Biomedical Engineering Majors?

[inflamesdjk02]

just wondering how many were out there...

how do you think adcoms view this major compared to traditional pre-med biology or chemistry?

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[Hook17]

im one.. i hear they tell bmes to try and take some upper level bio classes because they tend to get lost first year of med school.

 

[Hoberto]

I don't think adcoms consider any major better or worse than another. This has been repeated approximately 4.67E13 times recently...schools do not care about your major, it is about your GPA and MCAT score. An exception might be majors that are particularly odd, such as Psychology of Nutritious Animals, since that would stand out and certainly add some variety to a med school class.

If you are thinking about staying in Toledo I would really look into MCOs (now MUO) MEDstart program, their guaranteed acceptance program with the Bioengineering program and their other program whose name I can't recall. If you can get into one of those programs you are GUARANTEED a spot in the med school class and this is definitely not something to pass up.

 

[inflamesdjk02]

yeah i know about those, some of my classmates are in the medstart. i wanted to have a choice on where to go to med school so i'm going through the process just like everyone else

 

[OddNath]

...Psychology of Nutritious Animals...

THAT'S what I should've majored in!

Seriously, though, study what interests you. The only way it'll affect your admissions is that interviewers will ask you about courses that fascinated you..and if your response is "well, I just majored in this bio-related field b/c I thought it'd make a good impression, and I thought engineering would make me stick out from the crowd in this admissions process, even though I hated it", that part of your interview might not go so well. Just explore a field that you're passionate about and you'll definitely have something to say when needed.

I had a good time with BIOE, though the fact that I haven't memorized anything in 3 years is starting to worry me (med school starts in 5 weeks..), eep!

 

[SaginawPremed]

Here, here!

Haven't started the coursework yet. A bit worried about maintaing a premed-worthy GPA when I do, to be honest.

 

[inflamesdjk02]

i don't think it's any secret that engineering gpa tends to be lower due to the difficulty ...

 

[DrBuro]

i don't think it's any secret that engineering gpa tends to be lower due to the difficulty ...

Yeah, generally they are viewed the same. The adcoms will know about the engineering GPAs. I have heard that anything around 3.3 - 3.5 in engineering is equivalent to 3.5 - 3.7 in other fields.

 

[DrBuro]

Everything else will have to be par or above

 

[thegenius]

I don't think adcoms consider any major better or worse than another. This has been repeated approximately 4.67E13 times recently...schools do not care about your major, it is about your GPA and MCAT score. An exception might be majors that are particularly odd, such as Psychology of Nutritious Animals, since that would stand out and certainly add some variety to a med school class.

There is some truth to this but your major does matter. It may not matter for the initial screening process.

However, when offering acceptances or choosing among a handful of qualified applications, they will take into account your major. In fact, they will take into account any piece of information they have available to distinguish one application from another.

So it matter, a little bit.

 

[Mixtli]

Your major matters but like what my professor once said, "Don't choose BME in order to go premed, it is the worst decision. Choose it because you like it."
He continued to say how BMEs usually do the worst on the VR but the best on PS, and they can get into medical schools with low GPAs but they had low GPAs because they were BME. All in all, I don't think it matters at all, but note physical science majors have a 55% overall matriculation rate versus ~42% for biological science.

 

[secretasianman]

Yeah, generally they are viewed the same. The adcoms will know about the engineering GPAs. I have heard that anything around 3.3 - 3.5 in engineering is equivalent to 3.5 - 3.7 in other fields.

adcoms don't care what your major is. they only care that you have a good GPA. to me the engineering major is just extra icing on the cake, but u have to have the cake first.

 

[disque71]

My advice, since I am currently going through it. Don’t do engineering if you plan on going to med school. The engr dept here has no inhibitions about giving out 1 or 2 A’s, some b's a bunch of c's and some d and f's. Engineering = a new way of thinking, and your GPA will suffer for it. If you are dead set on MD school go with a major that will be kind to your GPA yet leave enough time for volunteering, ec's etc. At the same time be sure to choose a major that will provide a good basis for MCAT preparation.

 

[abcxyz0123]

yeah, i still have a hard time understanding why anyone with half a brain would major in engineering with the intent of applying to med school in the future. Why wouldn't you just pick a joke of a major like sociology or history (like me), and get your 3.9 GPA (like me) with little to no work at all. A 3.8+ in any major will always look better than a 3.5 or less in engineering. And i bet that getting a 3.8+ as a history major takes about the same amount of work as getting a 3.0 as an engineering major, making it a huge benefit to just major in the humanities.

