<p>In short, because vocational majors train you to do something whereas (we’ll call them academic) majors train you how to think and solve problems. So a finance major will teach you how to analyze financial information, use various financial instruments, understand markets, and understand various financial and economic policy. Obviously some gen eds would be sprinkled in to “round out” your education. Overall, should be great prep to enter the world of finance.</p>
<p>Other types of bachelor’s degrees (including BS and BA) are more focused on teaching you how to think like an academic and how to approach and solve a variety of problems–ranging from scientific to philosophical to sociological to historical and anything in between. Whether you focus on science or philosophy is somewhat immaterial, because the purpose is the same–teaching you how to think like an academic. Great prep for grad or professional (eg medical) schools, and probably pretty good for directly entering your field (in terms of content prep). Overall, more versatile.</p>
<p>Med schools are, for the most part, looking for students who have demonstrated that they are exceptionally good thinkers and could handle the rigor of the curriculum at their school. As far as the numbers of students admitted goes, it seems that medical schools prefer students who went on academic (rather than vocational) tracts. (And that difference is in the percent of applicants accepted, not in the total number of applicants.)</p>