I know biology is very popular for pre-med, but what other majors provide a suitable track for pre-med students? I know that a student can get into med school with any major, but which ones (besides biology) mesh well with pre-med classes?
By “mesh well” do you mean have overlapping courses? If so, then biology (general or specialized) overlaps most heavily with typical pre-med courses.
Biomedical engineering, chemistry, or chemical engineering have significant overlap, but may require more difficult versions of some courses like math and physics, or more total major course requirements that give less room for choosing courses that protect your GPA.
But other options are majors with less overlap, but not too many total major requirements, leaving plenty of free elective space for pre-med courses. Majors like math, statistics, history, philosophy, or economics could be candidates here. Obviously, it is desirable to choose a major that that you like and are good at, in order to earn A grades.
Biochem is a good one as well—pretty much all of the classes in a biochem major are prereqs for med school and/or concern material on the MCAT, with the exception of physical chemistry.
@ucbalumnus Do you know much about a public health/health science major? I have a friend who majored in it who said that it provides a more practical aspect to pre-med than a biology major.
@silmaril is there any advantage in majoring in biochem over biology?
One thing to keep in mind with a public health/health science major is that at some colleges these majors take the non-science major versions of bio, chem, physics etc. Only science major versions are acceptable for medical school admissions. If your college requires non-science major versions, you will need to check with the department to make sure substituting the science-major version is acceptable for fulfilling graduation requirements.
The only advantage is that a biochem major may have slightly better post-college employment prospects than a bio major.
There is a glut of unsuccessful med school hopefuls in the job market with majors in bio, chem or biochem.
You can literally major in just about anything and go to medical school. But you will have to make an effort to include the expected science coursework in your schedule. If you have room for a minor in your college schedule--you have room to complete med school pre-reqs. D1 & D2 had med school classmates with majors ranging from agriculture (forestry) to human geography to music composition to women's studies--plus all of the usual - biology, neuroscience, BME, biochemistry, chemistry. (FWIW, neither D had one of the "usual" pre-med majors.)
Find a major that appeals to you and that you can do well in since a strong GPA is very important for successful medical school application. If that major also improves your post-college employability prospects, that's a plus.
Every pre-med need a Plan B career. Applied math/statistics can be a great premed major for those who have any sort of quantitative bent. It hits the sweet spot of enhancing employment prospects, but with less grade-deflation exposure than CS or engineering. Research settings - medical or otherwise - will always need and value people with a strong stats skillset, so acquiring that skillset is likely to pay off whether the student ends up in med school or not. Public health can indeed be a great focus that can both prepare one for med school and offer alternatives; but a stats background is especially desirable in that field, even more so than in medicine, because it all hinges on population-level data analysis.
@aquapt
LOL! Both my now-doctor daughters had an applied math major in college.
There are some great career paths that lead out from a math degree in case a pre-med doesn’t get a coveted med school admission.
Also, a math major will know that calculus does not have to be rediscovered.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8137688
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/discoblog/2010/12/07/ncbi-rofl-clueless-doctor-sleeps-through-math-class-reinvents-calculus-and-names-it-after-herself/
@Sigmasincos Biochem doesn’t have a significant advantage over bio. The only thing that I’ve anecdotally noticed is that we tend to be encouraged to learn biochem on a more rigorous level compared to bio majors (eg. at my school, a bio major may only take 1 semester of biochem while a biochem major will usually take a year of biochem), which could pay its dividends when you take the MCAT or for the basic science portions of med school curriculum.
Biochemistry will have fewer students on the job market than Biology.
Biostatistics, bioinformatics are both in high demand.
Biological anthropology would be an alternative.
Psychology and neuroscience too.
My daughter did pre-med with Pyschology major…but she spread her pre med classes over all 4 years so she planned to take a gap year before medical school.
I have a classmate is now a Dr. that majored in Medical Anthropology.
@WayOutWestMom Thanks for all that info. What exactly do you mean by non-science versions of bio, chem, physics, etc.? How can those be non-science?
There are classes for non majors, they’re fun and light - kind of like “Intro to philosophy” isn’t the same as Epistemology for Philosophy majors :p. Often, college catalog descriptions will include a sentence at the end such as “not suitable for science majors” or “does not count toward the bio, chem, physics majors”.
For instance, compare
http://www.physics.sfsu.edu/~jfielder/Phys101S15syllabus.pdf
and
http://www.physics.sfsu.edu/~barranco/Syllabi/Phys220syllabus.pdf
Could you discuss the course requirements as they relate to the new competency based Med school admissions?
All colleges offer 2 tracks for science classes: one for science majors; one for everyone else. Some colleges offer three tracks for sciences classes: one for science majors; one for allied health sciences** majors; and one for arts/humanities/business/social science majors. Only those classes that a science major would take fulfill admission requirements for medical school.
**nursing, nutrition & dietetics, athletic training, emergency medical services, dental hygiene, speech & language pathology, etc.
Public health majors often take the allied health science track classes. These classes are not a rigorous as those offered for science majors and may be substantively different in the content/topics covered.
Non-science major track classes, as @thumper1 mentions, are elective science classes that humanities or social majors take to fulfill their GE science requirements. Astronomy for Star Lovers, Intro geology (Rock for Jocks), Biology for the Non-major, etc. These courses count as fulfilling any science GE requirements for graduation for non science majors, but will not earn credits for a science major.
Med schools are moving toward competency based admission requirements as part of a LCME initiative. About half of med schools already use competency based admission standards. Although these new standards no longer require specific classes, each school has a list of "strongly recommended" coursework it expects all applicants to have completed. The burden of proof is now on the applicant to demonstrate a high level of competence in each of the broad competency areas the med school lists. (e.g. biological sciences, genetics, general & organic chemistry, biochemistry, physics, statistics, written communication, etc) You can do this through coursework (easiest to do) or through alternative pathways--like substantial, in-depth research or having publications.
For medical school, you can pretty assume that "strongly recommended" or "recommended" means required--or else you better have a damned good reason why not and something even better on your record. Colleges may offer science courses for majors and science courses for non-majors (“physics for poets”, “rocks for jocks”, etc.). There may also be different options of chemistry, physics, and math for those majors versus biology majors. Medical schools want to see science courses suitable for science majors (the biology major versions of chemistry, physics, and math are typically acceptable).
Basically, if you take the list of frosh/soph level courses for a biology major, add calculus and statistics if not included, add some highly desired upper level courses like biochemistry and genetics, and add the desired non-science courses like English composition, psychology, sociology, you will come up with a good approximation of what medical schools want to see. But check specifically for each medical school, since some have unusual requirements or recommendations.
Also, you may have to make decisions regarding AP credit when you start college, since medical schools have varying policies regarding AP credit for pre-med science courses:
- Not accepted, so you have to repeat your AP credit.
- Not accepted, but repeating is discouraged (looks like grade-grubbing), so higher level courses in the subject area are needed in substitution.
- Accepted if you take higher level courses in the subject area.
- Accepted (rare).