Do I have to take pre med to get into med school?

Question

my parents dont think I do but I was under the impression that I dont have to, but it's strongly recommended.

Answer 1

You do not have to MAJOR in pre-med to get into medical school, but you need to take the pre-requisite courses to qualify. They generally include:

1 year general chem (with lab)
1 year organic chem (with lab)
1 year general biology (with lab)
1 year intro. physics (with lab)
1 year English
1 year calculus
Suggested coursework includes: psychology, statistics, biochemistry, humanities

The trick is to NOT major in biology. Biology major pre-meds are a dime a dozen, and they will be your stiffest competition for A's. You want A's. To get them, become a HUMANITIES major, ace the easy fluffy stuff, then focus your power on the prereqs. You'll graduate with a higher GPA, and not suffer from much of the stress the rest of us feel when we're up against 400 bio majors with the same goal of topping the curve. I was a molecular biology major, and it singlehandedly ruined my chances of getting into medical school.

Anyway, so if you really must know some nitty gritty, you want to look for a statistic called "matriculation rate" and see the proportion of students at a school who apply versus get into medical school. Generally, top tier schools have higher matriculations rates.

Answer 2

There's no such thing as a pre-med major. Only some colleges have a pre-med college, and those are just programs designed to make sure you qualify for med school more than anything else.

To qualify for med school, you have to take all a med school's prerequisite classes. Each med school has it's own list, altho about 90% of each list is the same. Your major doesn't matter as long as you take those prereq classes. You can be a music major and still go to med school as long as you have the grades and have taken the prereq classes.