<p>I was talking with my friend the other day about our college plans when she told me that her advisor at USC told her to major in History in order to have a better chance towards gaining admission to Med school. I mean, we've been good friends for the past 3 years and all she ever took was physics, physics, physics and like some crazy maths. She never once showed any interest in history.<br>
Seriously?<br>
I've heard of stories of people majoring in Music then going off to Med school but is this a risky path to take? My friend graduated Valedictorian from our school and she originally planned on majoring in Biophysics -believe me, she could man-handle those problems in class with her eyes closed.
Once she said that, I started thinking about my major (Biochemistry) but I think that majors will ultimately not matter in the med school's eyes. </p>
<p>Any pre-med veterans out there like to share their wisdom?</p>
<p>Med schools pretty much don’t care what you major in. As a tie breaker, they might take a humanities major but this is after GPA, MCAT, interview, essays, demographics, EC’s, research, clinical experience, recommendation letters, personal statement are considered. It seems to be a waste of time and money to major in something you don’t like in order to have this “tie breaker.”</p>
<p>That said, I do think it’s useful to take a few humanities/social science courses during undergrad. There’s just no reason to major in them.</p>
<p>Unless of course you really like humanities/social sciences classes and think you would be highly successful in them due to your interest level/passion. </p>
<p>FWIW…Two of my son’s roommates and med school classmates are USC grads and both were non science majors…seems like it might be a common recommendation at USC…??</p>
<p>I put this in another thread and have not received any response so I am reposting here hoping to get some perspectives from others.</p>
<p>My S finished his first year at one of the top 20 universities. We are talking about him transferring to our state university this coming fall for a number of reasons. We still do not know his financial aid package from his current college. How is it going to be viewed on his medical school application going from a top university to a state university?</p>
<p>eadad: Yeah, I’ve heard of other people doing the same thing at USC. From what i understand their main motive behind this is that they’ll have a higher chance getting a better GPA than in more difficult major like Biochem or bioph- x{.<br>
Makes sense once i really started thinking about.</p>
<p>It really depends on the whole package. For example, if friend got C’s at private, top 20 college, s/he’ll will need practically all A’s at State college to show grad schools that s/he can perform at a high level.</p>
<p>Many students at top schools decide to major in “easier” major to get a better GPA and thus have a better chance of getting into med school. I know at Penn, if you major in history, people assume youre doing pre-med, weird, but true.</p>
<p>This is the impression I had about pre-med after reading CC’s posts over the past half year. Yes, major matters. And, it has advantages avoiding a major in science or engineering. Nonetheless, it is hard for me to believe that a student who does not like sciences would want to be a doctor. My son likes sciences and he wants to work in the medical fields. He will have to major in science in case his pursuit of medical school is not successful.</p>
<p>Umm, not really. What does matters much more is science gpa. Heck, music majors (or is it philosophy majors – I forgot which) have the highest acceptance rate to med school (on % basis). (Of course, not many of them apply, so the denominator is small). But the point is that a student who can ace undergrad sciences while still practicing instruments for hours/day is highly rewarded by professional schools.</p>
<p>Or look at it another way: bio majors will include all the premed requirements, but such students sometimes struggle with the mcat VR, whereas an English (or philosophy) minor will be much better prepared for that section.</p>
<p>Interesting that you presume that a premed who majors in a non-science “does not like sciences”. Some people have multiple interests and talents ;).</p>
<p>Like many others who are non science majors, my son realized that once in med school virtually ALL you study is science related and he wanted to do something else during his undergrad so that he could broaden himself and study something else that was of interest to him.</p>
<p>I was trying to be sarcastic about about pre-med majors. After being on CC for half year, I have accepted the notion that major does not matter IF one can get into a medical school. However, major may matter a lot if one can’t get into a medical school. </p>
<p>As far as MCAT VR is concerned, I certainly hope that the pre-med science students who got SAT CR scores of 750 or lower get serious on reading right away for their own sake. </p>
<p>entomom,</p>
<p>My comments were reflecting the two posts regarding the examples in USC and UPenn. I do not doubt students who have multiple interests. However, I am wondering why someone, if he/she is truly interested in medicine related careers, would want to risk majoring in something other than science which may prevent him/her from pursuing the medical career if the pursuit of medical school is not successful. And, I doubt there are many students who are 100% sure that they will be in medical school.</p>
<p>ace,
I get the feeling that the people that major in non-science fields in order to raise their gpa don’t want to pursue a “medical career” outside of being a doctor, it’s Med school or bust. </p>
<p>At D1s school, she says the premed major of choice for gpa bumping is psychology; all the history majors are heading towards Law school :rolleyes:.</p>
A more likely scenario is that a premed who majors in a non-science “does not like taking too many labs, each of which gives only 1/2 credit for the amount of efforts he needs to put in.” Another potential reason is that she does not want to wake up early in the morning almost every weekday and to walk a long distance to a science class – especially during winter.
DS once mentioned that psychology is actually a quite “good” premed major. But I do not know for sure what he meant by a “good” major in this context though. Another saying that I heard all the time is that being a hardcore premed (who may be surrounded by too many premeds by necessity) may taint (if not ruin) your college experiences to some extent. He said everybody seems to be exhausted after even a TA-led session. This is because everybody appears to be so well prepared before the class. The TA as well as most of the students are intense. The first sentence the TA said is always “There is a lot of stuff to go over today, so let us get started…” And she races through tons of materials. I heard the test average of the students in her session beat the test average of graduate students.</p>
It appears to me that MCAT VR may be much harder than SAT. DS never missed 800 SAT CR (and 80 on PSAT) but it was a rude awakening for him that MCAT VR is so much harder (but he basically refused to spend much time on preparing any standardized tests including MCAT. This may be a stupid move for him – but he himself seems to be OK with this. Who knows whether he may regret this decision if his score turns out to be not good enough for the mid-tier schools he targets?!)</p>
<p>One question in my mind is, as compared to a humanity major, whether being a science major for 4 years may hurt a person’s VR score if he does not intentionally prepare for it. After all, a science major may spend a lot of time in the lab playing with the lab equipment while a humanity major reads one book after another. I heard at Penn, most premed students postpone their orgo labs to senior years after MCAT because of their low yields on MCAT.</p>
<p>Maybe a philosophy and religious study classes may include good reading materials for preparing MCAT VR, as the professor tends to ask the students to study a lot of hard materials. The bio or other science textbooks are relatively easy read.</p>