Medical Pre-Med Questions

[GoSpursGo]

Hi, I am a high school junior currently, aspiring to soon go into the medical field. I had some general questions about the process of applying to colleges for pre-med.
Does the pre-med college you attend have a major affect on your medical school acceptance?
I have started looking at good pre-med colleges and have made a small list with information about each college. What steps should I take next in the process?
Does the what you major in affect your medical school acceptance rate, or is there a certain major one should major in during pre-med?

Thank you!

Hi, welcome to SDN! 🙂 It doesn't seem like your question really requires confidentiality--unless there's something I'm missing can we please move it to hSDN, which is our high school forum, so that all of our members can benefit from the discussion?

These are pretty common questions, but in brief

1) Going to a "brand name" school probably does have some intangible benefit to your application, but by far the most important factor in your application is going to be your GPA and MCAT. So go wherever you feel you will be most comfortable and best supported to succeed academically, and focus on what that means for you (either being the school where you feel you "fit" best, or where you get enough financial aid where you won't have to worry about working during school, or close to family support, or heck maybe AWAY from family drama, etc).
2) Really there's nothing to do right now other than figure out where you're going to college.
3) While pre-med students tend to self-select as traditional science majors of some sort, for the purposes of your application your major doesn't matter. Again, your final cumulative GPA and science GPA (traditionally, bio/chem/physics/math or BCPM classes) is what you're going to be judged on.

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[TheBoneDoctah]

If I could go back and do it all again, I would have gone to the cheapest, but decent, school I could. The school you go holds much less weight than the grades you get there. You can get a 4.0 from a state school and have a better shot than someone at Stanford with a 3.0 basically.

Usually, pre-meds major in some sort of biology-related field. However, as long as you do your prereqs, you can major in anything you want.

 

[Goro]

Admissions committees do not care what your major or minor is. We only care that you do well.

You should major in something that interests you, and can prepare you for medical school, and also and this is the ideal, prepare you for your plan B if medicine doesn't work out.