Hiya everyone. Hope all’s going well. I have officially started my first semester back, after graduating in 03 and working full time for 3+ years for a Technology Consulting firm.
Thus far, week 1 has been manageable. I feel like I need to shake some cow-webs off… but I’m slowly adjusting back to “school-mode.” There is that other issue of being in classes with a bunch of 18 and 20 year olds, but I’ll get over that awkwardness soon 
I had a chat with a pre-med advisor last week. I had obtained an undergrad business degree with an emphasis in Accounting back in the day. (Overall GPA 3.5) However, he seem to have suggested that business degree types have a “harder time” convincing med schools that they are better candidates.
My impression was that at least on paper, adcoms don’t care so much about your choice of an undergrad major aside from having obtained a good GPA and good performance with B/C/M courses (and MCAT of course lol)… but this conversation seem to have indicated that this is not really the case.
After we briefly discussed this, I kinda let it drop for the next few minutes, because I didn’t want to get overly argumentative in our first meeting. But then she mentions that people with Philosophy and Phsyc majors have gotten into good programs… so DING hmmm… I asked what makes a Philosophy major more qualified then a Business major. This got her stumped and the only reply she offered was that, “Doctors tend to like people more like themselves.”
This whole explanation of 1 type of non-science major vs another defies common sense, but maybe someone here can shed more light into this. (If anything, it sounded like personal bias to me against bean counters 
)
Btw, I have nothing against liberal arts majors, merely used a few popular ones as an example to make an argument.
I don’t think business majors have any harder time convincing adcoms of their suitability than anyone else, assuming a competitive BCPM GPA and MCAT. If anything, you might find that being a business major might give you a slight edge. Combined MD/MBA degrees are fairly popular right now. A major concern amongst graduating physicians is that most of them have no background in how to set up/run a successful practice.
I wouldn’t worry about it. I think that if you look at the stats, a higher percentage of non-science major applicants get accepted to medical school than science major applicants. Of course, there are far more science applicants than non, but still . . . Do well in you pre-reqs and on the MCAT and be able to articulate your reasons for wanting to go to medical school well in both your personal statement and in an interview.
If you look at OSU’s 2006 Entering Class Data, you will get a good idea of the wide range of majors that are accepted to medical school.
g’luck.
So your pre-med advisor said that philosophy and psychology majors have a better chance of getting accepted? Eh, I don’t know about that. Like Emergency said, you actually have an edge since medical schools are recognizing more and more that it’s advantageous to have formal business education in health care and you already have a degree in that. With your undergrad GPA, if you do good on the BCPM classes and the MCAT, I don’t see why you wouldn’t be as competitive as someone with a phil or psych degree…or any other degree for that matter.
I’ve always heard the Philosphy majors do well with med school admissions because they stand out among the typical bio major/premed crowd, but I haven’t heard that about Psych majors.
Thanks for your opinion guys (I will sleep better tonight).