Chemical Engineering pre-med success stories?

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balla121

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Hey guys, I hear there are many chemical engineers that pursue admission into med school each year, yet I havn't heard of any on the forums. Please share your success stories if you majored in chemE and applied. Thanks

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I know three people who started in Chem E and one of them is switching out. The other two have decent GPA's (not great) but both of them have the attitude that if they don't get into medical school they will have a great backup plan with petroleum engineering :D.
 
Hahaha... thanks for the support guys. I'll be applying this upcoming cycle so hope my "decent" gpa will pull through for me lolol
 
In all seriousness, do well in engineering and adcoms will give you alittle extra credit. That's atleast what happened for me.
 
In all seriousness, do well in engineering and adcoms will give you alittle extra credit. That's atleast what happened for me.

+1

Getting the interview may still be hard unless the school actually goes through with looking at you holistically... but for those that do, it seems like they give some slack as long as you are >3.5+.

I honestly think being an engineer has helped me stand out a lot to ADCOMS and interviewers (for the post interview invite stuff). The open file interviewers will notice your major and they will comment on it, often times in a positive light. For three of my interviews I was interviewed by an engineer, believe it or not, and they really liked talking to a candidate that was a fellow nerd ;) Even the basic science professors that are really into research seem to talk about my interests a little more than M.D.s and admissions staff.

I am a ChemE-like major and I have had a surprisingly great cycle with an "engineers GPA" but a fairly strong MCAT (>33). It can be done. Not to mention the skills we learn will open many doors to accomplish some amazing things down the road if we so choose, things we probably couldn't do otherwise. Good luck.
 
+1

Getting the interview may still be hard unless the school actually goes through with looking at you holistically... but for those that do, it seems like they give some slack as long as you are >3.5+.

I honestly think being an engineer has helped me stand out a lot to ADCOMS and interviewers (for the post interview invite stuff). The open file interviewers will notice your major and they will comment on it, often times in a positive light. For three of my interviews I was interviewed by an engineer, believe it or not, and they really liked talking to a candidate that was a fellow nerd ;) Even the basic science professors that are really into research seem to talk about my interests a little more than M.D.s and admissions staff.

I am a ChemE-like major and I have had a surprisingly great cycle with an "engineers GPA" but a fairly strong MCAT (>33). It can be done. Not to mention the skills we learn will open many doors to accomplish some amazing things down the road if we so choose, things we probably couldn't do otherwise. Good luck.


Thanks man! Thats exactly my point, its so hard to keep a gpa that is competitive while in engineering but I also agree that the skill we gain are very useful. Hope it works out this cycle :xf:
 
I think ChemE was an awesome choice for me, couldn't imagine majoring in anything else in college. I was accepted to several top to mid tier programs (won't mention for the sake of anonymity).

3.95 GPA helped, but I think being an engineering major helped me stand out from other applicants. There's a lot of problem solving that goes into the courses I had to take, and I'm glad I got that experience.

The major drawback was of course the workload. Trying to maintain a premed GPA was hella hard when ChemE's usually just try to pass their courses and get their degrees. But it was good in some ways, because, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger for one, and it made Orgo seem less daunting.

I had to do ALL my medical ECs during my summers. I'm sure there are ways to do it during the year, but I had other fun things I wanted to do to get my mind off the work so I guess you have to choose.
 
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My friend is a ChemE major and he's said not many people from our E-school get into med school that are ChemE majors. It's not that they aren't qualified, but the classes they are taking are ridiculously hard. I always hear complaints about thermo classes :smuggrin:

We do have a 95% acceptance rate from our BME major, but you can easily argue that BME is easier than other engineering disciplines like EE/ChemE
 
Chem E major here, Kinda did bad on my MCAT 30, but have a 3.7gpa/3.77sGPA.

So far receieved 5 interview invites, and accepted to 1 school

will answer more stuff later gotta run to work.
 
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Chem E major here, Kinda did bad on my MCAT 30, but have a 3.7gpa/3.77sGPA.

So far receieved 5 interview invites, and accepted to 1 school

will answer more stuff later gotta run to work.