 

[SaginawPremed]

yeah, i still have a hard time understanding why anyone with half a brain would major in engineering with the intent of applying to med school in the future. Why wouldn't you just pick a joke of a major like sociology or history (like me), and get your 3.9 GPA (like me) with little to no work at all. A 3.8+ in any major will always look better than a 3.5 or less in engineering. And i bet that getting a 3.8+ as a history major takes about the same amount of work as getting a 3.0 as an engineering major, making it a huge benefit to just major in the humanities.

This is all making my choice in major and future prospects seem all the more dubious. Thanks guy...

 

[Zong117]

But something I was told by an anatomy instructor at Baylor is that engineers also tend to do better in medical school. The theory is that engineering trains us to analyze and attack problems better than bio which I'm guessing spends more time on straight memorization of material.

Personally, I'm glad I did BME because the people in our program definitely have personality, and we get a good variety in classes. This keeps us from getting too burned out, and it means we're pretty knowledgable about a range of topics, but it also means you don't get as deep of an education in either biology or engineering. Jack of all trades, master of none, but I'd like to think that we're better prepared to adapt, and that we have a broader skill set than most majors.

 

[SaginawPremed]

But something I was told by an anatomy instructor at Baylor is that engineers also tend to do better in medical school. The theory is that engineering trains us to analyze and attack problems better than bio which I'm guessing spends more time on straight memorization of material.

Personally, I'm glad I did BME because the people in our program definitely have personality, and we get a good variety in classes. This keeps us from getting too burned out, and it means we're pretty knowledgable about a range of topics, but it also means you don't get as deep of an education in either biology or engineering. Jack of all trades, master of none, but I'd like to think that we're better prepared to adapt, and that we have a broader skill set than most majors.

And we're hotter!

 

[secretasianman]

And we're hotter!

oh god. engineers seem to be hit hardest with the ugly stick :[.

 

[virilep]

just wondering how many were out there...

how do you think adcoms view this major compared to traditional pre-med biology or chemistry?

in my interview the guy said that "engineers tend to do a lot better in my class and during the clinical years." and he was the physiology teacher. so it's not even about the GPA difference but moreso about how you think and how you can work a problem out and see different avenues than the chemistry major.

 

[DrBuro]

This is all new to me. I thought I had heard that engineering majors get lost during the first couple of years because they are not used to classes that only require memorization. I remember when I started general bio, I didn't know how to study for the class because I had taken nothing but math and physics since freshman year.

 

[SaginawPremed]

oh god. engineers seem to be hit hardest with the ugly stick :[.

Lies!

(Yeah, that sounds about right for the most part)

 

[disque71]

yeah, i still have a hard time understanding why anyone with half a brain would major in engineering with the intent of applying to med school in the future. Why wouldn't you just pick a joke of a major like sociology or history (like me), and get your 3.9 GPA (like me) with little to no work at all. A 3.8+ in any major will always look better than a 3.5 or less in engineering. And i bet that getting a 3.8+ as a history major takes about the same amount of work as getting a 3.0 as an engineering major, making it a huge benefit to just major in the humanities.

My point exactly, I will be a junior in the fall and I wish I could have realized this freshman year or before. From what I have been reading, it’s also dependent on the school. Big research schools tend to recruit engineers even with the slightly lower GPA, but there still isn’t enough GPA tolerance by the adcoms. This still brings me back to wishing I had majored in history or just straight up mathematics (which I may still do).

 

[jon stewart]

I don't think adcoms consider any major better or worse than another. This has been repeated approximately 4.67E13 times recently...schools do not care about your major, it is about your GPA and MCAT score. An exception might be majors that are particularly odd, such as Psychology of Nutritious Animals, since that would stand out and certainly add some variety to a med school class.

If you are thinking about staying in Toledo I would really look into MCOs (now MUO) MEDstart program, their guaranteed acceptance program with the Bioengineering program and their other program whose name I can't recall. If you can get into one of those programs you are GUARANTEED a spot in the med school class and this is definitely not something to pass up.

what about radiation health physics? is that unique?

 

[gerido]

im one.. i hear they tell bmes to try and take some upper level bio classes because they tend to get lost first year of med school.

Bull****, maybe you're in a crappy BME program because our BME classes incorporate advance biomaterials and we also took advance bio-courses with an engineer approach.

 

[Zong117]

And we're hotter!

....for engineers. Really, you're not going to find another engineering major that actually has more girls than guys (at least at our school). And you'd really be surprised at how many good-looking girls there are (can't really speak for the guys).