What are the popular pre-med majors in UCs and CSUs? Please list them for each campus like UCB/UCLA/UCSD/UCI/UCSB/UCD/UCR/UCSC/UCM Also SDSU/SJSU/CSULB/CalStateLA/FresnoState/etc.
Kid has got
Chemical engineering at UCSB,
Biomedical engineering at UCD and UCMerced.
Pharmacology at USC
Got pre-nursing with honors college CalStateLA and most CSUs.
Since most people suggest taking Biochem, now thinking of studying at @CC and transferring to UCs or CSUs.
Also, we don’t know the reasons why we are discouraged from taking nursing to the MD route.
Since the student already has acceptances into several UC’s and CSU’s, they can change their major at UCSB, UCD or UCM or any of the CSU’s. Much easier to switch out of Engineering majors into Biochemistry if that is what they want to pursue. No need to go to a CC and transfer.
For UCD: Change of Major Accompanied by Change of College for Biochemistry:
A change of major petition, available on the OASIS portal at https://students.ucdavis.edu/, must be approved by a faculty or staff advisor of the new major you are selecting. In addition, admission to the new college will require that dean’s approval. To obtain that approval, you must be in good academic standing (qualitatively and quantitatively), meet all minimum GPA criteria, including those for the major, and satisfy any other admission requirements established by the new college.
All students planning to change their major to a CBS major must consult with a Biology Academic Success Center (BASC) advisor before filing a change of major petition. A BASC advisor must approve the student’s change of major petition and academic plan outlining all remaining requirements needed for graduation for a student to be able to change to CBS major after attaining senior standing.
UC Merced:
FALL 2023 FIRST YEAR ADMITS
After you submit a Statement of Intent to Register (SIR), you will have one opportunity to change your major between March 15 - May 15, 2023.
Note that faculty in some majors may not allow changes at this time.
To access the webform, see Step 8 in the Next Steps tab on the admitted student site.
If you miss the May 15 deadline, your next opportunity to change your major will be after Fall 2023 grades have been posted in late December.
Just remember that switching back into an Engineering major may not be possible so make sure they are set on another non-engineering major.
to answer your question, Bio is probably the most ‘popular’. But as others have noted, you can major in anything, including humanities such as philosophy or a foreign language or even music. Just take the recommended prereqs and get A’s.
Med schools is brutally competitive for California residents so I would counsel against attending a Cal State. And definitely not pre-nursing for med school. The curriculum is significantly different, i.e., lighter. For example, the required Fundamentals of Chem class at Cal State LA is not acceptable for Engineering or Physics majors; it is a lower level than AP Chem. (Thus it is not acceptable for med school.)
Ok, thanks. will not send to CalStateLA or any CSU. May I request what you mean by bio? The kid has completed 21 courses from CC already. Given the brutal Med competition, thought of completing some more IGETC courses at CC and transferring to UC 1) to boost GPA and 2) to save money. Is it a good idea to go to CC? Or go to UCSB/UCD/UCM and study Bio or anything recommended. SINCE the kid is interested in Math and Science, sure will ask to study Biology or Biochemistry. Also which one is difficult BIOLOGY or Biochemistry or Pharmacology. The kid studied until Calculus III/ Gen Chem. 1/ Physics/ Biology from CC while in HS
Attending a cc can work, but risky. (Thousands of other med applicants will have all coursework from a 4-year.). Plan on a gap year so she can take upper level science courses at the 4-year to demonstrate strength in those area. An A in Organic Chem taken at a cc for example, will be discounted in the eyes of an admissions Rep.
A 4.0 in Organic Chem from a community college is not the same as a 4.0 from Stanford or Berkeley or USC or Caltech or Harvard or Yale or [fill in name]. (don’t forget, there are plenty of CA residents who attend a top tier undergrad out of state but then apply to med school in CA. Those applicants are all in competition.)
cc has a good premed thread, so you might want to spend some time on there
Given the brutal Med competition, thought of completing some more IGETC courses at CC and transferring to UC 1) to boost GPA and 2) to save money. Is it a good idea to go to CC?
Adcomms at med schools are aware that students use CC credits to artificially inflate their GPAs and will take that into consideration when making decisions about which students to interview.
Additionally, not every medical school will accept CC credits for pre-reqs. Other med schools severely limit the number of CC credits they will accept for pre-reqs. ALL medical schools expect students who take CC courses to supplement those CC credits with additional upper level electives in the same dept at a 4 year college.
Please read this pinned thread for more information about AP, IB and CC credits and med school admission.
I’m trying to figure out if your child has already been admitted or if they are planning on applying in the future. If they are already admitted, why do you need to know the popular majors? Has this thread veered off topic and become 4 year vs transfer? Or is that the real question you are asking?
Nursing programs are for students who want to become nurses. It is a professional program in itself and isn’t a major for students interested in other health professions.
The UC Transfer Admission Guarantee (TAG) program is a great opportunity. Note that UCLA, UCSD and Berkeley accept transfers but do not participate in the guarantee like the other 6 campuses do.
Transferring will help save money and may give a student the chance to mature before starting a 4 year college. Doing it as a strategy to gain entrance into med school, in my opinion, wouldn’t be the best strategy. The UCs are rigorous and fast paced (most are quarter sys). It is difficult for a transfer student to jump in junior year and compete for top grades against students who have been in that rigorous, fast paced system for two years.
