CS -> Pre-med major switch = possible?

College Majors
21

UCB is a special case, because you can major in CS two different ways:

  • EECS in the College of Engineering: more selective, but direct admission to the major. However, a higher volume of requirements may make taking pre-med courses more difficult.
  • CS in the College of Letters and Science (L&S): since all L&S students start undeclared, major within L&S does not affect selectivity per se (although consistency of essays and ECs can affect how a reader sees your application). L&S students need to earn a 3.3 GPA in three CS courses to get into the L&S CS major (about half of students in those courses earn B+ or higher grades). Leaves more schedule space to take pre-med courses.

However, as a non-California resident, UCB will be expensive with no financial aid, unless you get a super-reach Regents’ scholarship. Spending more on undergraduate will make it harder to afford medical school, or require a longer term of debt service if you do go to medical school.

Regarding pre-med at UCB, about a quarter of students in typical pre-med courses earn A- or higher grades. If you get mostly grades lower than A-, you are unlikely to get into a US medical school.

Here is an older post about grade distributions for selected courses at UCB:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/university-california-berkeley/2071932-grade-distributions-in-prerequisite-courses-for-gpa-based-goals.html

For grade distributions by course at some other colleges, see here:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/2074436-some-colleges-have-grade-distribution-information-available-by-course.html

22

Also, residencies for higher paid medical specialties are highly competitive (perhaps because medical students are looking at their $400,000 debts). Most medical school graduates match into lower paid medical specialties, so you should do your medical school path financial planning based on the pay levels of the lower paid medical specialties.

23

" the only school I am considering in Washington is UWash, which has a good pre-med program but nothing else"

The University of Washington does indeed have a very good medical school.

However, the University of Washington also has an excellent computer science program. If you look at some of the threads on college confidential regarding computer science, then you will see the U. of Washington mentioned quite often. I just checked a recent US News and WR listing which has U.Washington listed sixth in the US for computer science. If you look at the listing you will see many really, really excellent schools ranked lower.

https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-science-schools/computer-science-rankings

Getting accepted to medical school is tough. In many cases public medical schools in the US do give some preference to in-state applicants.

Medical school is very expensive. Attending an in-state public university for undergrad and again attending an in-state public university for medical school can save you buckets of money.

If you do attend the University of Washington for either premed or computer science or both, you will find that there are many excellent students and excellent professors. Classes will be tough. Exams will be tough. Your stats suggest that you can do this, but it will be a lot of work. You will get a degree (or degrees) that are highly respected everywhere in the US.

24

Cal is a grade deflator and not necessarily the best school for a potential premed. Which is the case for most of the UC schools.

If you’re in-state for UDub, stick with it.

25

@DadTwoGirls you’re right, UW has a stellar computer science program. The only problem is its extremely low acceptance rate for direct admit CS majors. If I do get into the program, chances are I will attend. However, I will not go undeclared because it will be very hard to get into the program later on.

I do hope I can find an in-state university for the sake of my parents, but I do not know of any other in-state colleges that offer a good computer science program that I can potentially fall back on if I fail to get into med school.

26

A thought I’ve been having:

I heard that computer science majors are very time-consuming with long projects. If I do that with pre-med, I am not sure if I will have enough time to do valuable internships and other extracurricular activities. However, if I major in something like biochem, which I’m not really passionate about, it may give me more time for ECs and a major more specific to medicine, but if I don’t get into med school, I won’t have much use for it because I don’t want to be a biochemist. What should I do? I really want to use my time at college to maximize my chances for med school but CS may be an obstacle to that.

Also, for colleges like UW, I need to declare my CS major right off the bat in my college application. Is this the case for most other colleges? I think many colleges have a lower acceptance rate for CS than the college itself, which I’m guessing means that you have to apply directly for CS?

Thanks.

@Hamurtle @ucbalumnus @DadTwoGirls

27

OP, this is a serious case of cart before the horse. You started this thread a few hours ago, weren’t familiar with what it eventually takes to get into med school. Just an idea you need a prestige college name to enhance chances. And a “premed major.”

Posters tried to fill in some blanks.
A few hours after that, now you say you “found that my choice of major should not significantly impact my chances of admission to medical school.” All too fast. There’s lots more to it. You’re a junior and should use the time to learn- and check your assumptions. So that, a year from now, you can submit a strong app for undergrad. That comes first.

You don’t seem familiar with considerations when picking undergrad colleges to apply to, esp with med school hopes, figuring IF you match what they want. Or just how much other candidates to these colleges will have done. Everyone needs safeties. Affordable.

