<p>I hear that 50% of the students who are pre-med majors do not end up in med school. What career options do these 50% choose? If you intend to be in the science fields, what options do you have besides research? How would the pay be for such careers?
-hypermom</p>
<p>Physician’s assistant, nurse, public health field. Salaries are much less but I hear these jobs may offer more flexibility which has its own value.</p>
<p>*I hear that 50% of the students who are pre-med majors do not end up in med school. *</p>
<p>That belief is based on the fact that many students declare themselves to be “pre-med,” but they never really had the academic abilities to actually get the GPA/MCAT to go to med school. Schools can’t control who declares himself to be “pre-med”…so an ACT 24/2.9 GPA frosh can declare himself to be pre-med, and then quickly get weeded out when he gets a C in General Chemistry. </p>
<p>I don’t know what the stats are for pre-med kids who are well-qualified academically, will take the coursework seriously, and who have a real interest in Medicine, but I imagine the number who make it to med school is much higher than 50%.</p>
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I think, more correctly speaking, about 50% (maybe even slightly less than that) of the students who have taken MCAT, likely think they have a medical-school-worthy MCAT/GPA, and have actually applied to medical schools, do not end up in med school.</p>
<p>Also, at most colleges, there is no premed major. Students major in a variety of majors and just take the prereqs offered by the chemistry, biology, physics, math, and English departments.</p>
<p>The thing is, the difficulty of pre-med weeder courses varies from school to school, and even within a school if there are honors sections. Often, what is measured in these classes is the extent of preparation relative to classmates, not relative to every pre-med in the country.</p>
<p>D attends a “cc top school” where an ACT 24/2.9 would never get admitted, let alone declare themselves as pre-med, yet classes are curved so that about a third of students will get a C or less, and at least 50% of freshmen pre-meds change their minds(and majors) in the first two years. </p>
<p>And, BTW, I am hearing that more than a few students who get a C in one or the other semester gen chem are 34ACT (or 1500 plus SAT) /3.8 UW GPA/4 or 5 Chem AP students. Some will do a retake or do better in other pre-med courses, with better scheduling (no overloading - and doing strategic withdrawals rather than suffer a GPA hit, taking some courses in summer to ease up schedule, taking a few “easy” courses) to allow for more preparation for classes. Others will have to learn better study habits, learn how to work with the TA’s in large lecture courses, and learn to allot more time for course preparation. I am sure that some will wonder if they wouldn’t have been better off (at least with regards to preparing for med school) attending a lower-tier school.</p>
<p>The school does advise that students choose a major that will allow for a career direction of interest should the student fail to get into medical school. If they are still interested in one of the sciences (or in engineering) there is nothing to stop them from retaking classes and/or doing better in upper-level classes (which tend to be managed very differently from the intro classes.) </p>
<p>Knowing what I know now (neither Frazzled S nor Frazzled D has had any interest in pre-med, yet both have had to take pre-med classes as prereq’s) I would advise potential pre-meds at highly-competitive or “most competitive” schools to keep a close eye on scheduling until they get a good feel for how their high school preparation (both inside and outside the classroom) compared with that of their peers.</p>
<p>In 2010 about 18,000 or 42% of students who actually applied to a U.S. medical school through AAMCAS were accepted at one or more medical schools. 24,000 or 58% of applicants were not accepted at any medical schools. The number of people who take the MCAT is close to 100,000 per year which means that more than half of pre-med students do not go through with filing an application after seeing their MCAT scores and probably realizing that the arduous and expensive process of actually applying to medical schools would be an exercise in futility. The number of people who take the MCAT is probably a small fraction of the total number of students who followed a pre-med curriculum and majored in Biology or Chemistry with the intention of going to medical school.</p>
