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All premedical students are required to take prerequisites in life sciences before applying to medical school. But the humanities also offer valuable preparation for prospective physicians. In the fall of 2020, about 12 percent of the entering students in the U.S. News top 10 programs in research (11.9 percent) and primary care (11.4 percent) came from a social sciences/humanities background. And, in the fall of 2021, ten schools boasted entering classes with a significant proportion of social sciences/humanities undergraduates (see list below). If you are a premedical student in the social sciences/humanities, you may want to consider one of these schools.

U.S. News Rank
NameSocial Sciences/ Humanities Majors (%)ResearchPrimary Care
Brown University (Alpert)3835 (tie)14
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (NY)3111 (tie)71 (tie)
University of New Mexico2587 (tie)16 (tie)
Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine2395-12495-124
University of Pennsylvania (Perelman)226 (tie)20 (tie)
University of Vermont (Larner)2264 (tie)32 (tie)
Thomas Jefferson University (Kimmel)2156 (tie)61 (tie)
University of Maryland212915
George Washington University206178 (tie)
University of Colorado19276

Additionally, in your applications and interviews to other schools, be sure to articulate the value of your social sciences/humanities background. A study from 2014 found that while medical students with undergraduate degrees in the humanities maintain consistent academic performance with those from science majors, they also tended to show “…better empathy and communication skills, and a more patient-centered outlook.” Similarly, Rishi Goyal, MD, PhD, and Director of the Medicine, Literature, and Society major at Columbia University, argues that college is an ideal time for exposure to the humanities. “It’s a great time to capture students, to help them develop different parts of the brain,” he said. “It’s more difficult to do that in medical school. Students are already so busy, and it’s harder to convince them at that point that memorizing the Krebs cycle is not as important as holding a patient’s hand or talking to them in their same language.”

Interested in learning more about how studying humanities can benefit medical students? Check out our related blog posts:

Narrative Medicine Helps Physicians Gain Empathy, Make Connections, and Accept Difficult Experiences

Covid Crisis Brings Attention to the Need for Humanities in Medical School Curriculum

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