Majoring in physics

[Appy378]

Hey everyone
Hope you all doing fine
I'll be starting my pre med journey in the 2025 fall. I am strongly committed to become a doctor.

I have seen that pre med students generally major in biology or biology relavent courses, but I am very kneen to study physics. It not like I don't like biology, infact I love biology, but I also love physics. I feel like, I'll get the opportunity to study biology in med school and also while studying for mcat, and I shouldn't waste an opportunity to understand the Physics.

I don't if I'm being absurd, but this is how I feel.
I would highly appreciate if you all could sprinkle some of your experience being a pre med student and give some suggestions to my thoughts, so that I can make a good choice.

Thank You

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[rkdwlgh]

Hey! I was a premed majoring in physics (ended with 3.96 GPA) because I loved it in high school and never stopped loving it. It’s the most fundamental science and will help better understand chemistry and in turn biology in so many way. It helps you really think. I honestly think because I took physics and all the prerequisites for premed, I really learned how to learn and time manage in different ways. I would say go for it if you love it! It will definitely be a more difficult road, but I never regretted it because the only class that gave me goosebumps in class was special relativity and quantum physics, which by the way is all chem. It helps you understand the world differently 🙂 make academic choices based on what makes you curious and you’ll be a much better candidate than someone who just chose classes or major for the sake of prerequisites.

 

[AJS59]

Hey everyone
Hope you all doing fine
I'll be starting my pre med journey in the 2025 fall. I am strongly committed to become a doctor.

I have seen that pre med students generally major in biology or biology relavent courses, but I am very kneen to study physics. It not like I don't like biology, infact I love biology, but I also love physics. I feel like, I'll get the opportunity to study biology in med school and also while studying for mcat, and I shouldn't waste an opportunity to understand the Physics.

I don't if I'm being absurd, but this is how I feel.
I would highly appreciate if you all could sprinkle some of your experience being a pre med student and give some suggestions to my thoughts, so that I can make a good choice.

Thank You

Study what you like.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

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[Obnoxious Dad]

Hey everyone
Hope you all doing fine
I'll be starting my pre med journey in the 2025 fall. I am strongly committed to become a doctor.

I have seen that pre med students generally major in biology or biology relavent courses, but I am very kneen to study physics. It not like I don't like biology, infact I love biology, but I also love physics. I feel like, I'll get the opportunity to study biology in med school and also while studying for mcat, and I shouldn't waste an opportunity to understand the Physics.

I don't if I'm being absurd, but this is how I feel.
I would highly appreciate if you all could sprinkle some of your experience being a pre med student and give some suggestions to my thoughts, so that I can make a good choice.

Thank You

If you want to go to medical school, majoring in physics is an enormous mistake. If you major in physics and take all of the courses required for medical school admission, you will take four semesters of chemistry, four semesters of biology, four or five semesters of mathematics and eight or nine semesters of physics. That might add up to as many as 22 math and science classes as an undergraduate. With all of that lab work, you will have very little time for clinical volunteering. People majoring in art history might take 12 math and science classes and still get into medical school.

Go to this link and scroll down to table 17. 2024 FACTS: Applicants and Matriculants Data
You will see that physical science majors i.e. chemistry and physics, who actually matriculate at an MD med school are actually held to a higher MCAT standard (513.6 vs 511.8) than the average matriculant. Furthermore, there is no significant difference in GPAs between physical science majors and the rest of the crowd.

If you major in physics and aren't the second coming of Einstein, you will be running this race with a piano on your back. Some medical schools get as many as 10,000 applications and their admissions staff haven't got the time, data or inclination to scrutinize every transcript. They don't care that you majored in physics. Stare at table 17 and see that physical science majors account for less than 10% of all MD school matriculants. Don't major in physics.

 

[etxaccepted36]

If you want to go to medical school, majoring in physics is an enormous mistake. If you major in physics and take all of the courses required for medical school admission, you will take four semesters of chemistry, four semesters of biology, four or five semesters of mathematics and eight or nine semesters of physics. That might add up to as many as 22 math and science classes as an undergraduate. With all of that lab work, you will have very little time for clinical volunteering. People majoring in art history might take 12 math and science classes and still get into medical school.

