collageThough many premedical students focus on choosing the right undergraduate major, they might also be interested in selecting a minor that prepares them for a career in medicine. While minors are arguably less important than majors, taking time to concentrate on a particular field of interest can both demonstrate a specific passion and help you acquire the skills necessary to succeed as a physician.
Before you apply to med school, you’ll need to take a slate of pre-med courses, which vary somewhat from med school to med school, and from college to college. You’ll also need to fulfill your college’s requirements for general education courses. But, even as a prospective medical student with so many requirements on your plate, your major and minor are up to you!
But how to choose, especially when you’re in such a rhythm of checking off necessary coursework boxes? Below, we’ll walk you through
All you have to do is read on to get up to date and verified information on best pre med minors, applying for medicine 2021, medical school entry requirements 2021, applying for medicine 2021 uk, graduate entry medicine, medicine entry requirements, medical school requirements, medicine admission & medicine course on collegelearners.
How to Select the Right Minor as a Premed Student
A college minor is optional but may help you distinguish your medical school application.
Though many premedical students focus on choosing the right undergraduate major, they might also be interested in selecting a minor that prepares them for a career in medicine. While minors are arguably less important than majors, taking time to concentrate on a particular field of interest can both demonstrate a specific passion and help you acquire the skills necessary to succeed as a physician.
Determine whether you should declare a minor.
Remember that minors are optional. A minor can be a nice addition to a medical school application, but it is unlikely to make or break an acceptance.
Before committing to a minor, decide whether you have time in your schedule to complete the involved coursework. If you have already selected a time-intensive major, such as one that requires many classes with labs, adding a minor might detract from your academic performance in your major.
In addition, if you still have many general education requirements to complete along with your major requirements, fitting in additional coursework may not be feasible. Other considerations, like participation in athletics, extracurriculars, paid work or volunteer activities, may also limit the time available for you to complete minor coursework.
Before you submit the paperwork to declare a minor, be realistic about time constraints, scheduling conflicts and other commitments that may have an impact on your ability to successfully complete your major and minor.
you ultimately decide to complete a minor, congratulations! Now, how should you choose the subject?
Consider your premed requirements.
If you have selected a major with requirements that do not overlap with mandatory premed coursework, consider choosing a minor that will help you complete your medical school prerequisites.
For example, if you are majoring in math, choosing a biology or chemistry minor can help you check off introductory courses that are required to apply to medical school.
Weigh how your potential minor helps you gain the soft skills needed as a physician.
You do not need to minor in a hard science in order to build your medical school application.
Minoring in psychology or sociology, for example, can help you gain insight into human motivation and behavior. Coursework in English or the fine arts has been shown to foster empathy in future physicians. And studying a foreign language like Spanish can help you communicate with a large population of U.S. patients.
Remember that success in medical school and as a physician rests not only on your understanding of medical science, but also on your ability to empathize and communicate with your patients – in other words, on soft skills.
Follow an interest or passion.
Medical schools are interested in candidates who do not necessarily fit the traditional mold of a premed student. As long as you demonstrate interest in, commitment to and aptitude for science and medicine, exploring other interests during your undergraduate years will not negatively affect your medical school application.
Demonstrating diversified interests may even help you get the attention of admissions committees, and it can give you something different to talk about in medical school interviews.
It is unlikely that you will get the opportunity to intensively explore an academic subject as a medical student or resident, so it may be wise to take advantage of that opportunity as an undergraduate.
About Graduate Entry Medicine
As an undergraduate, my peers recommended majoring in biology as a matter of pragmatics because many of the medical school class prerequisites were included in the major. And, after all, a quarter of the MCAT exam is dedicated to biology and biochemistry. Convenience, rather than true compatibility, seemed to be the primary motivation behind this common logic shared among pre-med students.
In the end, majoring in biology wasn’t the right path for me, and I suspect the same is true for many other pre-med students. Declaring your major in college is a choice with consequences, and one that should be made with careful reflection of your individual goals and interests. The purpose of this article is to dispel the common misconceptions about the definitive “best major” for pre-med students and instead provide a framework (and some tips) for thinking about what could be the best major for you.
