I know you can major in whatever you’d like, as long as you “meet the pre-med” requirements. What really is Pre-Med? is it an actual course of study or just a term used to describe it?
Nearly everywhere, it’s just a term. Some students think it makes them someone. Some students avoid it.
Penn State offers Pre-med as a major, but at every other college, “pre-med” is an intention to apply to med school at some point during undergrad or after graduation.
There are a set of required courses needed for med school admission, as well as a set of activities/experiences students are expected to have.
^^
Yes…premed is an “intention” at most schools. The classes are the same ones that other STEM students are taking…bio, chem, Ochem, physics, calc, biochem, psych, etc. As you can see, those classes don’t “make” somebody anything.
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Nearly everywhere, it's just a term. Some students think it makes them someone. Some students avoid it.
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lol…so true.
When you hear so many high school kids and college frosh saying that they’re “premed” or (worse) “going premed,” I want to tell them, “don’t announce that. In a couple of years, if you’re still premed, then fine, say so.” But with 75% of premeds never going to med school, it’s almost as bad as a high school JV football player announcing that he’s going to be in the NFL.
@mom2collegekids So you could major in whatever you wanted, as long as you take the classes required? Or is it even required or just suggested for entrance into medical school?
Correct. And yes, they are hard requirements, not recommendations (some schools have recommended requirements and they clearly separate them from the required requirements.
Premeds tend to end up as bio majors only because it kills two birds with one stone (it satisfies both reqs of major and predent reqs at same time) whereas if you’re say a psych major, you’ll have find time to fit in predent reqs. Also keep in mind that college profs don’t teach bio, chem, etc for predent (or premed) students, they just teach bio, chem, etc.
Sorry, I was cut and pasting from another post: Premeds tend to end up as bio majors only because it kills two birds with one stone (it satisfies both reqs of major and premed reqs at same time) whereas if you’re say a psych major, you’ll have find time to fit in premed reqs.
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@mom2collegekids So you could major in whatever you wanted, as long as you take the classes required? Or is it even required or just suggested for entrance into medical school?
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The premed prereqs aren’t “suggested”…they are required. There may be a couple of “suggested courses”, but there are a good number of REQUIRED premed prereqs.
You’re going to need to take certain chem and bio courses to be considered for acceptance into med school (and to help you learn concepts you’ll need to know for the MCATs) but you can major in anything you want as long as you can fit those courses in. I’ve known Classics majors who have gone to med school. They were students who had a strong GPA, took the required courses, and scored high on the MCATs. Some med schools even like to see students with a lot of courses outside the sciences.
These are the required pre-med classes:
2 semesters bio + labs
2 semesters gen chem + labs
2 semesters organic chem + labs
2 semesters physics + labs
1 semester biochem
1 semester statistics or biostatistics
1 semester “college level math” (usually Calc 1–some schools specifically require calc 1)
2 semesters of English composition or other “writing intensive” classes
additional courses needed for the MCAT, and required by some med schools
1 semester sociology
1 semester psych
Some medical schools may have other requirements (genetics, anatomy, human physiology, upper level humanities, Calc 2, medical ethics, etc). You’ll need to check the admissions page of individual med schools for details.
And yes, you can major in any field and still go to med school so long as you complete the required classes. There are a number of posters on this site whose children weren’t bio majors and still were accepted into med school. (Including both of mine.) Their majors include: English literature, classics, physics, computer science, mathematics, chemical engineering, sociology.
Among my older d’s med school classmates are a music theory & composition major, a forestry major, a religion/theology major and a couple of Spanish majors.