{"id":81,"date":"2020-01-27T11:19:24","date_gmt":"2020-01-27T16:19:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/departments\/pre-health\/?page_id=81"},"modified":"2026-09-14T06:39:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T10:39:21","slug":"choosing-a-major","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/departments\/prehealth\/undergraduate\/choosing-a-major\/","title":{"rendered":"Choosing a Major"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is no statistical evidence that the choice of major significantly affects an applicant’s chances of being accepted to a health professional graduate school. Accordingly, the best advice we can give you is to follow your passion and academic interests when you select your major. If you enjoy your courses, you are more likely to learn. In contrast, if you choose to major in a science only because you think it will help impress medical schools with your commitment to science, but you are not really interested in science, you will probably not do well and will not enjoy your undergraduate education. The same goes for someone who chooses a nonscience major because they think it will help them stand out from the crowd. If that person is not truly interested in their choice of major, the likely outcome will be a generally lackluster academic performance.<\/p>\n

As discussed above, most prehealth students choose to major in a science in part because the health professional school prerequisites and courses likely to help them prepare for the MCAT, DAT, or other standardized exam are mostly science courses. However, many successful applicants to health professional schools do choose nonscience majors, in which case they must carefully plan their curriculum as described in the Choosing Your Courses section<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There is no statistical evidence that the choice of major significantly affects an applicant’s chances of being accepted to a health professional graduate school. 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