<p>There is an idea floating around that MCB is not the premed major, but how come when you look at <a href="https://career.berkeley.edu/major/major.stm%5B/url%5D">https://career.berkeley.edu/major/major.stm</a> you see that only a few IB majors make it to medical school. You would think that a typical pre med would choose IB in order to get a higher gpa for medical school and that because of this there would be more IB majors who got accepted to medical school than MCB. It just seems that MCB is preferred when you look at all of the medical school acceptances from that major. What are you thoughts on why that is?</p>
<p>A couple reasons (out of the many more out there):</p>
<p>1) The survey is based on self-reporting. You won’t necessarily get an accurate representation of the graduating classes as a whole.</p>
<p>2) MCB and IB are sort of naturally self-selecting. The kids who are more willing to grind it out will stay in MCB. Those who prefer something lighter will go IB. And we all know what kind of mentality and disposition get you into and through med school.</p>
<p>3) MCATs. Which major’s curriculum is more directly related to the material that is tested? IB has more classes that deal with macro-scale biology and students quickly forget all that intro bio/chem/physics.</p>
<p>4) Research opportunities. MCB is bigger and its professors’ research emphases are more in line with clinical pursuits. Perhaps this leads to more impressive research resumes? It’s hard to say.</p>