<p>Hi I plan on applying to med school or PT school (not sure yet) and I was planning on majoring in exercise physiology or athletic training at the university of Miami with a minor in sports medicine.</p>
<p>What does the minor do? Does it make you more competitive? And does this make it harder to fit pre med courses into my schedule?</p>
<p>A minor shows you took a specified number of courses in a subject area.</p>
<p>Med schools will not care about a minor, it does not make you more competitive.</p>
<p>Fitting together a schedule is a numbers game. The more ‘restrictions’ on which courses you need to take will make scheduling more difficult. The amount a minor (or a major) impacts scheduling premed coursework depends on how much overlap there is between premed requirements and the minor (or major) requirements. For instance, it’s going to be more restrictive to be premed and minor (or major) in English than Biology.</p>
<p>Unrequested input: Rather than worry about a minor, it would be much more beneficial for med school, to major in something more academic than vocational. So, rather than exercise phys or athletic training, major in physiology or biology. Majoring in something vocational WILL impact your med school application negatively.</p>
<p>p.s. you should read the sticky threads on the PreMed Topics forum.</p>
<p>What does the degree do for you? </p>
<p>The minor does basically the same thing as the major. It tells the person who is looking at your degree what you focused on. If it was a Bachelors of Science in Physics with a minor in Biology, it shows that you are focused into the bio-physics area.</p>
<p>When you ask “Does it make you more competitive?”, are you asking about medical school? </p>
<p>If so, the answer is no. The gist i have received is that it does not matter what you major in, in college. The only thing they care about is your GPA, not your degree. And of course that you have taken all the pre-med courses. But you can major in Dance and take all the pre-med courses… So yeah!</p>
<p>And if they don’t care about your degree, i highly doubt they care about your minor :P</p>