You’ve named colleges with fierce competition. You have to go back and learn what they value and look for, what impresses them and how to show it. They tend to prefer full depth and breadth/rigor in cores. Not just stem. That includes foreign language. On their web sites, they show the array of hs courses they recommend.

In all the AP hum scores, you have 4s, except govt. Again, tippy tops like to see rounded rigor and mastery.

Your ECs are mostly stem. But these colleges also look for involvement in ways beyond your career ideas. What do you do with peers, besides sports and the stem competitions? They’re building a community.

I’m not sure how they’ll view camp. Many stem kids eventually move into more in the medical setting, itself, ongoing through the school year or the full summer, not just a week. Or internships in CS.

You have time to rethink those assumptions, ensure you’ve got the right array of courses and ECs and can show you match. Think about it.

28

If you are not passionate about biochemistry, you are less likely to get A grades that are necessary (but not sufficient) to get into medical school. And since it has labs, it will take up time. In the likely event you do not get into medical school, you would have a degree in a subject you are not interested in.

Major in something that you actually like, and which you will not regret if you do not go to medical school.

29

OP says

“Please answer in terms of how this will affect my chances of becoming a surgeon, nothing else.”

This is definitely putting the cart before the horse. You don’t go into UG with a goal of being any certain type of Dr. I bring this up as I think many High School students think that you can just magically choose to be a neurosurgeon or any other competitive specialty. The specialty you may go into will be determined by things you do in medschool, it has NOTHING to do with anything you do in UG.

Choose your UG on factors that have been brought up in this thread, such as affordability, fit of school and access to good premed advising and to med related EC’s.

30

Case Western Reserve University in Ohio comes to mind with super cs and pre med programs.

31

“I bring this up as I think many High School students think that you can just magically choose to be a neurosurgeon or any other competitive specialty.”

I don’t know if they think you can magically be one, but that’s how teenagers think. And this OP actually has thought about CS projects interfering with science labs, which is pretty good foresight. Anyway we can be more supportive, cc is not known as a supportive site for kids, so they go elsewhere, because they won’t be judged like they’re being here.

32

But, there is a responsibility to do your due diligence. Any OP is the one who will apply. We do answer questions to clarify, to help fine tune, offer a different perspective, etc. But that presumes the OP (student or parent) has pursued some of the basic info, from the right sources.

OP named some tough colleges to get into, assuming the prestige is what matters. But when his full app picture is pulled together, next fall, he may or may not even be a match to those, to what they look for, for their undergrad class. First things first.

33

@lookingforward
thanks for your responses. They are stern but helpful.
First of all, prestige obviously isn’t everything – getting a higher GPA at a lesser-known university is definitely better than a lower GPA at a well-known one (if it’s to a significant extent). The reason that I put some college names up there is just to see where I stand right now because my goal is to go to a fairly prestigious school; again, it isn’t everything, I know. And yes, I am obviously adding safeties and considering the cost of schools (I am dumb but not that dumb).

Judging by your response, I’m guessing that you do not think my resume is competitive enough for many prestigious universities. I will obviously do more research on this in the future, but in your first response, I feel that you added suggestions that were impossible for me to implement at this stage. For instance, you critiqued my 4’s on some of my humanities AP’s, which I can’t retake.

I feel that it doesn’t really matter whether I pursue medicine or computer science as extracurriculars in high school, as getting into a good undergrad program that offers good CS and pre-med reqs is the only thing that matters. What I do from there isn’t impacted by my high school activities.

“You don’t seem familiar with considerations when picking undergrad colleges to apply to, esp with med school hopes, figuring IF you match what they want.”

That being said, I have given considerable time into picking the right activities for a major in computer science and also put time into getting “familiar with considerations when picking undergrad colleges to apply to.” Could you clarify how my application doesn’t show these things?

“You’ve named colleges with fierce competition. You have to go back and learn what they value and look for, what impresses them and how to show it. They tend to prefer full depth and breadth/rigor in cores. Not just stem. That includes foreign language.”

Could you clarify which part of my application gave you this belief? I think my extracurriculars are decent (not great) for CS and partly for medicine and my classes have been chosen to suit my interests/skills. I have taken 4 years of Spanish and am “relatively” well-rounded.

Thanks.

Note: Sorry, I’ve been awake for 20 hours so some of this may not make sense but I hope you get my point.