Congrats on your success so far! Please keep me updated! :D
 
My friend is a ChemE major and he's said not many people from our E-school get into med school that are ChemE majors. It's not that they aren't qualified, but the classes they are taking are ridiculously hard. I always hear complaints about thermo classes :smuggrin:

We do have a 95% acceptance rate from our BME major, but you can easily argue that BME is easier than other engineering disciplines like EE/ChemE

My goodness... I took thermodynamics this past semester and it was harder than any of my pre-med classes combined lol... worked my butt off for a B+
 
Congrats on your success so far! Please keep me updated! :D

Alright I got some more free time now, but Chem E is definitely a good major since you will take all the other pre reqs besides bio 1 and 2. I was lucky enough to do good enough my first few years of engineering where I didnt even consider medicine. Later towards the 3rd and 4th year I switched paths and took some bio classes that were a joke compared to engineering ones.

I feel like I would have had more success if I applied earlier. The biggest mistake I made was that my premed advisor told me to apply next cycle since he said I won't get in anywhere, and that I "needed" to prove that I was smart enough to take rigorous science classes (I guess engineering wasent rigorous enough). All in all I was submitting my application after people were getting their secondaries which ate up a lot of time. I still got the rest of the year for interviews but pretty happy with 5 interview invites and 1 acceptance so far.

In general I think my application is fairly balanced, which is important. While my GPA/MCAT score isn't amazing (around average for matriculants), that I feel that seperated me was my other EC's. I did the volunteering, researching, and working, but every interviewer asked me about Chemical Engineering. The idea that I conveyed in my interviews and personal statement was that I was a "problem solver" (most engineering exmas for me were 3 questions long... 2 hours and barely had enough time to finish). I felt like that had a big impact.

If you have any questions let me know, I just kinda rambled on there!
 
Alright I got some more free time now, but Chem E is definitely a good major since you will take all the other pre reqs besides bio 1 and 2. I was lucky enough to do good enough my first few years of engineering where I didnt even consider medicine. Later towards the 3rd and 4th year I switched paths and took some bio classes that were a joke compared to engineering ones.

I feel like I would have had more success if I applied earlier. The biggest mistake I made was that my premed advisor told me to apply next cycle since he said I won't get in anywhere, and that I "needed" to prove that I was smart enough to take rigorous science classes (I guess engineering wasent rigorous enough). All in all I was submitting my application after people were getting their secondaries which ate up a lot of time. I still got the rest of the year for interviews but pretty happy with 5 interview invites and 1 acceptance so far.

In general I think my application is fairly balanced, which is important. While my GPA/MCAT score isn't amazing (around average for matriculants), that I feel that seperated me was my other EC's. I did the volunteering, researching, and working, but every interviewer asked me about Chemical Engineering. The idea that I conveyed in my interviews and personal statement was that I was a "problem solver" (most engineering exmas for me were 3 questions long... 2 hours and barely had enough time to finish). I felt like that had a big impact.

If you have any questions let me know, I just kinda rambled on there!


I'm just glad that I know people that know what i'm experiencing now. I'll deffinitly let you know if I have more questions! ... 3 questions miss one and youre down to a B+ lol meh..
 
I'm just glad that I know people that know what i'm experiencing now. I'll deffinitly let you know if I have more questions! ... 3 questions miss one and youre down to a B+ lol meh..

I feel your pain.
 
applying this cycle, accepted last month, five interviews so far, still waiting to hear on four of them.

chemical engineering is a ton of work. my chemE gpa is actually higher than my cumulative gpa but thats only because i put in more hours. if my major was different my other grades would be higher in my non-engineering classes. in my interviews we've talked about how engineering teaches you to think and problem solve differently. there are many solutions to a problem and engineering definitely shows that.

despite the fact that my interviewers have found engineering a positive aspect of my application and that it has made me unique, i would not recommend majoring in it. it is very very difficult and will hurt your other grades
 
Was a chem e major, am an MS1 now. Definitely gotta work harder than being say, a straight-up bio major, but you do have a good backup career if you don't end up going to med school. Also the problem-solving/math/physics aspect of medicine is more enjoyable than biology for some people (including me).

A few things I've noticed:

It's harder to get heavily involved in extracurriculars/volunteering/shadowing. I did most of my volunteering/shadowing during breaks.

I took my AP Bio credit but still had to take 2 upper-level bio classes in addition to my Chem E degree plan. I came in with 60-something hours (12 AP tests and 2 community college classes) so I was actually able to graduate early and have a semester off. But this is not the case for the vast majority of students - the average time to graduation for Chem E (w/o premed) was probably 4.5 years. 5 for those that did a co-op.