<p>This very large number of college graduates with Bachelors degrees in Biology or Chemistry who did not make it to medical school has created a huge surplus of people trying to secure jobs as lab technicians in industry, government and education. They often work at temporary jobs arranged by temp agencies. They are usually paid by the hour with the going rate being about $15 per hour and generally get no benefits and have no job security. </p>
<p>College freshmen really need to be more realistic about what their chances of actually getting admitted to a medical school are and consider majors that can afford them a good career track in some field in the very likely event that they do not get into medical school.</p>
<p>When I was at an LAC that prided itself on success in placing pre-meds into medical school (mainly by discouraging freshmen and sophomore if their science GPA slipped below a 3.6 or so), weeded-out premeds who changed majors became lawyers, psychologists, and teachers in great numbers. Those who kept a science major (many probably as “smart” if not “smarter” than those who made it into med school, just less savvy at gaming the system their first couple of years) tended to gravitate towards dentistry, pharmacy, or optometry, with less-stringent GPA requirements, or to go on to teach high school science (after receiving teacher certification) or into PhD programs in the sciences if their GPA’s in upper-level classes and GRE’s were up to snuff.</p>
<p>I have a feeling that in intervening decades the GPA/GRE requirements for these alternate science pathways may have gotten more stringent as well, or the jobs people are getting with these degrees have deteriorated in availability and quality?</p>
<p>Outside of the sciences the main obstacle may be the GPA hits of attempted weeder courses, and it might be helpful to know if transcripts are evaluated holistically in law school/ social science or humanities grad school admissions to account for GPA’s lowered by science/engineering courses.</p>
<p>Other possible jobs: teaching science/math at the middle, high school or community college level; pharmaceutical & medical sales; professional programs in PT, OT or other allied health professions; lab tech; government service (esp in foresty, agriculture, food safety, environmental assessment & compliance); quality control & compliance officers (in biological/environmental/agricultural/food/pharmaceutical research labs and manufacturing environments); fish & game officer.</p>
<p>(I actually know recent [i.e. graduated in the last 10 years] bio/chem majors doing all of these things.</p>
<p>Grad programs for the social sciences and humanities (and in fact all grad programs as far I’ve seen), GPA in the major is the primary thing departments look at. The overall GPA is looked at, but one’s major GPA is what is really placed under consideration.</p>
<p>*D attends a “cc top school” where an ACT 24/2.9 would never get admitted, let alone declare themselves as pre-med, *</p>
<p>First of all, I was using an extreme example. Secondly, even at top schools, some kids will less-than-stellar stats sometimes get admitted because of talent/athletics/connections/URM status, etc. </p>
<p>*And, BTW, I am hearing that more than a few students who get a C in one or the other semester gen chem are 34ACT (or 1500 plus SAT) /3.8 UW GPA/4 or 5 Chem AP students. *</p>
<p>That doesn’t surprise me at all…especially if they went to a high school that wasn’t very demanding in regards to homework/studying/grading. I’ve seen several kids with high stats from high school fall apart in college because they never really had to study or do homework before…so they have bad habits. </p>
<p>My son and I had this conversation yesterday. He said that about 200 frosh claim to be Pre-med every year. But, only about 100 actually apply to med school a few years later. Of that 100 the school reports that about 85% get accepted to at least one US MD med school. (This public does Committee Letters so they are able to keep better track of who gets accepted and who doesn’t…and there is a constant drumbeat that pre-meds need to have a least a 3.6 GPA cum and science…preferably higher). Their pre-med req’ts require that students take the “harder” Chem, the “harder” Bio, and the “harder” OChem…that req’t weeds kids pretty quickly.</p>
<p>What kind of jobs are available in ‘public health’?
Do they require a masters degree in ‘public health’?
