Unsure about what major to choose at Cornell. Please help/offer suggestions?

Hello, I’m a senior who will be applying to Cornell in the next few weeks. I am mainly debating between the following three colleges and majors:

  1. Arts and Sciences - Chemistry and Chemical Biology
  2. Agriculture and Life Sciences - Biology and Society'
  3. Human Ecology - Human Biology, Health, and Society

Could anyone please give me the highlights of each major? I am mainly interested in biology, biochemistry, and the health sciences, and I would like to go to med school. Additionally, from a statistical viewpoint, which of these three majors would I have the best chance at being admitted to? Thanks!

Suggest looking into the distribution requirements and in-college course/credit requirements at the various colleges.
I remember when my son was considering applying to one of the contract colleges he did this, and decided he would have to spend too much course time taking things he had no interest in. YMMV.

I was a chemistry major in the College of Arts and Sciences, and while I enjoyed it, the four required courses in physical chemistry (“P-chem”) pretty much destroyed my GPA. It didn’t seem to hurt me for law school, but from what I hear, GPA is everything for med school so you may want to re-think that major unless you are very strong in physics.That being said, some of my classmates did go on to med school, and this was a long time ago, so things may have changed. You should look at a list of the class requirements for each major and pick the one that you feel the strongest in. My husband was a biology major in CAS (went to med school) and he said organic chemistry was his hardest class. Orgo was a piece of cake compared to P-chem.

@monydad @patatty Thank you both! i ended up choosing HBHS in human eco. the only thing that keeps worrying me is that human eco is a contract college rather than a land grant college. I’ve looked into it a lot and most everyone says it doesn’t matter. However, when I apply to med school, do you think they may hold it against me if I graduated from Human Eco rather than from A&S or engineering?

I don’t have any first hand knowledge about med school admissions, but my husband was told recently that the College of Human Ecology has one of the best med school placement records around, and if you are really serious about med school, that is the place to be. Again, completely anecdotal, but I don’t think you can go wrong there. I have also heard that admissions there is very fit-based, so just make sure you explain how your interests coincide with that program.

Contract colleges and land-grant colleges are the same thing (CALS, Human Ecology, ILR, Vet School). Plenty of people from them get into med school each year. It doesn’t have a bearing on med school admissions at all.

@patatty thank you! and yes, in my essay I’m talking about both scientific and social components of the medical field

@Ranza123 great, thank you!