Your child does not need to major in biology or biochemistry to go to med school. My daughters’ classmates in med school had majors that included forestry, gender studies, sociology, English Lit, theology/religious studies, music theory, Italian, enology, business, physics and computer science, as well the more common biology, biochemistry, BME, chemistry, and neuroscience.
So long as your child has fulfilled the admission coursework requirements, they can be considered for admission.
Please be aware that only ~16% of freshmen pre-meds actually persist to complete all med school pre-req classes and of those who do persist and actually apply to med school, only about 36-37% get an acceptance.
Gaining an acceptance to med school involves much, much more than just having good grades and completing the pre-reqs. Students need to embody these 16 Core Competencies
Your child need to have Plan B career in mind when it comes to choosing a major since the odds say they will not get accepted to med school. (This is the same exact advice I gave my own daughters. )
Post-graduation employment for biology majors is not especially good. Biochemistry is better, but a post-graduation job is not guaranteed.
Already mentioned those admitted majors in the first post, but the kid would like to pursue medicine. Not sure, how chemical engineering/pharmacology will help med school admission and the kid plans to change majors as everyone is saying engineering is a difficult one to get a 4.0. Since we don’t know what major to change. Now it all comes to changing majors to either Biology or Biochemistry. Mostly, the kid may choose Biochemistry due the interest in Math & Science.
It won’t since med school adcomm sincerely do not care what major an applicant has.
the kid plans to change majors as everyone is saying engineering is a difficult one to get a 4.0.
A 4.0 is not needed to get into med school. GPA is only one of many factors that med schools use when making a decision about who to interview. Med school admission is much more than just stats. Every year ~20% of applicants with perfect stats are rejected at every med school they apply to.
A med school applicant doesn’t need to be a perfect 4.0 scholar; they just need to show they are a “good enough” student that they can master the huge amounts of material that med students are expected to learn during the first & second year of med school.
Engineering prepares one to be an engineer so it’s not the best choice if one wants to become a doctor and, indeed, it’s harder to keep high grades.
Biomedical engineering is probably the closest to “related to medicine” though.
I’d pick Davis over Merced for sure.
Pharmacology at USC seems very well suited for premeds, especially if the student takes the “advanced chemistry” and ‘advanced biology’ sequences + Biostats class, then complements these with organic chemistry and an algebra-based physics sequence.
In addition, it’s a ready-made “plan B” (which all premeds need to have).
Since she likes math, why not major in Applied Math with some applications to Biology or Chemistry (available at Davis)?
For my UCLA peers, most premed hopefuls are Psychobiology, Neuroscience, MIMG, Biochemistry, Human Biology and Society, and Physiological Science majors. Some are also Bioengineering.
nursing has its own science requirements and classes that may not fulfill the admission requirements for med school. Often college have a separate science track for allied health science majors that teaching different material/has a different emphasis than what science for science majors classes teach although the class names may be identical. A pre-med must take the same science classes a biology or chemistry major would take. Any other level/type of class is not acceptable to med schools
med schools are reluctant to “poach” students from other healthcare fields. Nurses especially are in desperately short supply right now. Med schools expect students who are in other healthcare fields to have actually worked in those fields first before applying to med school. Usually for several years. Nurses and other healthcare professionals who apply to med school will be asked to explain why they are leaving their profession and to explain how studying medicine will alleviate the issues they found in their previous career.
Since it is financially difficult for us to send our kid to UCSB or UCD or USC, we strongly think of sending our kid to CC and then maybe transferring to UCs. Financial Aid given may cover little of the total estimation ($42,000 per year) for UCs but not enough and very difficult to pay for 4-year tuition. May I know what are all the issues in applying as a transfer pre-med student later to get into some Biomed major in any UCs/USC? Was told that if we did not accept the admission now, it would be an issue later applying as a transfer student. We did not get UCLA admission this time. Thinking of UCLA as a transfer student. The senior HS kid has already completed Chem 1, Physics 1(classical mechanics), Bio 101, and Calculus III (multivariable) in CC. Also I was told its better to transfer to schools that have hospital for Shadowing/clinical voulnteering. UCSB does not have.
Also if considering Bio-related majors then attending a CC and meeting the TAG (Transfer Admission Guarantee) requirements, the student had 6 campus options currently where they are guaranteed admission and apply as a regular transfer to the other 3 UC’s. You can only TAG to one campus. https://admission.universityofcalifornia.edu/counselors/_files/documents/tag-matrix.pdf
If going the CC-> UC/CSU route, your daughter should choose a biological science major.
Because TAG requires your daughter to take all/nearly all of her med school science pre-req classes at the CC, she will need to take multiple challenging, upper level biochem and bio classes at her 4 year college to convince adcomms that any good CC grades aren’t flukes or due to a less competitive environment/less challenging coursework. The most straight-forward way to do this is to enroll as a biology major of some type.
BME/ChemE and nursing will be off the table as possible majors. Possibly biochemistry/pharmacology as well.
How would non-biology BCPM majors (i.e. chemistry, physics, math) be seen by medical school admissions readers in this context, if the student takes substantial CPM upper division courses for the major after transfer, plus upper division biochemistry, genetics, etc.?