You'll probably have a weaker knowledge base for the BS section of the MCAT, but PS will be straight up your alley.

At my school the vast majority of chem e undergrads got jobs after graduating. Being pre-med, you'll have different goals than most of your peers. This can be both good and bad. You can pretty much avoid the competitiveness/anal personalities of the pre-med bio masses. But you feel a little left out when you're graduating and going on to more school while your peers are comparing their 60K-100K job offers in chemicals/energy/oil.

You will have to work harder to get a comparable GPA, but for me that meant that med school wasn't as big an adjustment in terms of workload. Definitely an adjustment in the type of learning (huge volume vs. problem solving), but when med school rolled around the study hours actually felt like a natural continuation of undergrad. For most of my peers, med school study hours were a shock to the system.

For what it's worth, I had a 4.0 and 35+. If I hadn't been able to keep up my GPA I might not have the same opinion I do today.
 
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OP if you triple major in chemical engineering / aerospace engineering / math and get a 4.0 think about how impressive that would be.
 
At my school, the only difference between MatE and AeroE is 3 classes. UF actually encourages them to double major both, lol.
 
Chemical engineering senior here and I'll be applying this upcoming application cycle so I can't really give you any advice lol.

My cumulative GPA is a 3.51 (BCPM GPA is 3.70) so hopefully I can be seen as competitive. Good luck!
 
Yea man. I guess do. I am EE/CompSci, so I don't know much about it.
 
I made a post about this earlier today :)

My stats:

Hi everyone! This will be my first time posting a thread on sdn, but I've been viewing posts of sdn for a while now! Please give me a good idea of how i'll fare for the upcoming application season. I planned a list of approximately 22 medical schools to apply to and 18 of them are in the top 20(according to USNEWS). I will have 6 rec letters in a few more weeks from my profs and research mentors. Thank You!

School: University of California, Berkeley
Major: Chemical Engineering
cGPA: 4.00, sGPA: 4.00
MCAT: 42R - 15 PS, 14 BS, 13 VR


Extracurricular Activities:

• 200 hours of volunteering at local hospital
• 90 hours of shadowing with 6 different types of doctors
• ~200 hours of working with blind and special needs children
• Researched in 4 different labs for 2.5 years (3 Science, 1 Psychology)
• Author of 4 Publications in Psychology, Physiology, and ChemE
• Math, Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, and Physics paid tutor for 3+ years.
• Teaching Assistant for Chemistry and Physics for 4 semesters
• Chess Team for 3 years
• Volunteered in India at blind kids’ missionary for 2 summers - total of 12 weeks
• Secretary of Tau Beta Pi
• Golden Key Officer
• President of Active Minds
• Secretary of American Institute of Chemical Engineers
• Karate for 2 years
 
I made a post about this earlier today :)

My stats:

Hi everyone! This will be my first time posting a thread on sdn, but I've been viewing posts of sdn for a while now! Please give me a good idea of how i'll fare for the upcoming application season. I planned a list of approximately 22 medical schools to apply to and 18 of them are in the top 20(according to USNEWS). I will have 6 rec letters in a few more weeks from my profs and research mentors. Thank You!

School: University of California, Berkeley
Major: Chemical Engineering
cGPA: 4.00, sGPA: 4.00
MCAT: 42R - 15 PS, 14 BS, 13 VR


Extracurricular Activities:

• 200 hours of volunteering at local hospital
• 90 hours of shadowing with 6 different types of doctors
• ~200 hours of working with blind and special needs children
• Researched in 4 different labs for 2.5 years (3 Science, 1 Psychology)
• Author of 4 Publications in Psychology, Physiology, and ChemE
• Math, Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, and Physics paid tutor for 3+ years.
• Teaching Assistant for Chemistry and Physics for 4 semesters
• Chess Team for 3 years
• Volunteered in India at blind kids’ missionary for 2 summers - total of 12 weeks
• Secretary of Tau Beta Pi
• Golden Key Officer
• President of Active Minds
• Secretary of American Institute of Chemical Engineers
• Karate for 2 years

Eh, you still have a chance if you apply broadly. DO is definitely not out of the question. Neither is Caribbean. Have you considered Caribbean? You should consider Caribbean.
 
Ah okay, that's similar to my school then. The only reason more people don't do it is because they have the aero classes pretty locked down to non-majors :laugh:

Good luck with EE, I tried that for while then switched to MatSE! Not engh overlap in EE!

