Why your major matters for competitive med school admissions...

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
21

<p>I should have been more clear. </p>

<p>Self-selection:If I were going to argue that English majors have an easier time, that would seem to be inconsistent with the data we see about how the percentages are pretty close. One way to reconcile that would be by saying that only the best biology majors apply (self-selection), while more English majors apply.</p>

<p>Caring less: Two possible explanations. </p>

<p>1.) **Threshold effect: **First, med school admissions really isn't all that numbers driven. Of course numbers matter, but the most important part of them is as a threshold effect -- that is, once you're above the median (often a 3.6/30), extra numbers provide a relatively small boost.</p>

<p>2.) Science coursework only. Maybe admissions committees are simply ignoring overall GPA (relatively) and putting more weight on science GPAs. If an English major has a competitive science GPA, their overall GPA may not be very well correlated with that -- since they take so many English classes. On the other hand, a biology major with a competitive science GPA must also have a competitive overall GPA, giving the appearance that science majors overall have better GPAs than English majors.</p>

22

<p>I really find the speculation of some minute advantage based on major extremely frivolous. Look, if you're in college you should be taking the classes/choosing the major that you're interested in, and that you will therefore show the most growth and the best grades in - this will ultimately help you get into med school more than the wacked out logic of looking at the extremely small differences in GPA between majors of accepted students. If you work hard and do a good job in something you like to do, you're probably going to get into med school - don't look for a quick fix or some speculative advantage, it's really not worth it.</p>

23

<p>^I agree 100%</p>

24

<p>Ignore these tiny differences in gpa. Get the best grades you can. Pick majors and courses that will lead you to a strong transcript.</p>

<p>Without knowing the rest of the application impossible to interpret. Hypothesis: humanities and social sciences majors have more time, so they have better medicine-related extracurricular activities.</p>

<p>Hypothesis 2: insignificant random variation in gpa</p>