ChanceMe as someone trying to do Pre-Med [NJ resident, 3.7 GPA, 1440 SAT]

So just to illustrate a point, let’s look at how declaring a major works at Rutgers if you are in Arts and Sciences, the school which includes Bio among others:

As they explain there:

Choosing a Major

All incoming students enter Rutgers undeclared. Selecting a major, like other academic planning decisions, depends on your goals and interests.

Some things to consider:

  • Do you enjoy the subject? If you have taken classes in a subject, have you enjoyed them? Were the readings and homework pleasant and stimulating? If you don’t know much about a major, you can try a class or two to introduce yourself. If you go to the website of the major, you may find a useful summary of the philosophy of that academic subject.

  • Will you enjoy classes you might take in the future? If you go to the website of the major, you can find course descriptions and even syllabi.

  • What out-of-classroom opportunities does the major offer? Departmental websites have lots of information about these opportunities. Departmental advisors can discuss these opportunities with you. You can ask your instructors. You can ask other students - did you know that many majors have student organizations where you can learn about careers, out-of-classroom opportunities, and other information about the major?

  • How might your career goals fit with your major? Career counselors at the Office of Career Exploration and Success can meet with you to discuss this. Departmental websites often have career information, and departmental advisors can help as well.

This again is basically the point of Rutgers! High school students in NJ can pick Rutgers knowing it will support a wide variety of educational and career paths. They therefore don’t need to know what they want to major in at the beginning of college, they can instead follow the process outlined in that webpage before deciding.

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Thank you, I needed this advice. I’m just going to continue researching and try to plan out a rough roadmap, but also realize that I might want a change.

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Oh wow, I didn’t realize that everyone goes undeclared. I’ll definitely look into this, thank you

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This is actually much more the rule than the exception, in fact.

If you want to do a specialty school thing like Engineering, Business, Nursing, or so on, then you might need to be admitted to that school instead. But more often than not at a big public, there is a school called something like Arts & Sciences where you don’t declare a major until after exploring for a while first. And that is usually the school premeds choose as it usually contains Bio, Chem, Math, Physics, and so on–the stuff you need to do for prereqs.

But then you don’t have to do one of those majors, you can choose anything else they offer instead.

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Biology is fine if that is where your interests lie. Just be aware that most biology majors go to grad school if they do not go to medical school.