high school start

Do any of the following sound like you?You’re volunteering every week in the hospital to get enough hours to put on your medical school application.You’re pushing through your research internship even though you don’t like it much - because you know medical schools want students with research experience.You’re volunteering your time at a homeless shelter or attending blood drives to get your hours above the threshold most medical schools seek in their applicants (roughly 200 hours if you’re curious).

“Ivy-Covered University is my top choice, because it's good for pre-med.”I've heard this sentence countless times from high school seniors - and their parents - who believe the conventional wisdom: that there's a list of schools that are good places to be pre-med. Attending one of these schools will supposedly make your medical school dreams come true.

In our work with pre-meds, we hear all kinds of crazy claims. About 95% of the time we hear one of the above phrases, what follows is false. No, you don’t need 400 hours of shadowing to get into medical school. No, it doesn’t help to finish college in three years. And when you get a rejection letter, you shouldn’t call the medical school and plead to be given a second chance.

If you’re considering a BS/MD program, then you’re already taking the application process more seriously than the average high school senior. But let’s be honest: despite your outward confidence in your chosen path, you’re likely having some doubts.

A guaranteed ticket into medical school, you say? With no MCAT? No lengthy personal statement? No letters of recommendation or secondary essays?You might be saying, “Sign me up!”

Although the information has been altered slightly, this list contains real activities from real former students--all of whom were accepted into medical school. Even though the entries are quite diverse, they all have one thing in common: they’re all unexpected pastimes that deviate from the pre-med norm.

In recent weeks, we at Savvy Pre-med have explained the 5 Necessary Factors for Getting into Medical School and the 5 Characteristics of the Most Successful Pre-meds. But now we’ve arrived at an important question -- how does your choice of undergraduate college affect these factors?

I never expect much from announcers. Occasionally I turn on ESPN before a basketball game to find a talking head unleashing such golden nuggets of wisdom as, “This team is really going to have to score a lot of points in order to win.” I think to myself, “I wonder if the players know that they’re supposed to score more points than the other team. I bet they would win if they knew that!” If only basketball were so simple.

In part 1 of our discussion of college majors, we discovered that you don't have to major in biology to get into medical school. So if we don't have to major in biology, what should we major in? Let's start by examining the data about which majors have the highest acceptance rates to medical school, along with some hypotheses about why indeed this may be so.

What should I major in? It's one of those personal questions like, "Which person should I date?" that no one can answer for you. Sure, others can give you advice. "Your boyfriend's breath smells like cheese" or "That person is a total jerk." But in the end, it's your decision to make. What you major in is how you spend a significant chunk of your college life, so it's important to your happiness to (try to) get this question right.