-hypermom</p>
<p>mom2collegekids - I get what you are saying about students doing well in high school without developing good study habits, but then there are those students who get the high grades and SAT scores in high school without having to study much, who then go on to college and decide that what with all the extra hours in the day, they can easily fit in an extra couple of hours of study and really beat the curve, unless of course they go on to the next level or attend a special section.</p>
<p>I used to tell Frazzled S NOT to let his classmates know that he studied about half the hours they did, although some realized he rarely even prepared for an exam.(And, of course, he took SAT’s, AP’s, etc. either cold or practically cold as well.) This was in addition to doing the usual EC’s, BTW. He used to explain that his study habits were actually rather good, since he could learn and retain the material, and that this was why it took him far fewer hours than his peers to get his work done.</p>
<p>No surprise that it took him fewer hours than his peers to get through freshman chem as well, leaving additional hours to really get to set the curve and do undergrad research. He was not motivated by med school, but by perfectionism and the personal need for an adequate “cushion” in his courses to have time to devote to undergrad research (all those neat lab toys to play with, and grad students and professors to bounce ideas off of!) and to rest well at night.</p>
<p>The pre-med advisers at D’s school regularly explain to students that most will need to be prepared to spend at least twenty hours a week in class preparation for gen chem alone to expect a good grade, even though there may be students such as Frazzled S who will spend much less, while still working harder than they did in high school. Also, that they might want to consider going over material during breaks, taking some courses over the summer, and skipping time-consuming classes (such as Mandarin for non-heritage students) when choosing electives.</p>
<p>I would hesitate to call a student who has had trouble in gen chem a “slacker” if they are spending ten to fifteen hours a week in preparation for this class, in addition to ten hours each week preparing for each of the other four courses in their schedule, just one who has not necessarily been realistic about their schedule relative to the difficulty of the class and their level of preparation relative to peers AT THEIR SCHOOL.</p>
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<p>Actually, no. Law school is ALL about numbers (with the exception of Yale and Stanford). And if you read MiT’s website, you’ll see that contrary to what we might expect, the average numbers for med school acceptance for MIT student are higher than the national average.</p>
<p>But to the OP, it’s not always just the C’s in the science that drop kids – some kids just step off the roller coaster. One of my D’s roomies, with a 3.8, decided that premed was just too much work. My D’s lab partner, with only one A- in two years (Philosophy-honors), has decided that he too would rather enjoy college life. Both have switched to business, where the drinkin’ starts on Wednesday night…</p>
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Reasons? If I can make a guess, it is because 1) their students are too homogenious in their composition. (Medical schools may only need X numbers of science-lopesided students.) 2) They are overly confident that their science ability can help them in the application process. 3) They may apply to too many top/research schools. 4) Their clubs (especially, premed-centric clubs) may not be as vibrant as other “premed facory” schools.</p>
<p>I just thought of this: Isn’t MIT the school which admits the most international students (at least it has proportionally more international applicants)? If they recruit too many students who happen to share the similar attributes of international students, no wonder they are not that successful (considering the prestige of this school.) Anything remotely related to the word “international” is not good for applying a professional school.</p>
<p>^^there may be all kinds of reasons, mcat, but there does not appear to be any “love” for engineers and their lower-than-average gpa’s.</p>
<p>Since there’s no forgiveness for an engineer’s GPA, is that because some schools just use some kind of blind elimination based on minimum GPA/MCAT to do a “first round” elimination of sorts. </p>
<p>That said, is there any love for engineers who happen to maintain a high GPA?</p>
<p>^^for law school, the answer appears to be yes, particularly those that want to go into patent/ip law. It’s a good “soft” to have.</p>
<p>Dunno for med school. But according several knowledgeable posters on cc…engineers appear to be frowned upon by (top?) med schools.</p>
<p>I know one Bio major (have taken MCAT), who ended up beong CFO. He somehow got into large consulting firm that paid for his MBA, then he had to move because of wife"s new job and was hired as CFO. Not too bad.
Overall, I believe % is much higher than 50%. Only about 43% of Med. School applicants got accepted somewhere. Many fall out well before application process. The earlier that weed out class in pre-med sequence, the better. First semester of freshman year is the best timing, less time is wasted.</p>
<p>Hypermom, yes, you usually need a masters degree in public health. Schools are not nearly as difficult to gain acceptance to, as compared to med schools. Many interesting things to do w/this degree.</p>
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I’ve always wondered this. Many of my MPH friends seem to be current (or past) premeds. Can you give some examples?</p>
<p>Have a friend who has a PhD in PH, and consults for the CDC. Her field of expertise: resource planning for public drinking water and public drinking water quality issues. Others people I know who work in PH do things like run the child/maternal health programs regionally (including WIC). One runs the local office of the state child immunization program. Another is an epidemiologist. (Remember the e. coli contaminated spinach epidemic in 2006—he helped crack it). Other PH people I know have helped to organize and run non-profits that deal with domestic violence, rape survivorship, child abuse. Another is policy planner (state level) for public mental health services.</p>