Hey Jae,
I was talking to an academic advisor and she recommended that if GPA is a concern (which it may be lol), I could major in something other than biology, but fulfill the premed requirements. With med school in mind. Any thoughts?

That advice: bull.

Changing one’s major does not necessarily imply a boost to GPA or med school admission chances. If science classes have you looking for “GPA buffer” classes, majoring outside of a stereotypical “premed major” won’t really save you–med school apps all calculate science GPA and overall GPA separately…and you can bet which one they pay a smidge more attention to. ;-)

Let’s think here: if we look at options purely from a numerical standpoint, we can break it down into the following:

  • X = # units in premed requirements
  • Y = # units in premed major, not counting overlap from X
  • Z = # units in a completely unrelated major with no overlapping courses
  • Z > Y >= X, generally speaking

This gives us the following possible permutations:

  • X + Y = completed premed major, with premed requirements fulfilled. Even with other general graduation requirements, this should leave you with a decent chunk of time left in your college career to do with as you please.
  • X + Z = non-premed major, with premed requirements fulfilled. Simply doing the math should tell you that this option will always cost you more time/units/planning than just going with X+Y. Is it worth it? Up to you.

Personally, I just went with a simple bio major. Why? It gave me a lot of time to work on other stuff like research, a computer science minor, social life, teaching, etc. Basically, in my case, it gave me nearly a year and a half do whatever I wanted. So much freedom after getting the do-a-major-so-you-don’t-have-to-worry-about-graduating-with-a-degree thing out of the way!

I understand this is a personal choice and I respect that. All I’m saying is, don’t listen to advice that doesn’t have at least some logic behind it. If anyone tries to sway you with the argument that having a non-stereotypical-premed major will make you really stand out and thus improve your admission chances, that’s nonsense too. Quite frankly, no one in med school gives a flying hoot what your major is as long as you’ve got the required coursework. Sure, it can make for some interesting conversation during an interview, but that shouldn’t be the one thing you’re banking on to get you accepted. For the record, we held a survey at the very beginning of the school year and it turns out the grand majority of my classmates graduated with premed majors. Admittedly, I’ve got classmates who are English majors. Another who’s a pianist. Another who somehow magically balances med school with being a mother of 4. Those are amazing parts of their identities, and I am so happy that I go to school with such a talented motley crew. But I somehow doubt that those traits are the biggest reason they got into med school, ya know? I suspect those special characteristics rounded out an equally amazing foundation. Just food for thought.

~~~~~

“Hey Jae” is a new series that publicly answers questions from pre-med students. I get these from time to time through facebook, e-mail, etc., so I figured if one person’s wondering, more likely are too. Feel free to pose a question of your own through my contact page! As always, best of luck. :-)

Hey Jae: pre-med GPA concerns