Year after year, well over half of all U.S. medical school applicants major in biology or a related biological science like physiology or genetics. Although biology and its cousins have long been some of the most popular college majors for pre-med students, there is little evidence to correlate biology’s popularity with its preparatory aptness for medical school. In fact, according to a recent report published by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), applicants who majored in the biological sciences were among the least likely to gain acceptance to medical school (AAMC 2018-2019 Data, Table A-17).
But Isn’t Biology Required?
To be clear, medical schools do not require that applicants major in biology. Rather, there are a particular set of core prerequisite courses that need to be completed. These prerequisites include english, biology, inorganic chemistry, organic chemistry, and physics, although the exact courses may vary slightly among schools (see the AAMC’s Medical School Admissions Requirements service for details). These courses may be fulfilled as part of a major in a scientific discipline or as elective courses in an entirely distinct field of study (e.g., music, literature). Students in medical school come from a range of academic backgrounds.
A good understanding of science is key for pre-med students. For this reason, advisors emphasize the importance of taking scientific coursework and dedicating the necessary amount of time to mastering its key concepts. That being said, medicine is much more than science; it is trans-disciplinary and operates at the intersection of many different fields of study. Accordingly, successful applicants are those who demonstrate a working understanding of ideas from other disciplines (e.g., ethics, management).
One of the best ways of developing this understanding is to take advantage of the freedom you have in designing your own path of study. Choose your elective courses purposefully, as you can learn a great deal from classes that do not have an obvious connection to medicine or even your specific major. When choosing your courses, make sure to include the required prerequisites for medical school (and for your major), but think less about “checking boxes” on an application and more about how to pick courses which provide an opportunity for you to learn something you find interesting or relevant.
The Value of Standing Out
Last year, over 52,000 pre-med students applied to U.S medical schools (A-17). Given the limited number of spots available for each incoming class, admissions committees must identify the best candidates within this veritable flood of qualified students. This task is further complicated by the fact that the vast majority of pre-med students have shared a similar set of experiences (e.g., same coursework, volunteering in a clinic). As a pre-med student, your goal should be to cultivate a set of experiences that make your application stand out among the crowd. Consider doing something unique that sets you apart, like shadowing physicians abroad with Atlantis.
One of the easiest ways to separate yourself from the crowd is to choose a different path of study, especially if it provides opportunities uniquely suited to your interests. Imagine you had just interviewed 10 medical school applicants who had majored in biology, and the next student on your interview list studied economics. This is a marked contrast, one that is sure to generate questions—this student deliberately chose to do something different. Wouldn’t you be interested in knowing why? Applications that stand out are more likely to be remembered, and from an admissions standpoint, students with unique experiences and perspectives are valuable in that they contribute a great deal of diversity to the incoming class. Simply put, medical schools don’t want a class purely composed of biology majors.
Medicine Admission
When I applied to college, I was asked to declare my intended major the summer before freshman year. I was unsure what I would actually enjoy, so I selected nutrition science, a major that sounded interesting at the time. By the middle of my sophomore year, I discovered that the only classes I really did not enjoy were the ones in my major! Fortunately, this is a common experience for undergraduates; few freshmen have the foresight to know exactly what they would enjoy doing several years down the road. College provides a great opportunity to explore your interests, so don’t be afraid to try out a few different majors until you find a good fit. If you are still undecided about what to declare as your major or are considering a change, I have three bits of advice:
Tip 1: Choose a major you actually enjoy
This should go without saying, but a surprising number of students continue trudging through majors they do not find fulfilling. This dissatisfaction may stem from a variety of different sources: they may not find the courses engaging (too difficult or too simple), there are limited opportunities to get involved within the department, or perhaps they’ve just signed on to a major that was popular among pre-meds without considering what would be best for them.
