Undergrad pre-health experience?

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NonTradMed

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I was taking a break from my MCAT-fest and popping into random threads..and I noticed that so many people have differing experiences in regards to pre-health professional students at their undergrads.

In my undergrad, most people came in pre-med.....after the first year, half dropped it, but the rest ~25% of the entering class, made it into medical school.

I've noticed this was not always true for other students.......some have spoken of the numerous pre-dent students at their schools, sometimes outnumbering pre-med......I have to say, I have met only ONE pre-dent student while at my school---and the poor girl had to constantly justify her reason for WILLINGLY choosing dent over medicine. I have never met a pre-pharm or pre-nursing student at my school......

Others have stated how most girls start out pre-med and end up in nursing, pharmacy, etc after realizing the amount of sacrifices in order to be a doctor.....there was no gender difference in the dropout rates for premeds at my school. And those that did drop either stayed in the sciences or matriculated into something nonhealth care related---and none choose that route b/c they wanted more "family" time and less work time....or at least they weren't telling! ;)

And still others have stated how FEW people ended up applying to medical school. At my school, I'd say half that came in premed dropped, that still left roughly 25% of the graduating class premed who applied to medical school....many others stayed and did the bio/chem/ect research route..........overall, upon graduating, we still had a HUGE graduating class of bio/chem/science majors. More than one student was surprised when I mentioned that the most common college majors were education, business, and psychology...they thought it was biology, chemistry and engineering!

Can anyone else share their premed demographic experiences? I'm just curious about the different cultures of premeds in these schools.........oh, and I wonder if there is a correlation b/w the TYPES of schools and the students it fosters. FYI, my school was a medium sized competitive private research university. It does have a well known med school attached to it and this might have skewed our premed demographics a bit.........

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The demographics you describe sound very similar to what I have seen at my undergraduate school.
 
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