that they probably didn't apply to enough of the less selective med schools. Perhaps they applied to only the top med-schools, and hence got rejected from all of them. But still, it illustrates how hard it is for even those applicants with killer stats to get into the top med schools. </p>
<p>
[quote]
It's definitely possible to become a doctor. Over 60% of pre-meds do
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I would add the caveat that we're talking about over 60% of the premeds * who apply * will get in somewhere. However, plenty of premeds won't even apply, because they know they won't get in anywhere. Let's face it. If you have a 2.5 GPA and a 15 total MCAT, you know you're not going to get in anywhere, so why even apply? Yet some premeds end up with stats like that. </p>
<p>Furthermore, the 60%+ stat has to do with * graduating seniors *. But not all applicants are graduating seniors. Specifically, many applicants from any school are alumni who graduated X years ago and are thus considered "X-year-out" applicants. For example, many people get a job for a few years and only then decide to apply to med school. Some people know that they are just not good enough to get into med-school right after graduation, so they decide to take a few years to strengthen their credentials, i.e. getting a master's degree somewhere or working as a research assistant somewhere. Some people don't complete the premed requirements while in undergrad (because they didn't know they wanted to be doctors), so they end up doing one of those post-bac programs after graduation. And then of course (one of the biggest categories of all), there are those people who applied as graduating seniors, but got rejected from all the med-schools they applied to, and so apply again the following year.</p>
<p>The X-year out data tends to be lower than the graduating senior data, mostly because of the last category of people I discussed above. If you didn't get in as a graduating senior, then you are also likely to not get in a year later. </p>
<p>
[quote]
Why do you say the general med route is MCB?
According to what I heard from IB Prof. Tim White, Med schools haven't been differentiating between MCB and IB. The only thing about MCB is that it forces you to take the extra math you need for med whereas in IB anything beyond 16A is optional.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>There are several reasons. Note, I am not saying that I think they are good reasons. But they are reasons.</p>
<h1>1) There are some med schools, notably UCLA, that like to see that you have taken coursework in biochemistry or cell biology/physiology, and these courses are in MCB. You usually don't * have * to do it, but they like to see it. Hence, many people will take those MCB courses to try to cover their bases with those med schools, and then since they figure that they're going to take those MCB courses anyway, they might as well just complete the MCB major.</h1>
<p>"...basic or advanced courses in biological science (e.g. cellular physiology) are desirable. "</p>
<h1>2) It is widely believed (with some justification) that you can participate in research that is more meaningful to med school as an MCB student than in many of the other majors. For example, working on a biochemistry or molecular biology project, and especially publishing a paper, is a major boon to many med schools, especially if you are apply to an MD/PhD program, but also to regular MD programs. IB research may be less useful in that respect.</h1>
<h1>3) And a lot of it is simply sociological. A lot (probably most) MCB students have med school as their goal, premeds tend to gravitate towards MCB, and so from a sociological standpoint, it's just easier to go with the flow.</h1>
<p>But note, I don't personally think that any of these reasons are particularly * good * reasons, and in particular, none of them should compel you to major in MCB if you're not interested in MCB. Major in whatever you want.</p>
<p>but Berkeley does have a Physiology major in CNR, for a doctor wouldn't that truly be the best option?</p>
<p>I don't see any physiology major in the CNR.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/site/index.php%5B/url%5D">http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/site/index.php</a></p>
<p>"I don't see any physiology major in the CNR."</p>
<p>It's a specialization under Nutritional Sciences. It's called physiology and metabolism.</p>
<p>Well, that's not exactly a 'major', is it?</p>
<p>But more to the point, you can see from the UCLA Med School link that the school specifically warns against courses that overlap with med-school subject matter, and I would presume that regular physiology (as opposed to cellular physiology) would fall under this category. </p>
<p>"Courses overlapping in subject matter (e.g. human anatomy) with those in the school of medicine are not recommended. "</p>
<p>
[quote]
GPA matters a lot; major doesn't matter at all. Go and major in what you're good at. I don't know what you're good at, but if it's not EECS, leave as soon as you can. There's no point in majoring in bio unless you have a genuine interest in the subject since the curve is usually hard to beat.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I'd like to add that even if you think you're good at EECS, there's still a good chance you won't do well...simply because the average GPA for EECS is way below what you need to be competitive for med school. If you're trying to do med school prereqs on top of that, it's very unlikely that you'll get a good enough GPA to be competitive for med school. If you really want to study medicine the best course of action would probably be to switch out of EECS.</p>
<p>Thanks for teh responses--teh reason I am thinking EECS is because a) I am good at it (i know how hard the curve is though so I too am worried) and b) because I will have a career that I like to fall back on if I do not get into med school?</p>
<p>Would anybody have alternative engineering careers that would help me for med school. I really want to do engineering. </p>
<p>heres what I am thinking though: I stay EECS in my first year, dont take any premed prereqs, and pass teh weeder classes. Then EECS should get easier and I can move onto premed. Does this work?</p>
<p>IMO, EECS is the absolute hardest major at Cal. Good luck.</p>
<p>Hey liquidmetal, this is exactly my problem as well. I don't know whether to sacrifice EECS or change to a more premed friendly major.</p>
<p>EECS does not get easier! The workload for EECS classes gets much harder as you move from lower division to upper division courses.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Thanks for teh responses--teh reason I am thinking EECS is because a) I am good at it (i know how hard the curve is though so I too am worried) and b) because I will have a career that I like to fall back on if I do not get into med school?</p>
<p>Would anybody have alternative engineering careers that would help me for med school. I really want to do engineering. </p>
<p>heres what I am thinking though: I stay EECS in my first year, dont take any premed prereqs, and pass teh weeder classes. Then EECS should get easier and I can move onto premed. Does this work?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>If you really want to do engineering and apply for med school then you should definitely consider Bioengineering. One of the tracks for BioE is a pre-med track, so it'll prepare you for med school by making you take all the pre-med classes, plus you'll get to take engineering classes. Now let's say you do BioE, if you're really interested in EE, you can take EE40, EE100, or I believe EE20 as prereqs for BioE, or if you're really interested in CS I think you can take CS61A or CS61B as prereqs, although E7 is computer programming too (Matlab). The only real disadvantages to BioE are that first, you have to switch into it and it's tied for most difficult major to get into (along with EECS and Engineering undeclared). The other disadvantage is that if you don't go to med school, BioEs coming out of undergrad make about half as much as EECS coming out of undergrad, so you'll probably need to get a Master's if you want good salary.</p>
<p>Hey, my situation is just like yours.</p>
<p>I'm a second year doing a double in EECS and MCB with an interest in med school first and EECS as a backup. EECS is also pretty fun in my spare time.</p>
<p>I guess the key is to spread out the required courses so that you have a good balance of easy and hard classes each semester so as to not overwhelm you.</p>
<p>I did all my EECS lower divs and 1 upper div in my freshman year. This year, I finished all of my lower div reqs for MCB as well as all the breadth reqs for both majors. I also had enough time to TA a course and do some research.</p>
<p>Next year, I'm going to do the same and keep a good mix. Talk to people in both majors. Network and find out who the good profs and what the good courses are.</p>
<p>Best of luck to you! You can post here if you have any specific questions about certain courses.</p>