You are much more likely to be successful in the courses that you enjoy taking. If you haven’t yet found a major that satisfies you, pay attention to what courses you do enjoy. Does some material come more intuitively than others? Do you find yourself spending your free time pursuing interests in a different field? The majority of students change their major at least once, and many do so several more times. For most, the first few years of college offer the greatest flexibility for exploring different majors, although it is possible to switch things up later in your academic career as well.
Tip 2: Choose a major in which you can succeed
Some majors are more difficult than others. I don’t recommend picking a major just because it is easy, nor do I recommend picking a major just because it is difficult. That being said, it is worth considering how demanding the major’s courses will be; if you think that you’ll be stuck in the library studying most of the week, recognize that this places constraints on your free time to pursue extracurricular experiences and opportunities which may have tremendous impact on you both personally and professionally.
Although admissions committees may take into account how rigorous your major is, they are much more likely to rely on established metrics like your GPA and MCAT score when evaluating an application. For this reason, it better to have thrived in any major than to have performed mediocrely in a challenging major. In other words, though your friends may applaud you for taking on the “toughest major on campus,” admissions committees may not be so forgiving.
Tip 3: Choose a major that creates opportunities
When it comes time to apply for medical school, you will have the opportunity to detail your experiences that make you a strong candidate (e.g., contributing time to a research project, presiding over a club or committee). The American Medical College Application Service (AMCAS), the centralized source for organizing and submitting medical school applications, affords each applicant room for 15 entries. Generally speaking, it is better to have too many experiences that you can include (i.e,. >15) than too few.
At some universities, finding these relevant opportunities may be difficult—for example, there may not be an established pre-med advisor who shares this sort of information with students. Also be aware that at each college campus, some departments are more active than others. As a result, choosing to major in one field may open doors that are otherwise closed to other students: scholarships/fellowships may be allocated only to students in the department, positions in research labs may be reserved for those within the major, etc. From this perspective, majors affiliated with scientific departments may have some advantage in that the posted opportunities could be geared towards attracting the pre-med students which make up the bulk of the major.
Best Pre Med Minors
What about minors?
Minors are a great way to showcase your academic interests that aren’t part of your primary course of study (i.e., major). Further, earning a minor could help prepare you to work at the intersection of two related fields. For example, a minor in computer science could help you to understand complicated analyses or develop new software used in patient care. Adding a few classes in social work could help you develop interpersonal skills and come up with ways of optimizing transitions of care between inpatient and outpatient facilities.
Given that many of the prerequisite courses for medical school are science-based, earning a minor in a scientific field may not involve much additional coursework. In these cases, taking a few extra courses may prove worthwhile—especially if you are likely to do well in the additional classes, consequently raising your GPA. In other cases, however, pursuing a minor may not be a wise option. If you are struggling to perform well on your current coursework, then it is probably best to focus your energies on your major.
Since the majority of pre-med students major in biology, choosing this major won’t allow your application to stand out. Therefore, if you minor in fields like Psychology, Public Health, Women’s Studies, and complete the prerequisite courses, your medical school application will be taken into account over other applications.
• PSYCHOLOGY –
By studying psychology, pre-med students will leave their undergraduate studies with a greater understanding of the mind and its connection to behavior. Psychology’s best pre-med majors are offered at schools including Stanford University and New York’s Stony Brook University. Students who are interested in pursuing medicine following undergraduate work in psychology can concentrate on clinical, cognitive science, integrative health, and social and health — which blends these two concentrations into one program.
• PUBLIC HEALTH
– Pursuing a degree in public health, allows students to explore the policies and processes in the medical industry and could be one of the best pre-med minors. Choosing this type of program reveals a side of medicine that many pre-med students don’t see and might not fully understand as doctors. Through internships and working with hospital professionals in areas such as healthcare policy, prevention, and substance abuse, students make invaluable connections during their undergraduate careers.
• WOMEN’S STUDIES –
Though women’s studies might not seem like a suitable undergraduate major for future doctors, the coursework, can be extremely useful if you’ll want to focus on treating female patients. Through studying the social, economic, and cultural issues faced by women worldwide, pre-med students can be better prepared for international medical roles.
collage