Go to this link and scroll down to table 17. 2024 FACTS: Applicants and Matriculants Data
You will see that physical science majors i.e. chemistry and physics, who actually matriculate at an MD med school are actually held to a higher MCAT standard (513.6 vs 511.8) than the average matriculant. Furthermore, there is no significant difference in GPAs between physical science majors and the rest of the crowd.

If you major in physics and aren't the second coming of Einstein, you will be running this race with a piano on your back. Some medical schools get as many as 10,000 applications and their admissions staff haven't got the time, data or inclination to scrutinize every transcript. They don't care that you majored in physics. Stare at table 17 and see that physical science majors account for less than 10% of all MD school matriculants. Don't major in physics.

Humanities has a matriculant average of 513.3 so I don’t agree with your point here. If you have an inclination towards math and physics you should be able to major in it and still have time for ECs, plenty of people do it. I do agree it is a more difficult route, though, so one should be mindful if they are able to really handle it and be willing to switch things up if they are falling behind.

Additionally, the applicants also have a higher MCAT average compared to other majors, that could account for the higher matriculant average.

 

[eteshoe]

I think it's fine to major in physics as long as you get a strong enough GPA (e.g. 3.7+). One of my pre-med mentees who's applying MSTP majored in Physics, finished w a 3.8+, did well on her MCAT, and is taking a gap year to do a master's in biophysics while bolstering her clinical volunteering experiences. I say all that since if you're very passionate about the subject matter, you will be way more focused and can perform better.

Just don't overload your schedule with too many physics and pre-med course during any one semester, get involved in activities you care about, start research at some point (if that's your thing), etc etc.

P.S. I double majored in chemical engineering and chemistry and did fine

 

[AsclepiusAdvisingLLC]

Hey everyone
Hope you all doing fine
I'll be starting my pre med journey in the 2025 fall. I am strongly committed to become a doctor.

I have seen that pre med students generally major in biology or biology relavent courses, but I am very kneen to study physics. It not like I don't like biology, infact I love biology, but I also love physics. I feel like, I'll get the opportunity to study biology in med school and also while studying for mcat, and I shouldn't waste an opportunity to understand the Physics.

I don't if I'm being absurd, but this is how I feel.
I would highly appreciate if you all could sprinkle some of your experience being a pre med student and give some suggestions to my thoughts, so that I can make a good choice.

Thank You

The only academic requirements that one needs for medical school are the prereqs of biology, chemistry, orgo, etc. and having a strong GPA. If you can take your prereqs and maintain an overall strong GPA, then do physics!

 

[hijoules]

Hey everyone
Hope you all doing fine
I'll be starting my pre med journey in the 2025 fall. I am strongly committed to become a doctor.

I have seen that pre med students generally major in biology or biology relavent courses, but I am very kneen to study physics. It not like I don't like biology, infact I love biology, but I also love physics. I feel like, I'll get the opportunity to study biology in med school and also while studying for mcat, and I shouldn't waste an opportunity to understand the Physics.

I don't if I'm being absurd, but this is how I feel.
I would highly appreciate if you all could sprinkle some of your experience being a pre med student and give some suggestions to my thoughts, so that I can make a good choice.

Thank You

I did the same in college! I throughly enjoyed studying physics for sure and I do not regret. I did get a couple of questions in my interviews regarding relevance to medicine, but I think that was because I honestly had lower grades for my pre requisite courses compared to my major courses. Like others have said it will be more difficult but it’s possible! I still found time for friends, a ton of leadership, volunteering, and research and I’m sure you will too.

 

[Obnoxious Dad]

Humanities has a matriculant average of 513.3 so I don’t agree with your point here. If you have an inclination towards math and physics you should be able to major in it and still have time for ECs, plenty of people do it. I do agree it is a more difficult route, though, so one should be mindful if they are able to really handle it and be willing to switch things up if they are falling behind.

Additionally, the applicants also have a higher MCAT average compared to other majors, that could account for the higher matriculant average.

Plenty of people? Less than 10% of matriculants are physical science majors. Furthermore, the number of humanities majors who got in, 785, is so small it's practically anecdotal.

