Choosing a second major

[frenz059]

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Hey everyone,

I am currently going into my senior year of this fall and studying for my MCAT this summer. I plan on applying to medical schools in the 2013-2014 cycle. I made the decision to wait another year because I felt my extra circulars were not as strong as I'd like them to be + it gave me more time to study for the MCAT. Knowing I was going to have two years, I lessened my credit load this fall and spring so I could spend more time with volunteering and research. However, because I will only have 2 classes to finish my super-senior year, and I will be committed to two more years of schooling anyways; I thought it might be a good idea to pick up a second degree major.

My first degree will be in biology, I am contemplating picking up either a history, political science, or economics major. I thought history might be good because of its emphasis on writing. Political science I thought might offer me the opportunity to explore a life long interest of mind (though, I likely would learn little). While, economics would probably offer the best career choice and long term choice.

I was hoping to get feed back from the student doc community on what they think and if you have any other suggestions I would love to hear them.

Thank you and have a wonderful day 🙂

 

[Nymphicus]

Only get a second major if it's what you really want to do. It would be for you, not the application.

 

[PreMedOrDead]

Search function would give you a thread with several LizzyM quotes.

The trade-off, from an adcom perspective, is depth in a second subject area over breadth.

All A's in a foreign language (particularly if it a language spoken at home) is sometimes seen as a clever way to boost one's gpa and therefore less impressive than you might hope.

I'd see little advantage of an Econ/Bio major over an Econ only major who has taken the required courses for med school.

How you do is more important than what you do with the exception that some adcom members are somewhat forgiving of engineering majors who have less than perfect gpas. (it might be worth an extra .25 if you have at least a 3.3 gpa).

The thing about double majors is that it doesn't give you much in the way of electives. One adcom member I know wants to see a few interesting non-science courses. That's harder to do when you have a Biology/Physics/Chem triple major if you know what I mean.

I have heard adcoms discuss hundreds of applicants. They never mention "major". They look at gpa then at whether one took honors courses. Then they look at whether one has some very bad grades (Ds & Fs) and the specific grades in O-Chem and Physics. Some, as I mentioned earlier, want to see depth and breadth in classes taken including non-science courses (even polytechnic institutes offer a few courses in the humanities).

A double major that includes biology might inferior to using a couple electives to take a course in music/history/sociology/anthropology, etc

I'm a Physics/Math/Spanish triple major with minors in Biology and Chemistry with a 3.85 c/sGPA.
I still wish I would have stuck with one major, like Biology, and gotten a near 4.0 instead. It would have made me just a tad more competitive for top tiers, which is what I'm looking at now.