Difficulty of Major - Fact or Fiction

[pennybridge]

Order of Importance

MCAT>>GPA>>>Luck>>>>>>>>>>>EC's>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>What you Majored In>Where you went to school

why do people always leave out "quality of noodz sent to adcom" that definitely goes like, right after "luck"

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[AnEyeLikeMars]

I will endorse the notion that engineering majors sometimes get a little mercy shown them. Some schools that have grade inflation in some majors, are known for lack of grade inflation in engineering. So, an adcom member may see a 3.45 in engineering a whole lot different than a 3.45 in biology or sociology or philosophy from the same top-tier school.

It makes sense that if GPAs are equal, the harder major wins out. But what if GPAs are not equal? How much of a difference does it make?

What about: 3.45 engineering vs. 3.7 psychology?

And, what engineering GPA would be too? Is a 3.1, even in a really hard major, going to be hard to overcome?

(These are hypotheticals...I'm thankfully done with the admissions process, but I'm curious)

 

[AnEyeLikeMars]

does Baylor only/primarly accept instate applicants/

Where did that come from?

 

[juiceman311]

I had 2 interviews at one of the schools I got into, and my first one was an MD. He told me point blank that he thought my 3.35 GPA in biomedical engineering was a lot more impressive than a girl he interviewed 2 days prior with a 4.0 in biology. The same sentiment was expressed at the other school I interviewed at and was admitted to as well.

But really, this is the wrong place to ask this question. 99% of the posters in the pre-med forum don't know **** about the intricacies of dmissions and will pass on their own opinions as fact. Call a school and ask them.

 

[Law2Doc]

I had 2 interviews at one of the schools I got into, and my first one was an MD. He told me point blank that he thought my 3.35 GPA in biomedical engineering was a lot more impressive than a girl he interviewed 2 days prior with a 4.0 in biology. The same sentiment was expressed at the other school I interviewed at and was admitted to as well.

A lot of nonsci majors get similar comments when the GPAs are closer. Adcoms comment how they like the diversity different majors bring over the all too common bio majors. Interviews tend to focus in part on non-medicine interests the interviewer shares.

The bio majors get the brunt of these comments because they are simply too populous in the application pool -- a holdover from back in the day (80s?) when biology was THE premed major. But now, it's harder to distinguish yourself if your app looks the same as thousands of others.

 

[AnEyeLikeMars]

I had 2 interviews at one of the schools I got into, and my first one was an MD. He told me point blank that he thought my 3.35 GPA in biomedical engineering was a lot more impressive than a girl he interviewed 2 days prior with a 4.0 in biology. The same sentiment was expressed at the other school I interviewed at and was admitted to as well.

But really, this is the wrong place to ask this question. 99% of the posters in the pre-med forum don't know **** about the intricacies of dmissions and will pass on their own opinions as fact. Call a school and ask them.

I don't know if that's directed at me, but I was asking LizzyM specifically because I agree with you (plus I'm just curious, I'm matriculating in the fall, the answer doesn't affect me at this point).

 

[LizzyM]

It makes sense that if GPAs are equal, the harder major wins out. But what if GPAs are not equal? How much of a difference does it make?

What about: 3.45 engineering vs. 3.7 psychology?

And, what engineering GPA would be too? Is a 3.1, even in a really hard major, going to be hard to overcome?

(These are hypotheticals...I'm thankfully done with the admissions process, but I'm curious)

I'd guess that engineering undergrads with gpas between 3.0 and 3.7 get an additional 10% bump to their gpa. So a 3.45 engineering major might be considered equal to a 3.79 (3.45 + 0.34) in a non-engineering discipline. So, the 3.45 in engineering might be considered in the same ballpark, or maybe a little better than a 3.70 in psychology at the same school.

 

[cyrille104]

I'm pre-vet, not pre-med...but we had this discussion over on the pre-vet board. The adcom at UPenn specifically told me that they expect lower GPAs from people with chemistry majors (I am a chemistry major) because it is "notoriously difficult". So your major does matter (at least at some schools) but it probably evens out in the end by smacking you with a lower GPA.