You know, I am still fighting the urge to go ChemE. I still have time to switch...another couple of semesters.
 
Eh, you still have a chance if you apply broadly. DO is definitely not out of the question. Neither is Caribbean. Have you considered Caribbean? You should consider Caribbean.

Phuket, get an advanced degree from MIT, you are wasted on M.D., lol.
 
I made a post about this earlier today :)

My stats:

Hi everyone! This will be my first time posting a thread on sdn, but I've been viewing posts of sdn for a while now! Please give me a good idea of how i'll fare for the upcoming application season. I planned a list of approximately 22 medical schools to apply to and 18 of them are in the top 20(according to USNEWS). I will have 6 rec letters in a few more weeks from my profs and research mentors. Thank You!

School: University of California, Berkeley
Major: Chemical Engineering
cGPA: 4.00, sGPA: 4.00
MCAT: 42R - 15 PS, 14 BS, 13 VR


Extracurricular Activities:

•200 hours of volunteering at local hospital
•90 hours of shadowing with 6 different types of doctors
•~200 hours of working with blind and special needs children
•Researched in 4 different labs for 2.5 years (3 Science, 1 Psychology)
•Author of 4 Publications in Psychology, Physiology, and ChemE
•Math, Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, and Physics paid tutor for 3+ years.
•Teaching Assistant for Chemistry and Physics for 4 semesters
•Chess Team for 3 years
•Volunteered in India at blind kids' missionary for 2 summers - total of 12 weeks
•Secretary of Tau Beta Pi
•Golden Key Officer
•President of Active Minds
•Secretary of American Institute of Chemical Engineers
•Karate for 2 years

Did you manage to get laid in between any of this? I sincerely hope you did lol
 
Eh, you still have a chance if you apply broadly. DO is definitely not out of the question. Neither is Caribbean. Have you considered Caribbean? You should consider Caribbean.

Thanks for the advice! I will definitely consider Caribbean schools now :)
 
I made a post about this earlier today :)

My stats:

Hi everyone! This will be my first time posting a thread on sdn, but I've been viewing posts of sdn for a while now! Please give me a good idea of how i'll fare for the upcoming application season. I planned a list of approximately 22 medical schools to apply to and 18 of them are in the top 20(according to USNEWS). I will have 6 rec letters in a few more weeks from my profs and research mentors. Thank You!

School: University of California, Berkeley
Major: Chemical Engineering
cGPA: 4.00, sGPA: 4.00
MCAT: 42R - 15 PS, 14 BS, 13 VR


Extracurricular Activities:

• 200 hours of volunteering at local hospital
• 90 hours of shadowing with 6 different types of doctors
• ~200 hours of working with blind and special needs children
• Researched in 4 different labs for 2.5 years (3 Science, 1 Psychology)
• Author of 4 Publications in Psychology, Physiology, and ChemE
• Math, Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, and Physics paid tutor for 3+ years.
• Teaching Assistant for Chemistry and Physics for 4 semesters
• Chess Team for 3 years
• Volunteered in India at blind kids’ missionary for 2 summers - total of 12 weeks
• Secretary of Tau Beta Pi
• Golden Key Officer
• President of Active Minds
• Secretary of American Institute of Chemical Engineers
• Karate for 2 years

I think you need to take a gap year to improve your EC's and retake your MCAT. With your current stats, I doubt that you'll get in anywhere in the US. Maybe Caribbean? Or perhaps tough it out for a year at an SMP to bring up some of those grades and apply again next cycle.

Good luck bro!

/sarcasm
 
Phuket, get an advanced degree from MIT, you are wasted on M.D., lol.

To be honest, I was actually considering MIT or Stanford ChemE MS or PhD as a backup if I didn't get into Harvard MD - PhD, Hopkins, Penn, or Duke. I already took my GRE early - prepped alongside with my MCAT - and did pretty well on that.

RomanTaylor, If I had the chance to "redo" undergrad I would still pick ChemE. These last three years have probably been the most challenging(going to be taking Pchem II next semester...ughhh) and mentally stimulating years of my life. A lot of frustration, but like someone stated above, "what doesn't kill you, only makes you stronger". ChemE is fascinating and it is also a very rewarding career if by any chance you decide not to go to med school.
 