 

[AJS59]

The cynical argument I would give (since OP is a high school student, I think) is that they should study WHAT they love in case they end up later finding medicine is not what they want to do, as is the case with many undergrad students.

Also for the record I am a physical sciences graduate (chemistry). N=1, of course, and the majority of people in my class studied biology, but perspective is helpful.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

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[Goro]

Hey everyone
Hope you all doing fine
I'll be starting my pre med journey in the 2025 fall. I am strongly committed to become a doctor.

I have seen that pre med students generally major in biology or biology relavent courses, but I am very kneen to study physics. It not like I don't like biology, infact I love biology, but I also love physics. I feel like, I'll get the opportunity to study biology in med school and also while studying for mcat, and I shouldn't waste an opportunity to understand the Physics.

I don't if I'm being absurd, but this is how I feel.
I would highly appreciate if you all could sprinkle some of your experience being a pre med student and give some suggestions to my thoughts, so that I can make a good choice.

Thank You

Major in whatever field you are interested in. It's okay to take just the prereqs

 

[RangerBob]

I agree with what the majority here say--study what you enjoy (and what would be your backup plan if med school doesn't work out.

The main thing with regards to physics is being careful to keep a high GPA. It's a tough major.

I was an art major. Perhaps the most useless degree for medicine. Thankfully I wasn't pre-med at the time so I never had to listen to people say you have to do XYZ and avoid 123 to get into med school. I did a post-bac with other students who were all civil to one another and I'm thankful for that.

 

[jvquarterback]

Depends on if you can get the grades. I transferred out of a college with a mean gpa of 2.7 for every class as an engineering major. Ended up doing math because it was the shortest major and I could rehab my science gpa while getting the prerequisite classes done.

But if you can get the grades and finish your pre reqs just do what you like.

 

[Obnoxious Dad]

This discussion reminds me of the fact that people hate looking at data. Whether it's economics, politics or medical school admissions, most people loathe looking at the numbers. They prefer narratives. Here's a great example from baseball:

 

[Mr.Smile12]

This discussion reminds me of the fact that people hate looking at data. Whether it's economics, politics or medical school admissions, most people loathe looking at the numbers. They prefer narratives. Here's a great example from baseball:

I will interject: scholarship committees love both. And that's because we're talking Moneyball too. 🙂

 

[RangerBob]

This discussion reminds me of the fact that people hate looking at data. Whether it's economics, politics or medical school admissions, most people loathe looking at the numbers. They prefer narratives. Here's a great example from baseball:

Partly because there's more to life than data.

Some people like to make decisions with lots of data. I tend to be one of them. You should see my excel spreadsheet for my home orchard--it's much bigger than my retirement spreadsheet.

On the other hand people like my wife will decide to pursue something/buy something/etc "because I feel like it/because I like it." (Can you tell who's the musician in the family?)

Reminds me of Mike Birbiglia (a comedian) explaining an argument with his wife. He backed up his side with a lot of data. He said he had charts and everything. He asked his wife to explain her side of the argument and she said "that's just how I feel." His punchline was along the lines of "that's not even an argument--how can I argue against that? We're not even having an argument!"

To each their own.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I think there are some assessments where each team member can be tested on whether they rely more or less on data to make decisions (like the Meyers Briggs "Judging vs. Feeling" subcategory), and then the aggregate team can be evaluated on their overall feelings. It's an interesting icebreaker I would recommend for one's first adcom meetings annually.

 

[genbu]

Hey! I am currently a physics and microbiology dual major and was just accepted into medical school this cycle. (I haven’t read most of the comments here, but I want to just give my take).

It was pretty chill, classes wasn’t too hard on either physics and microbiology sides since I enjoyed the subjects and as long as you put in time to do the physics homework, you’ll be fine. Physics isn’t as hard of a major many think it is; the math caps out at a linear algebra difficulty, higher level classes build off of previous ones a lot, and the classes will help you in chemistry and biology somewhat (or vice versa! This was surprising).

Above all, study what you want and don’t listen to strangers on the internet. As long as you take your pre-requisites and keep up with the extracurriculars, you’ll be fine 🙂