 

[midn]

Sorry to bring back this thread from the dead, but since harder majors do seem to get some slack/praise, I was wondering what the difficulty of biochemistry is considered amongst med schools.

Honestly, I feel biochem to be the easiest part of biology and the easiest part of chemistry put together. That being said, the rote-memorization aspect of biology that some chemistry majors may find difficult (i.e., being able to recall multiple reaction pathways and finding tangential relations) is required of us and biology majors don't even have to touch the chemistry labs that we have to do (Pchem, analytical, etc.).

So what is the general consensus? A lot of people seem to assume biochem is hard, but I honestly didn't feel it was. I think engineering classes are far more difficult.

 

[blargh]

Sorry to bring back this thread from the dead, but since harder majors do seem to get some slack/praise, I was wondering what the difficulty of biochemistry is considered amongst med schools.

Honestly, I feel biochem to be the easiest part of biology and the easiest part of chemistry put together. That being said, the rote-memorization aspect of biology that some chemistry majors may find difficult (i.e., being able to recall multiple reaction pathways and finding tangential relations) is required of us and biology majors don't even have to touch the chemistry labs that we have to do (Pchem, analytical, etc.).

So what is the general consensus? A lot of people seem to assume biochem is hard, but I honestly didn't feel it was. I think engineering classes are far more difficult.

at my school, we have two tracks for biochem - biochem/bio and biochem/chem. biochem/chem is the much harder track where people take pchem and lots of hard upper div chem classes. biochem/bio is the easy track with lots of super easy bio upper div classes. naturally, most pre-meds here go the biochem/bio route, and more prepharm or phd kids go biochem/chem.

engineering is still harder than both.

 

[mahasanti]

I just found my 2005-2006 MSAR. Here is the breakdown on acceptance by major:

2003
Specialized health science majors: 40.0%
Biological science majors: 49.5%
Social science majors: 53.7%
Physical science majors: 56.7%
Math and statistics majors: 57.7%

They didn't give numbers for humanities majors, but it's above 50%.

I am guessing, though, that the major reason for the wide range of acceptance rates is probably because of self-selection, not because of the adcoms views of the major. All I have to say is poor Nursing and RT majors...

 

[CTtarheel]

All I have to say is poor Nursing and RT majors...

yes, but I can understand why a nursing/RT major would be looked at as a negative. Nursing is a separate profession and an undergraduate nursing program is designed to prepare you for a career as a nursing professional, not designed to give you the basic science/non-science background to prepare you to further your education in medical school.

I know people in these health professions programs and their courses have a much narrower more practical focus, than your basic biology/chemistry course.

 

[novawildcat]

difficulty of major can not be assessed. adcoms may slightly care about difficulty of courses taken instead.

some places do care about difficulty of course load. I remember reading on Wisconsin's website that they explicitly take this into consideration.

 

[brianmartin]

Several people have mentioned here that liberal arts classes can be difficult, and I thank them for their honesty. However, there still seems to be this strange idea that liberal arts majors somehow "have it easy." As evidence of this, science majors will cite the handful of non-science courses they took, typically 100 or 200 level classes!

Try this. My first 400-level Political Science course, "Liberalism and it's Critics" - first paper was due 4 weeks into the class. In 10-20 pages, elucidate, compare and contrast John Rawles' conception of liberalism with Alisdair MacIntyre's Communitarianism. Place each in appropriate historical context, paying attention to the particular philosophical beliefs unique to each theory.

It was not possible to write this paper without doing the required reading, at least a few hundred pages of very challenging material. Factoring in additional library time, and of course the actual writing of the paper, it took me almost the entire month to write it. In my class of 20, 6 people received their paper back with the word "re-write" on it. They had either missed the point of the assignment completely, or had a good idea but couldn't communicate it in writing. The expectations were high and not everyone got A's.

People on here take one class where they have to write a 3-5 page paper on something trivial and they think it's so easy. Well, it's not like that. I have spent a lot of time on both hard science and humanities, and still cannot decide whether one is "harder" than the other. It's just a completely different thing. Both take a lot of time to really master.

