any MATH major pre-meds out there ?

[jamaicandoc]

Hey guys,
are any of you math majors and pre-med? im a math major, wondering if that gives me any uniqueness to my application? there are no math major pre-meds in my school, nor any that i have heard of in the past few years.

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[almost_there]

Hey guys,
are any of you math majors and pre-med? im a math major, wondering if that gives me any uniqueness to my application? there are no math major pre-meds in my school, nor any that i have heard of in the past few years.

Sure, it gives you a potentially intriguing story. Why are you math AND premed? What opportunities do you see for combining your skills?

It gets your foot into the door -- they're listening, but you still need to demonstrate your interest, ability, and personal qualification to be a good doctor.

 

[mountainhare]

Hi jamaicandoc, I was a math-major pre-med until I graduated last month, and I'm starting med school next month. Math majors are certainly extremely rare among med-school applicants, but I'll warn you that it might take some effort to turn this uniqueness into an asset. Interviewers are definitely going to ask you how your interest in math relates to medicine, and it's really going to hurt you if you don't have a thoroughly well-thought-out answer. I mean, you can say the usual stuff about how math hones your analytical-thinking skills and problem-solving skills, but I also had interviewers ask me questions that I was unprepared for, such as "How are you going to deal with the fact that medicine isn't as clean and precise as mathematics?" and "Your interests seem to be very academic and cerebral and intellectualized. Are you really sure you want to work in the real world?" and "I assume you want to go into informatics or radiology, since you're interested in math?" So these are some questions that you might want to start thinking about now (especially if you're into pure math rather than applied math).

Hey guys,
are any of you math majors and pre-med? im a math major, wondering if that gives me any uniqueness to my application? there are no math major pre-meds in my school, nor any that i have heard of in the past few years.

 

[ShyRem]

I was a math major (and a chem major) applying last year. I got NO questions regarding my major. NONE. (I did get lots of questions regarding my 15 years of paramedic career.) There were several math majors applying last year - search the threads. Not all that uncommon, but it's a tough major so we tend to have lower GPAs (and no, you don't get any credit for that).

 

[Knickerbocker]

Well, I have a minor+ after giving up on the major. I really wanted to do it, but fitting my primary major (biochemistry) and math courses in is hard to do at my school. They have biochem I and II, DiffEq, and Calc III at 8:00 in the morning, once per year. It's a small school, so most upper level math and bio classes only have one section.

You shoud look at statistics of people getting into Law and Medical school. While the overall number of math people is small, in both cases they have the highest percentage of matriculation for any group.

 

[jamaicandoc]

thanks all you guys for your feedback. mountainhare, thanks for ur detailed response too. i have thought of some of those questions but ur right i need to think thoroughly about other questions that i might be asked about. where are u going to med school ?

 

[coco11]

i'm a math minor. i'm not sure how unique being a math major/minor is though.

 

[Punkn]

math minor here as well

 

[manning18]

I am in Med School now, though I didn't major in Math. I don't know too many Med Student (or pre-Meds, at the time) who were Math majors. I would have to agree with some of the prior postings on this site emphasizing the fact that:
1. Being a Math major (while not common) will not add much "strength" to your application in the way of uniqueness and 2. Even though the courses are tough, you're not likely to be cut much slcak for a less-than-ideal GPA (just ask pre-Med Biomed engineers!). That said, you could emphasize your systematic approach to Math and how that may help in dealing with patient-care issues though, as someone had said, Medicine maybe less "clean and precise" than Math. At the end of the day, Med School AdCom's focus, primarily, on MCAT scores, Science GPA, overall GPA and then other things like research/significant ECs. This focus doesn't change much based on applicant major, gender, etc. I don't think it will be addressed that often in your interviews and, if it is, I doubt it will help or hurt you much, one way or the other. Nonetheless, good luck in your applications!