<p>I think as ucbalumnus said the major problem is all of the students who entered college as Biology majors thinking they would become medical doctors but graduate from college with a degree in Biology and never come close to becoming doctors. The 60% of actual applicants to medical school who do not receive a single offer of admission, about 25,000 people, is only the tip of the iceberg of one time aspiring physicians who end up with a BS in the Biosciences but do not go on to even apply to medical school because they realize with their statistics, the grueling task of applying through AAMCAS to medical schools would be an expensive exercise in futility. </p>
<p>High school students who do well in their courses in high school, and are constantly told by their families that they should become doctors since they are so smart, way overestimate their chances of actually being accepted into a medical school some day and reality does not really start to set in until they are juniors and seniors in college when they are pretty much committed to getting a Biology degree. You see it all the time on the pre-med site; some high school student or college freshman asking what he or she has to do to be sure they will get into a top ten medical school since any lower ranked medical school would be unthinkable for them when it is clear that the chances of them getting into any medical school are vanishingly small. As long as one in five college freshman are convinced that they will be doctors some day there is going to be a glut of Biology/Biochemistry/Chemistry majors who did not get into medical school and will be looking for any job they can get.</p>