<p>You don’t need to worry about medical studies rankings at this point, because you won’t be studying medicine yet (despite you saying your intended major is pre-med. Pick something else, because pre-medical studies isn’t a major at the vast majority of universities in the U.S., it’s a concentration or preparation track).</p>
<p>For medical education, the most important components of your application will be your GPA, your MCAT scores, and any research or clinical medical experiences you may have prior to admission into medical school - like a summer REU. You could always go to UF and do a summer medical experience at Yale or Johns Hopkins, and in fact, I had several friends from college who did just that and successfully got into top medical schools.</p>
<p>Also, while I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad idea to have Annapolis on the list (I considered the Naval Academy along with civilian schools, although I ultimately decided not to apply)…do be aware that you incur a service obligation if you go that route and that you may not be released to attend medical school directly after graduation. Getting an educational delay for your contractually obligated service in order to attend medical school is a competitive process and not everyone gets selected. If you don’t mind the idea of possibly having to serve 4-5 years on active duty before going to medical school as an unrestricted officer, then by all means go that route.</p>
<p>An ROTC scholarship is a terrible back-up plan. First of all, it’s not much of a back-up, because they’re competitive! That’s like saying if you don’t get into Harvard, Duke is your back-up plan. Second of all, the USNA is not the same as an ROTC scholarship. They’re completely different. NROTC midshipman live a normal college student life most of the time but do drills and PT two days out of the week and summer cruises. USNA midshipmen live the military lifestyle every day.</p>
<p>You should major in what you want to major in. I have had lots of biology major friends aim for medical school, but I also had a lot of psychology major friends, a couple of friends in economics, and one in philosophy who ended up going to medical school. That’s the beauty of medicine - you don’t NEED any specific major to apply to medical school, just a sequence of courses, and in the end another major may help you understand medical practice in a way that biology or chemistry majors cannot. Practicing medicine isn’t all about the body systems; it’s also about interacting with your patients and their families (psychology and sociology are good for that), and understanding trends in medical and health economics and policy (economics, business-management).</p>
<p>Any variety of majors can be great - but don’t discount biology simply because you want to “stand out.” Medical schools are tired of bio because it’s common, but it’s common because a lot of people pick it as the <em>default</em> major because they think they have to or that it will raise their chances somehow. If you really love biology - maybe do research in it, do a summer research program, write a paper for it, etc - your passion will shine through. But you don’t have to major in a science program; you can major in art history if you really want to. I’ve read a similar list to the one mentioned by a previous poster and noticed that engineering majors seem to do really well in medical school admissions.</p>
<p>Also, a nursing major - well, I think I have mixed feelings about it. My mother’s a nurse and my sister is a nursing major at a university. On the one hand, nursing programs prepare you for nursing, which is in the same general field as being a physician but quite different from it. On the other hand, a nursing major can be excellent preparation for medical school, particularly the clinicals and the programs which will be kind of like medical school classes lite (like pharmacology, for example). I also think that the experience of being a nurse could really help doctors. IME (and I admit I’m biased - there are a lot of nurses in my family) nurses have a much better bedside manner than doctors, and you really learn to interact with your patients and have a better understanding of the circumstances that influence their health. You may then take these experiences into your medical education.</p>
<p>Also, a nursing major opens up your possibilities in allied health - instead of becoming a physician, you may instead decide to remain a nurse, become a research nurse, become a nurse practitioner (which perform many of the same duties as a family practitioner), become a physician’s assistant, become an occupational or physical therapist, even become a hospital administrator or a health care consultant…the options within medicine and allied health are very great, and it kind of pains me to realize that so many potential college students go into it with this very narrow-minded view of being a physician, railroading themselves through pre-med courses and medical school, and that colleges don’t make the effort to expand the career opportunities in health care that college students have. A nursing major is excellent preparation for any of those careers (in fact, at least half of PAs are nurses before they become PAs, because you’re required to have some kind of clinical experience before entering the program).</p>