What is pre-med?

Pre-med is the “path” someone takes in college to apply to Medical School. In addition to a set of courses that must be taken, pre-med also entails taking the MCAT and doing a plethora of other activities outside of school-work.

As stated before, pre-med is NOT a major; it is a set of courses. This almost always includes: 

-1 year General Chemistry
-1 year Organic Chemistry
-1 year Physics
-1 year Biology 

In addition, many medical schools require the following, so it’s advised that you take them as well: 

-1 year Math
-1 year English 

I will refer to the above courses as the pre-med “pre-reqs” later in this doc. It is sometimes recommended that students take additional upper-division coursework in biochemistry, anatomy, molecular biology, etc… but it is rarely ever required.

Important Note: As many of you may know, the MCAT will be changing in 2015 and will include social sciences. At the moment some medical schools suggest Psychology and/or Sociology. In the future, they may become more strictly enforced as requirements.

What do I need to take to be a pre-med at Cal?

Cal offers all of the pre-med courses, and most of them in at least two different “verions.” By this, I mean there are several different courses to satisfy various pre-reqs. For example, you can take Math 16A-B or Math 1A-B or Math 10A-B or Math 53-54 or even [insert Math X] and Stats 2/20/21. Despite the wide variety of options for being pre-med, your major may not accept all of these combinations as major-fulfilling requirements (Most science majors won’t accept the 16 series, for example). In general, the most common set of pre-reqs completed is Chem 1A/L, Chem 3A/L, Chem 3B/L, MCB 102, Biology 1A/L, Biology 1B, Physics 8A, Physics 8B, Math 1A-B, and any two R&C courses. You may notice that the above set does not include 4 chemistry courses, even though you’re supposed to have 2 years total of Chemistry. This is because at Cal, MCB 102 (Biochemistry) is commonly used as the 4th chemistry course. However, you are able to take the “normal” amount of 2 gen chem courses and 2 organic chem courses if you really want to. In addition, one the medical school application, you count Chem 1A and 3A as “general chemistry” even though 3A is actually organic chemistry. 3B and MCB 102 count as Organic even though MCB 102 is actually biochem. This set would fulfill the pre-med pre-reqs for a biology major, but here are some alternatives for other majors:

Chemistry/Chemical Engineering/Chemical Biology

-1 year General Chemistry (Chem 4A-B)
-1 year Organic Chemistry (Chem 112A-B)
-1 year Physics (Physics 7A-B for Chem and Chem Eng, 8A-B for Chem Bio)
-1 year Biology(Biology 1A-B)
-1 year Math (Math 1A-B, Math 53-54)
-1 year English (any two R&C courses)

Note that College of Chemistry students have to take a completely different chemistry sequence. In addition, while only 1 year of math is required for pre-med, you need two years of math for the chemistry major. If you AP out of 1A-B, 53 and 54 by themselves will be sufficient replacement.

Any other Engineering Major:

-1 year General Chemistry (Chem 1A, Chem 3A) OR (Chem 1A-B)
-1 year Organic Chemistry (Chem 3B, MCB 102) OR (Chem 3A-3B)
-1 year Physics (Physics 7A-B)
-1 year Biology(Biology 1A-B)
-1 year Math (Math 1A-B, Math 53-54)
-1 year English (any two R&C courses)

Notice that you can take the Chem 1A, Chem 3A-B, and MCB 102 sequence for chemistry OR you can take the Chem 1A-B, Chem 3A-B sequence. Because engineering majors don’t need to take MCB 102, they have this option. 

Non-science major:

-1 year General Chemistry (Chem 1A, Chem 3A) OR (Chem 1A-B)
-1 year Organic Chemistry (Chem 3B, MCB 102) OR (Chem 3A-3B)
-1 year Physics (Physics 8A-B)
-1 year Biology(Biology 1A-B)
-1 year Math (Math 16A-B)
-1 year English (any two R&C courses) 

For a non-science major, you can substitute the Math 16 series. You can also do this if you are a CNR Biology major.

