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THE BEST PRE-MED MAJOR: Majors with the highest acceptance rates to Medical School - YouTube
Channel: TheStriveToFit
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Hey guys!
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So Iâm officially back from break!
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Before I begin, I just wanna thank the great
courses plus for sponsoring todayâs video.
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Stick around at the end of the video and Iâll
talk more about them.
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So without further ado here is the video a
few days ago I filmed on the best pre-med
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major.
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Hi guys!
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Welcome back to my channel!
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Thereâs a question I want to finally address.I
get this question all time either on Instagram,
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Snapchat, the comment section here and via
e-mail as well, and the question is what is
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the best pre-med major?
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I think really the question is âwhat is
the best pre-med major that will increase
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my chances of getting into med school.â
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I think this is the perfect time to answer
because for most of us school is starting
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soon and you guys are probably starting to
think about whether or not to be pre-med or
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some of you are thinking about switching to
pre-med.
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So the short answer is, spoiler alert, you
guys are gonna hate this because Iâm pretty
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sure you guys hear this all the time: it doesnât
matter, pick a major that you like.
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But letâs explore what major has the highest
acceptance rate for med school a little further.
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So if you guys arenât familiar, there are
some similarities between the application
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process to medical school and the application
process to undergrad in that there is a centralized
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service that you have to use to apply to schools.
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For undergrad, thatâs the Common Application
and for medical school, thatâs AMCAS, which
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is the American Medical College Application
Service.
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AMCAS collects your MCAT scores, GPA, letters
of recommendation and then they send it out
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to school to make it more convenient to the
applicant.
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So each year they release some data about
the applicants and matriculants and this information
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is available online for everyone to look at.
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So letâs quickly take a look at the data
for 2016.
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Iâm gonna transfer this data to a spreadsheet
so we can kind of play around with the data
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and see if there is anything we can learn
from this
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So according to the AAMC, there were 21 thousand
who were matriculated last year.
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So thatâs people who went through application
process, got accepted and are starting med
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school--or have started med school.
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And of this 21,000 people who got accepted,
more than half of them, about 53 percent,
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majored in biological sciences, so these are
majors like biology, molecular biology, cell
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bio, or neuroscience and behaviour, which
is what I majored in.
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About 4.2 percent majored in humanities, which
are majors like history, english, english
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literature, creative writing, or a foreign
language like Spanish.
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Less that 1% majored in math or statistics.
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About 10 % majored in Physical Sciences, so
these are majors like chemistry, physics and
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Iâm guessing astronomy.
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About 10 % majored in social sciences, so
these are majors like econ, government and
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anthropology, and about 2.5 percent majored
in specialized health sciences so thatâs
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majors like nursing, physical therapy, occupational
therapy and public health.
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So thatâs a good range of majors, I think.
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When looking at the graph an easy assumption
to make is that the best major to pursue is
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something in the biological sciences since
more than half of the people who got accepted
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in 2016 had majors in biological sciences.
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Thatâs not necessarily true, it just means
that proportionally, more people with majors
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in biological sciences applied to med school.
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If you look the applicant data--so these are
all the people who applied, the breakdown
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of the majors look pretty similar to matriculant
data.
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What is pretty interesting is that you can
break down the acceptance rates by majors.
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Actually, I can make a graph of acceptance
rates by major.
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And when you look it at like that, the group
of people with the highest acceptance rate
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at 46% are the ones who majored in humanities--these
are majors, like I said before, are English
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Literature, History, Creative Writing, Spanish,
and the likes.
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They are also the group that scored the highest
in their MCAT.
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There are probably several reasons of why
this particular group scored higher on their
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MCAT.
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One reason I can think of at the top of my
head is that the critical analysis and reasoning
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skills section of MCAT, which is the most
similar to like the critical reading section
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of the SATs. so youâre required to read
and answer questions about complex passages,
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with sophisticated vocabulary and with intricate
styles.
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So people who majored in humanities may find
it easier because they do a lot of that in
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their major, like being able to approach literature
from different perspective and develop their
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writing skills.
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I donât have any hard proof of this , but
I believe that of all the section of the MCAT
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the hardest one to improve on in a short period
of time is the Critical Analysis and Reasoning
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Skills.
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You canât really improve your vocabulary
and your grasp of the English Language when
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youâre preparing for the MCAT, I think that
just comes with years of practice and reading.
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Which you would have under your belt if you
were in majoring something in Humanities.
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The group with the second highest acceptance
rate at 44 percent are the ones who majored
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in Physical Sciences and these are majors
in physics, chemistry, etc. followed by people
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who majored in Math and Statistics at 42%.
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And not surprisingly, just like how people
who majored in humanities did better in Critical
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Analysis section, people who majored in Physical
Sciences and Math & Statistics did better
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in the Chemical and Physical Foundations section
of the MCAT.
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Another thing I find interesting is that the
average person who majored in Biological Sciences
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didnât really do better in the Biological
and Biochemical Foundations section of the
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MCAT when compared to the other groups.
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If I had to make an educated guess itâs
because this group didnât really get an
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âunfairâ advantage, because this section
is heavily covered by the pre-med requirements,
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like biology, bio-chem, orgo, which everyone
is required to take.
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But does that mean that you should major in
humanities and physical sciences?
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Only you guys can decide that for yourselves.
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My advice is, I wouldnât major in something
I have no interests in because regardless
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of the major, classes are gonna get harder
and harder as you guys get to higher level
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courses, so the best major to pick is something
you have a baseline of interest in so you
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wouldnât mind putting in the hard work to
get a good grade.
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Itâs so much harder to get a good grade
if youâre studying for something you have
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no interest in.
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There is so many people from different disciplines
in medicine so you donât have to major in
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anything specific.
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Like most of you know already, medicine is
more than just sciences.
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So donât be discouraged or worried if you
wanna study something major in something thatâs
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not scientific.
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If anything, that could work to your advantage
when youâre getting ready to take the MCATs.
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There are different factors medical schools
take into account when it comes to admissions.
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Your undergraduate GPA and your MCAT scores
are something that is in your hands.
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So best major for you is whatever major you
can enjoy the most and get the best grades
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in.
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So weâve come full circle.
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So thatâs all I have for you today about
the best majors for med school.
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I love looking at numbers and trying to find
connections in them.
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Let me know if I missed anything or let me
know what your thoughts are as to why certain
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groups had a higher acceptance rates than
other.
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I wanna thank the great courses plus once
again for sponsoring todayâs video.
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For a free one month trial, you guys can click
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I will also have the link in the description
box below.
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Thank you guys so much for watching.
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I hope you guys are off to a great start in
school.
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And for those of you starting med school this
summer, welcome to the journey and I wish
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you guys the best of luck, you guys are gonna
have so much fun.
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Make sure to check out the thestrivetofit.com
for a blog entry for this topic with all the
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graphs discussed in this video.
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Also thereâs gonna be all new merchandize
for the new school year like new pens and
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apparel and so much more coming this fall,
so stay tuned for that!
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Please give this video a thumbs-up and I will
see you guys in the next video.
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BYE
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