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<p>Chemistry is much less popular a major for pre-meds than biology is. Biology majors and pre-meds typically need no more than freshman calculus (often only a semester of the light version, though statistics is also sometimes specified); they can take physics which needs at most the light version of calculus, as opposed to the more heavily calculus based physics that physics and engineering majors take. So most pre-meds do not have particularly heavy math requirements (although math skills are likely to be useful in terms of helping with statistics, which is commonly used in medicine and biology). Some social studies majors, particularly economics and business, can have similar or greater math requirements compared to biology majors and pre-meds.</p>
<p>Indeed, biology is the most popular STEM major, so generalizing about STEM majors with respect to necessary math skills can lead to inaccurate conclusions. While a complete math-phobe may struggle with even light freshman calculus, an average (for those able to go to a four year college as a freshman) math student can probably handle the math needed for biology or pre-med purposes (although remediation of precalculus math may be needed if s/he came from a low quality high school), even if s/he cannot handle the math needed to major in math or physics.</p>