Choosing a Major

In theory medical schools do not care what your undergraduate major is and you can apply to medical school with almost any major as long as the minimum requirements are met. However, medical schools do expect applicants to perform extremely well in the science courses that they do take. The smaller the number of science courses, the more weight that each individual science course carries.

As you can see from the comments above there are a significant number of science courses to be taken in the premedical program. Most students interested in medicine major in the sciences because their natural interest lies in this area and the course requirements for medical school and a major in biology or chemistry strongly overlap. Nationwide about 60% of the people going to medical schools have biology degrees, about 25-30% have degrees in chemistry or engineering and the remaining 10-15% have degrees in the humanities and social sciences.

Again, given the constraints the science requirements place on your academic program it is important that you enroll in both the appropriate Biology and Chemistry courses first semester your freshman year. This is true for science and non-science majors, as there is a two to three year sequence of courses that you need to apply to medical school. If you have any questions about this be sure that you or your advisor talk to the premedical advisor.