<p>I know that when the question is asked "does your major matter?" everyone points toward the AAMC's aggregate data about how all majors are accepted with the same percentages.</p>
<p>However, for those who are pursuing a top-20 med school (for whatever reason, academic or ROAD to success), your major does matter.</p>
<p>Think about it, lets say you want to major in Biological Sciences. Med school admission is already very competitive, but at top-20 you will be competing against that 4.0 Bio major from Berkeley. Science majors are insane about their GPA, and can ace tests with much more ease than a liberal arts major (even one who is good at their discipline).</p>
<p>However, if you major in something with more of a liberal arts spin, such as Government, you will most likely be competing against perhaps a 3.8.</p>
<p>Of course, GPA isn't the end all and be all of admissions, but it is something to consider.</p>
<p>What? Your post is riddled with (poor) mathematical assumptions:</p>
<p>1.) Premeds are only compulsive if they're a science major.
2.) Biological sciences are easy enough that working harder results in (much) higher GPAs.
3.) Medical school admissions committees don't notice and adjust for differences in mean major GPA.
4.) Apparently only low-ranked medical schools like science majors, while high-ranked medical schools prefer non-science majors? And, apparently, this distinction happens suddenly after the 20-school cutoff point.</p>
<p>A silly post full of poor argumentation.</p>
<p>Data, data, data. Everything needs to be data-driven. And, as you yourself point out, the data come down firmly on one side of the issue.</p>
<p>this is usually the argument for people who take hard majors but have a bad gpa. the sad truth is, major in what you WILL DO WELL IN. a huge part of the process is a numbers game and, lets face it, a 3.8 is just WAY better than a 3.3.</p>
<p>The best residents I have worked with at the Harvard teaching hospital where I work had the following premed majors:
English, Sociology/social work, nutrition, psychology
Just my 2 cents</p>
<p>bruinboy - the oft quoted aamc data seems to me to directly contradict your point, the fact that virtually every major is admitted in the same proportion as the applicant pool to me implies a certain degree of understanding the degree of difficulty of various programs on the part of medical school admissions people. This of course does not take into account those students who are weeded out and never apply, but in most cases the weeding out occurs due to difficulties in taking the standard premed coursework, which everyone does regardless of major.</p>
<p>I have a question: Does anyone think that the AAMC data might be deceiving in the sense that a biology major who has a borderline resume for medical school is more likely to apply then a non natural science major who has a borderline resume for medical school? If so, then the AAMC data could be a little deceiving, and a biology major who is at the same level as a non natural science major might actually have an advantage in admissions.</p>
<p>The reason why I ask the question is because I don't think it's unreasonable to assume that a middling biology major who has had his/her heart set on medical school since high school is more likely to apply than a middling non natural science major who is MOST LIKELY not as fanatical about medical school and has other options.</p>
<p>^In that case, you'd expect the average GPA of bio majors applying to be lower than the average GPA of humanities majors. However, AAMC data shows that is not the case. In fact, the average GPA appears to be the same across majors. The acceptance rates are also approx the same which supports the idea that major simply doesn't matter much. It might also suggest that non-science majors might not be as easy as we thought. It's not like we're seeing all these 3.8 English majors applying while the physics majors only have 3.2's. AAMC data shows that the average GPA of physical sciences applicants is 3.5 while the average GPA of social science/humanities majors to be approx. 3.4-3.5.</p>
<p>phillySAS: you made a good point. I'm kinda confused about the data myself. If the data has average gpa's for every major, and they show that the average for matriculating engineers was a 3.2 while the average for matriculating english majors is a 3.6 then that would make sense.</p>
<p>I dont think (again, im not sure about this) that this kind of breakdown is given. It just gives the average gpa of all matriculants and the percentage of each major getting in. So we're just *assuming *that all the engineers are applying with low gpa's and all the psych majors are applying with high gpa's when this may not in fact be the case.</p>
<p>**damnit, i just repeated with norcalguy said....</p>
<p>^The data does give GPA's by major. And, as I said above, the GPA's are mostly within 0.1 of each other. This is weird to me because humanities courses do indeed have higher medians than science courses on average so it would stand to reason that someone who is a humanities major would apply with a higher GPA than someone who is a science major. But, the best humanities majors (the ones with the highest GPA's) are apparently not applying to med school.</p>
<p>The thing is, unless you are entering an MD/PhD or HST program, you just don't need to know that much science. They will teach you what you need to know. The extra science that one would learn from an undergrad degree in biochem, neuroscience, etc is useful, but so far from necessary that med schools do not pay much attention to major in making admissions decisions. They look for self disciplined strong students (this is why they care about gpa), with what looks like a sincere interest in a medical career. They LOVE to have a variety of backgrounds, but since people apply from all sorts of majors, this is not a secret back door strategy.</p>
<p>This is why the classic advice remans:Pick a major that appeals to you, do well, prepare for the MCAT, get a background in medicine so you know what you are getting into.</p>
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I dont think (again, im not sure about this) that this kind of breakdown is given. It just gives the average gpa of all matriculants and the percentage of each major getting in. So we're just assuming that all the engineers are applying with low gpa's and all the psych majors are applying with high gpa's when this may not in fact be the case.
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^The data does give GPA's by major. And, as I said above, the GPA's are mostly within 0.1 of each other. This is weird to me because humanities courses do indeed have higher medians than science courses on average so it would stand to reason that someone who is a humanities major would apply with a higher GPA than someone who is a science major. But, the best humanities majors (the ones with the highest GPA's) are apparently not applying to med school.
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<p>Why argue about it when the data is freely available?</p>
<p>I took a look at the 2003 data. Looking at matriculants, humanities and social science majors have a statistically significantly lower GPA than bio majors. Implies that it is EASIER to get in! And given claims of grade inflation in the social sciences and humanities compared to the physical sciences, this is curious.</p>
<p>You could either interpret that as a self-selection or as an indication that adcoms care less about most of an English's major's coursework (since they don't think it's very applicable) and use other metrics instead to evaluate their application.</p>
<p>FWIW, looking at MCAT scores, the hums folks have statistically higher verbal scores (no surprise, after all, one would presume all that work reading and writing would have some positive impact...) but no statistical difference in PS or BS scores.</p>
<p>BDM, It can't be self selection, since that effect occurs BEFORE admission and matriculation.</p>
<p>And while it may be true that the adcoms "care less", is that consistent with the oft stated observation that med school admissions is very numbers driven? You may be correct, though, that other things count more. Or, 2003 could be an outlier. I'd need to look at more years, but I have my day job...maybe later.</p>
<p>But, if you look at the APPLICANT data, humanities majors apply with practically the same GPA as bio majors. So, that would indicate that claims of grade inflation in the humanities and social sciences are exagerrated.</p>