Choosing the Best Premed Major: A Strategy

We are often asked what the “best” premed major is. For anyone who knows me, has attended my live Q&As on Facebook, is a member of our Facebook group, or has worked with us one on one, you know that I love to look at data as much as possible when answering such significant and open-ended questions.

And, while we have written before about the “best premed major” based on available data and information, to answer some questions accurately there is a bit of nuance needed to offer more thoughtful input.

For example, I was recently talking to a soon-to-be second semester sophomore college student who wanted to major in philosophy. I love (as do medical school admissions committees) when students want to embrace a non-STEM major and focus on a discipline that is a little bit out of the box for premeds. This can make for an interesting personal statement narrative, extracurricular experiences, and interview dialogue as well as personal growth.

However, when reviewing this student’s transcript I saw the following:

Biology 1: A-

Biology 2: B-

General Chemistry 1: A-

General Chemistry 2: B+

Organic Chemistry 1: C+

For many premed students, the medical school prerequisite weeder courses are extremely difficult as they were for my student. Introductory STEM classes are called weeder classes for a reason!

I explained to my student that, moving into second semester sophomore year, with a STEM (or BCPM – biology, chemistry, physics, math – GPA) of 3.14, my recommendation was to major in a STEM discipline to bump the BCPM GPA. A 3.14 wasn’t competitive for allopathic medical schools which was the student’s goal. The BCPM along with the MCAT are two of the most important metrics to medical school admissions committees.

Having worked with premed students for more than 16 years, we have observed some patterns across a spectrum of undergraduate colleges; students tend to perform better in upper level STEM/BCPM classes once they are juniors or seniors in college. Because grade trends can impact a student’s outcomes in the medical school admissions process, we are cautious when recommending what major a premed student should choose.

So, despite an original plan to major in philosophy, the student changed their major to neuroscience. This was a win-win as the student was also curious about neuroscience and would then have the chance to demonstrate an upward grade trend which can be a key to success in the medical school admissions process.