34

While CS + pre-med is a good fallback plan, CS in general is a hard major and will make it much harder for you to maintain the GPA for med school. You should definitely look at prestige for med school but I don’t think it matters that much for pre-med and CS will get you a good paying job regardless of the college’s prestige you go to. Have you considered the 6/7/8-year programs for med school? They are extremely helpful in streamlining your path to medicine (although it is highly discouraged to do a 6-year program because of the stress/workload).

35

OP, I tend not to supply direct answers. Rather, to encourage kids to do this better digging on their own, first. Then, as your own understanding grows, many of us can help in various ways.

No, you can’t change the 4 scores, wasn’t suggesting you could. But the competition for tippy tops is, unfortunately, stuffed with kids who show top performance all around (stem wannabes with more 5s, fewer 4s, if any, in humanities AP.) Not just top scores in what’s most related to the hoped-for major. It means having some colleges on your list that are less demanding in their expectations than those you noted here. If you have that covered, via affordable matches and safeties, great.

The time from now to hitting the Submit button is long. You will change and grow over that period. We have no idea if you might shift some activities or add more with impact, how you might handle the written portions of the app/supps, etc. (That alone requires understanding what the college wants to see in you, the traits they value.) You might make changes and get a coveted admit. But your issue, at present, imo, boils down to missing the part where tippy top colleges want to see rounded strengths. Not just in your major interest area. You say you feel either CS or med ECs are valid. They are. But both are stem related. Now, where do you show the “more?” You say you “have given considerable time into picking the right activities for a major in computer science.” But what about the fact that, again, this is just the stem side of things?

TTs want to see your intellectual curiosity and awareness goes beyond your pre-set stem interests. That you’re an open thinker who willingly chooses to be involved in these other arenas, making other sorts of contributions, as well. (MIT has a nice bit in their admissions blogs about not being unilateral.) They want to see, via your record, that you interact with a variety of others, not just stem-oriented kids.

I’m going to stop there. I believe digging in and learning more can only benefit you. It brings a better understanding of what matters to the adcoms. Try it.

36

@XtremeBlaze777
Thank you for mentioning the 6/7/8 combined BS/MD programs. I have just started to really look into them and they seem very appealing. The only problem is that they are extremely selective and I don’t know if my application is strong enough.

What do you think?

Thanks.

37

BS/MD programs are very selective, most if not all have admission rates in the single digits. Most have GPA requirements to remain in the program…some are very high (WashU), some not so high. Some require taking the MCAT, some don’t. So do your research.

Your stats put you in range. Make sure to take another lab science senior year, ideally an AP.

Where you are light is with experience in a role where you are exposed to the health care system and patients. What did you do in the hospital internship last summer? Starting now and through this coming summer look into more volunteer work where you have patient facing experience…in the ER or as an assistant CNA, for example.

Good luck.

38

@Mwfan1921
Okay so I’ve done some heavy research on this BS/MD program and I don’t think I’m going to pursue it for multiple reasons (acceptance rate, quality of most med schools in program, inability to branch out for some programs, etc)

I think I’m just going to go for a strong undergraduate program like UCLA and focus on CS extracurriculars as I’m majoring in that (and I’m guessing CS extracurriculars will help my admission chances more than medicine extracurriculars?). Medicine E.C.s, I think, should be put off til college where it actually counts.

Does this sound like a good plan?

Thanks

39

" However, the only school I am considering in Washington is UWash, which has a good pre-med program but nothing else. Because of this, if I ever end up dropping out of pre-med, I will have no other reliable major to fall back on because UWash is not great at many things."

There’s a lot of bad presumptions there. It sounds like you’re REALLY hung-up on prestige, and that’s not a healthy attitude to have when choosing a college. Going to California out of state costs around $65,000 a year. Have you talked to your parents about cost? Most don’t have $300,000 lying around for an all-expense paid trip to your favorite university. And you’re not going to get that kind of financing to go to these schools.

Whether you go to medical school or choose technology(I work in that field), prestige won’t matter. You need to keep the debt down. If you choose tech, by the time you’re making enough to drive a Mercedes, your student loans will be long paid off. You’ll be making a relatively modest salary for the first several years as you gain experience.

You may be right, in a way about UW. Their CS program is actually very good, and it’s hyper-competitive. There’s a good chance you might not get in. Therefore you should consider Washington State, since it’s less competitive. I guarantee, employers aren’t going to care as long as you know how to do the job.

40

“I’m just going to go for a strong undergraduate program like UCLA”

Maximizing the cost of your undergraduate program seems like a bad idea to me also. The Universities of California are quite expensive for out of state students.