Picking major advisor? Does it matter?

[SleepingPillow]

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So I recently declared my major (bio), but the advisor I wanted was full. I got a list of available ones and narrowed it down to two:
1) Accomplished, endowed professor that's top in his field that came to our school less than 2 years ago. So far has been teaching one course that's geared towards freshmen. His reviews from his previous school seems pretty good.

2) One of the biochem lecturers who I likely will have next year. Has mixed reviews.

Advice? I would want to potentially ask for a rec letter from them, but not sure if having #2 as my advisor and instructor would make much of a difference?

 

[ndafife]

So I recently declared my major (bio), but the advisor I wanted was full. I got a list of available ones and narrowed it down to two:
1) Accomplished, endowed professor that's top in his field that came to our school less than 2 years ago. So far has been teaching one course that's geared towards freshmen. His reviews from his previous school seems pretty good.

2) One of the biochem lecturers who I likely will have next year. Has mixed reviews.

Advice? I would want to potentially ask for a rec letter from them, but not sure if having #2 as my advisor and instructor would make much of a difference?

I met with my major advisor 1 time and that was just to verify that the degree auditing report I was looking at was correct and I was good to graduate.

So based off my experience, this matters pretty close to 0

 

[Microbug]

Pick the one who will advocate for you more

 

[SleepingPillow]

I went with the professor. Seemed like a happy guy and I could ask him about his experiences since he has so much

 

[Green Turtle]

As Microbug and nodalife stated, your advisor is not a large factor in your pre-med journey. The main role of your advisor is to approve your degree auditing report (DAR), sign-off on any undergraduate thesis you might do, sign-off on course approvals/withdrawals/ etc., and nothing more than that. Most of my classmates, including myself, advise ourselves by looking up required courses on school websites, and by looking for advise on SDN.

If you plan on seeing your advisor often, it may be beneficial to take a class with him/her and do good for a better LOR when you apply. If not, ask around and choose the one that is more available and is more apt to signing off on things you will need done.

I don't know what you mean by "mixed reviews" on #2, but I'd go with the one that is easier to meet with. You could ask #1 for research opportunities if he is an accomplished professor still doing research. Or, he may know of someone.

TLDR: Choose the one with the best availability that is more apt to sign forms for you.

 

[bioboy23]

I switched advisors early in my college career. Mostly because the first one didn't really tell me how to navigate college (when I was a freshmen, I had no idea how to plan for smooth semesters). My new advisor is the head of the science dept, so it's nice because she can override anything if I have scheduling conflicts. That's about the only benefit I have over other kids.

Basically it doesn't matter at all, as others have said.