I don't see why any major would get a handicap, except for MAYBE engineering. But the again, all the OCD premeds tend to overestimate the importance of grades too. Sure they are important, but above a certain point it doesn't matter. I'm betting a 3.5 in any major is considered equal.

 

[crazy_cavalier]

I've heard conflicting information which can only lead me to conclude that some schools will take your major into consideration whereas *most* will not. Which do and which don't, I'm not sure, you'll have to ask the schools directly.

 

[moto_za]

now i am confused if i should continue majoring in science or just do psycholgy which I would enjoy more

 

[Meatwad]

I'm also at the cross-roads of major delcaration: go with Applied Mathematics & Statistics, which I suppose looks somewhat-impressive as far as difficulty, and could probably pull off a very high GPA, vs. (Pure) Mathematics which is infinitely more interesting and proportionately more difficult (and I would hope adcoms would recognize this fact, although I doubt it).

 

[Ephesus]

Hey, gotmeds. READ my posts before you get so defensive. I said I wasn't bashing or endorsing any major, I was just curious. That being said, I'm sorry, but don't give me this nonsense that every major is equally challenging. They aren't! I just don't buy it. MY question is whether ADCOMS really don't take this into account, as is the popular view. Relax bro, I'm not hating on anyone.

I am NOT saying that I think people who don't major in science are *****s. That isn't what I'm saying at all. READ my posts.

Just a question: do you think philosophy is a 'hard' major?

 

[Law2Doc]

I just found my 2005-2006 MSAR. Here is the breakdown on acceptance by major:

2003
Specialized health science majors: 40.0%
Biological science majors: 49.5%
Social science majors: 53.7%
Physical science majors: 56.7%
Math and statistics majors: 57.7%

They didn't give numbers for humanities majors, but it's above 50%.

I am guessing, though, that the major reason for the wide range of acceptance rates is probably because of self-selection, not because of the adcoms views of the major. All I have to say is poor Nursing and RT majors...

More telling would be if you look at the percentage of med school classes that are nonsci majors now compared to a couple of decades ago. This group is growing quite rapidly, and bio major percentages are dropping proportionately. The above percentages are thus 50+% of a much larger number than the pool on non-sci majors not all that long ago.

 

[mahasanti]

I'm also at the cross-roads of major delcaration: go with Applied Mathematics & Statistics, which I suppose looks somewhat-impressive as far as difficulty, and could probably pull off a very high GPA, vs. (Pure) Mathematics which is infinitely more interesting and proportionately more difficult (and I would hope adcoms would recognize this fact, although I doubt it).

Pure mathematics rocks!

 

[nlax30]

now i am confused if i should continue majoring in science or just do psycholgy which I would enjoy more

I'd say if you think you'd enjoy psychology more then do it. I majored in Psychology because it interested me, it's something I can use in everyday life, and, at least at my school, the major was very flexible in that I could take more basic science related type psych courses (physio psych, genetics, neuro, etc..) or more clinical type classes depending on what I was interested in. If you do a non-traditional major I'd also recommend taking some extra sciences in addition to the pre-med requirements, some of them will help on the MCAT, plus they'll show that you have the interest in science and can do well in them.

 

[Meatwad]

Pure mathematics rocks!

Wholeheartedly agree

 

[lynn623la]

This seems like a conversation that should be categorized with Politics, religion and abortion. Just don't talk about, perhaps recognize individual differences, but remain silent about issues containing choice of major.

 

[le gangs]

Order of Importance

MCAT>>GPA>>>Luck>>>>>>>>>>>EC's>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>What you Majored In>Where you went to school

LUCK >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>everything

 

[UnderdogMD]

FICTION. This question was asked at a dean's meeting I attended for two med schools in my state and their exact words "Regardless of the area of study, we value excellence (meaning high GPA)" Getting into Med school is a game. Work the system because 1) others surely will and 2) med school adcoms force you to. Get out of college with the highest GPA possible.

Also, (armed with numerous anecdotes) I sincerely support the above posters notion.