For those of you who might be interested, this has been my schedule so far 

Fall 2012: 
– Chem 1A/L
– Native American Studies R1B
– History 14
– Anthro 3AC
– UGIS 192 (URAP)
Total Units: 17

Spring 2013: 
– Chem 3A/L
– Math 16A
– Anthro 1
– Public Health 116
– PMB 13
– Decal for Sather Health
Total Units: 20 

Summer 2013:
– Scandinavian R5B
– Bio 1B
Total Units: 8

Fall 2013:
– Chem 3B/L
– Psych 1
– Physics 8A
– UGIS 192 (URAP)
Total Units: 14

Spring 2014:
– Bio 1A/L
– Physics 8B
– IB 132
– Math 16B
– UGIS 192 (URAP)
Total Units: 18

Advice on being a pre-med:

Don’t Overload on units: 

Part of doing well in college is being able to manage your time, and taking loads of units will make this harder. I know some people can take 25+ units and still maintain a 3.7+, and if this is you then give yourself a pat on the back, but most people cannot. It is often suggested that freshman start off taking 13 units, so I would urge many of you to consider this. Personally, I took 17 my first semester, and I pulled a 4.0, but everyone is different, so better to play it safe than sorry if you’re unsure of your capabilities. 

Don’t focus solely on GPA:

GPA and MCAT are very important factors for getting into Medical school, and they will pivotal at getting you the interviews, but after that they become less important than other factors: Volunteer Work, Clinical Experience, Research, and any other meaningful extracurricular to your personal life. This could a sport, an artistic endeavor, anything really. There are people with 4.0’s who don’t get into a single medical school while there are people with 3.4 who do get into medical school, so don’t neglect your extracurricular. 

There are many paths to being a doctor:

A lot of pre-med students are very worried about getting into Medical School and about their GPA and the rest of their application, and there is reason: only 46% of applicants get into at least one medical school. This means that over half of applicants do not get in. While this statistic certainly highlights the difficulty of getting into Medical School, it neglects the alternatives should a student be rejected. If you find yourself rejected from Me
dical School during your first application cycle, do not panic and fear this is the end of the world. There are several things you can do to still become a doctor.

First, you can always reapply in another cycle. Granted, they will scrutinize more closely your application because they will see you are a re-applicant, but if you show significant improvement then you have a good shot at getting into a school. Ways of improving your application include raising your GPA by taking more courses, doing more extracurricular work, and doing an SMP (hard to get into now, but more info on the internet). There are lots of successful doctors who get into med school on their 2nd or even 3rd attempt, so don’t fret immediately. In addition to reapplying medical school, there are two other options: Osteopathic Medical School and Caribbean Medical School.

When I referred to Medical School in the past paragraph, I was referring to Allopathic Medical Schools, which grant an MD degree. Osteopathic Medical Schools grant a DO degree, but both are COMPLETELY VALID FOR PRACTICING MEDICINE [Despite the EQUAL VALIDITY, I should caution you all: if you really want to be a surgeon or go into an extremely competitive medical field, a DO or Caribbean Med school probably isn’t right for you, because residencies tend to want American MD’s for those fields] The difference is that DO’s take a few extra courses and take a more “holistic” approach to medicine, but both take the same anatomy, physiology, immunology, pathology, and all the other medical school courses. The reason I suggest Osteopathic Medical Schools as a potential alternative is because they have a significantly lower GPA average of accepted students: the average GPA of MD schools is usually in the 3.6 range, whereas the average is around 3.3-3.4 for Osteopathic Medical Schools. This does not mean you should treat Osteopathic Med School as merely a backup, but you should consider it. In addition, the average MCAT scores are also lower (31 vs 28 I think).

The final alternative is Caribbean Medical School. Although I specifically mention Caribbean ,there are a lot of foreign medical programs, so this also applies to Foreign programs in general. There are A LOT of different Caribbean Medical Schools, but that doesn’t mean all of them are equal. While you are free to make your own choices, I would only consider the “Big 4” Caribbean Med Schools: Ross, AUC, SABA, and SGU. These are the Big 4 because they are accredited by the US and because they have much higher graduation and residency-match rates than the other ones. Granted, they still aren’t as high as US MD or DO, but they are reasonable.