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To be honest, I was actually considering MIT or Stanford ChemE MS or PhD as a backup if I didn't get into Harvard MD - PhD, Hopkins, Penn, or Duke. I already took my GRE early - prepped alongside with my MCAT - and did pretty well on that.

RomanTaylor, If I had the chance to "redo" undergrad I would still pick ChemE. These last three years have probably been the most challenging(going to be taking Pchem II next semester...ughhh) and mentally stimulating years of my life. A lot of frustration, but like someone stated above, "what doesn't kill you, only makes you stronger". ChemE is fascinating and it is also a very rewarding career if by any chance you decide not to go to med school.

you are my idol
 
Haha thanks! You have pretty good stats and ecs too!
 
Hey guys, I hear there are many chemical engineers that pursue admission into med school each year, yet I havn't heard of any on the forums. Please share your success stories if you majored in chemE and applied. Thanks

It's not hard if you are good at math. If you like calculus and get straight As in math I would say go for it. It takes a more conceptual and analytic mind too. Two of the hardest courses will be the PCHEM series, which is Thermodynamics and Quantum Mechanics. These courses consist of pages and pages of handwritten homework which is essentially the longest integrals you've ever done in your life. I used to be awesome at math freshman year, but then I lost my edge after focusing on organic chem and biochem for two years. When I came back to PCHEM it whooped me. That was because I was a biochemistry major and not a CHEME major. If you start out in the CHEME major they will prepare you with math and calculus based physics. I wasn't prepared when I took it.
 
It's not hard if you are good at math. If you like calculus and get straight As in math I would say go for it. It takes a more conceptual and analytic mind too. Two of the hardest courses will be the PCHEM series, which is Thermodynamics and Quantum Mechanics. These courses consist of pages and pages of handwritten homework which is essentially the longest integrals you've ever done in your life. I used to be awesome at math freshman year, but then I lost my edge after focusing on organic chem and biochem for two years. When I came back to PCHEM it whooped me. That was because I was a biochemistry major and not a CHEME major. If you start out in the CHEME major they will prepare you with math and calculus based physics. I wasn't prepared when I took it.
Thermo and pchem will be the least of your worries once you take reactor kinetics and controls.
 
I made a post about this earlier today :)

My stats:

Hi everyone! This will be my first time posting a thread on sdn, but I've been viewing posts of sdn for a while now! Please give me a good idea of how i'll fare for the upcoming application season. I planned a list of approximately 22 medical schools to apply to and 18 of them are in the top 20(according to USNEWS). I will have 6 rec letters in a few more weeks from my profs and research mentors. Thank You!

School: University of California, Berkeley
Major: Chemical Engineering
cGPA: 4.00, sGPA: 4.00
MCAT: 42R - 15 PS, 14 BS, 13 VR


Extracurricular Activities:

• 200 hours of volunteering at local hospital
• 90 hours of shadowing with 6 different types of doctors
• ~200 hours of working with blind and special needs children
• Researched in 4 different labs for 2.5 years (3 Science, 1 Psychology)
• Author of 4 Publications in Psychology, Physiology, and ChemE
• Math, Chemistry, Organic Chemistry, and Physics paid tutor for 3+ years.
• Teaching Assistant for Chemistry and Physics for 4 semesters
• Chess Team for 3 years
• Volunteered in India at blind kids’ missionary for 2 summers - total of 12 weeks
• Secretary of Tau Beta Pi
• Golden Key Officer
• President of Active Minds
• Secretary of American Institute of Chemical Engineers
• Karate for 2 years
Don't waste your brilliant mind on a medical degree. Someone with stats like these belongs in a high tier grad school doing cutting edge research. If you're adamant about pursuing medicine, definitely go MD/PhD (in ChemE), you'll be perfectly suited for tissue engineering research and the like.
 
School: University of California, Berkeley
Major: Chemical Engineering
cGPA: 4.00, sGPA: 4.00
MCAT: 42R - 15 PS, 14 BS, 13 VR

:idea:

Eh, why bother going thru the whole AMCAS crap. Just send your Letters of Interest now. There's likely a SOM out there that will just let you skip the whole process. :p
 
Thermo and pchem will be the least of your worries once you take reactor kinetics and controls.

I actually loved controls. Professor was the guy who wrote one of the more popular controls texts.
 
Also, who is going to have a Perry's text in their office in 10 years lol. I kinda wanna get one since its a classic.
 
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