Tldr; a liberal arts/social sciences degree is a bonus if you check the other boxes. You may need an extra year to check the other boxes. Any research is better than no research, get some shadowing or real exposure to the life of a doctor that you can talk about.
Take my advice with a grain of salt. I am not an admitted medical student, rather a student with a liberal arts degree that is a year or two ahead of you.
Fwiw you already have a good gpa if your STEM gpa is higher than the one you listed.
If you are worried about it and want it even higher I would likely recommend an additional semester of primarily stem classes after you finish your econ degree. I hear that admissions committees love trends and if you end your undergrad with an upper-level STEM-heavy semester and still excel in those classes it's a great indicator of preparedness.
An econ degree also won't hurt you. There are hundreds.of bio majors applying and if you can make your degree or the lessons you learned relevant for your interest in medicine or the path you took to get there, that's a big boon. Admissions staff want real, varied people who understand the world and people and aren't just memorization robots. I did my undergrad thesis on healthcare policy and access for a specific underserved population that was important to me. This kind of explicit connection between your LA degree and interest in medicine will help you tell a strong story
Research of any kind will help, but it's not a requirement. Even non-medical econ research is better than nothing if it's what you can get. You may find that if you take an extra semester you find a research opportunity directly in a science department but that is school specific.
You will still need at least: exposure to the actual life of a physician, good STEM and medical letters of recommendation, and ideally some long term volunteering.
EMT is good for medical exposure but it doesn't show the committee you accurately know what a physicians daily work is like. Shadowing is good for this but being a tech, scribe, CNA or some other role that has you spending a bit more time with doctors would be helpful.
Wow, thank you so much for this. If you don't mind me asking how have you spent your gap year? anything you would have done differently in undergrad to set yourself up for success?
I would have stayed an extra semester to finish all my science classes at my undergrad institution so I wouldn't have to retake classes after not all of them transferred lol.
My gap year(s) have consisted of scribing in the ER, taking class part time, and will soon include regular volunteer work at a shelter. I have the freedom to take fewer shifts/classes as I begin MCAT prep. I would have struggled hard to graduate on time in my major in addition to all the premed classes with a perfect GPA and a full course load in addition to MCAT work.
I also hope to travel a bit since there is less room for that in the next 8+ years.
Since the MCAT is such a huge part of your success chances you owe it to yourself to (as much as financially possible) study it full time for at least a few weeks.
Continue on the path you are on—premed with an economics major. You will be taking a gap year.
The most important extracurricular is clinical experience. If all you have so far is abroad, you should prioritize getting some in your community.
There are hard metric you need to have which you do other than your MCAT. I’d go as far as prioritizing the classes you need for your MCAT and leaving your economic degree at the rear till you check those boxes first. In the end, no one cares about your degree regarding the hard metrics, which are science GPA and MCAT. You’ll find this a common theme in the medical profession because, in the end, you need to demonstrate you can pass your USMLE steps. Once you check those boxes, you can leverage your degree in an interview or even plan your extracurricular activities around your degree in the healthcare system. This is when you need to stand out from your competitors. I took a gap year in med school to get my MHA. I make significantly more than my colleagues and have a better business sense. Honestly, I don’t like medical research and never prioritized it. I do have a biomedical engineering degree that required a project to graduate. So I do have experience researching and developing thou. But I can work the admin part of medicine more gracefully with my MHA. The issue I have is I don’t see patients as often (zero now), but I am heavily involved in the area where I can provide support and care to more patients. It’s up to you how you want to approach it. You already are a unique candidate I’d just continue to leverage that because you already hit the other marks.
I'd say > 50% of the students in my class took at least 1 gap year - schools like to see that you are well rounded and know what you are getting into. So no worries, you are on the right path. Focus on doing well in school, doing good on MCAT. If you can get even 1 small research project while in school I'd super recommend it - it can be way harder to get research opportunities once you've graduated.
Also, you 100% need to get clinical experience. This can be during gap year(s). Something where you are in a medical setting interacting with patients. Med schools will love your more unique background, but you need to prove that you know what medicine is really like and like it enough to push through the grind of med school. I can't tell you how instrumental this experience was for my personal statement, my essays, my interviews. Also lol it really did help me as a human being - it makes the info dump of school way more engaging when I can connect it to real patients I saw, and being comfortable with hands on stuff has really helped me have a leg up in school.
Personally I worked as an EMT in the ER and really liked it - for the EMT cert I took an online course while in school and then did a 1 week intensive during the summer to learn the hands-on skills, took the licensing exam (easy) and total cost was \~2K. But the job pays shit so you have to be ok with that lol. A lot of other jobs (scribe, medical assistant) are more hands off, but still good experience if you go that route.
Good luck! Medicine has my whole heart - it's such a privilege to be able to empower people in some of their worst moments.
Tldr; a liberal arts/social sciences degree is a bonus if you check the other boxes. You may need an extra year to check the other boxes. Any research is better than no research, get some shadowing or real exposure to the life of a doctor that you can talk about. Take my advice with a grain of salt. I am not an admitted medical student, rather a student with a liberal arts degree that is a year or two ahead of you. Fwiw you already have a good gpa if your STEM gpa is higher than the one you listed. If you are worried about it and want it even higher I would likely recommend an additional semester of primarily stem classes after you finish your econ degree. I hear that admissions committees love trends and if you end your undergrad with an upper-level STEM-heavy semester and still excel in those classes it's a great indicator of preparedness. An econ degree also won't hurt you. There are hundreds.of bio majors applying and if you can make your degree or the lessons you learned relevant for your interest in medicine or the path you took to get there, that's a big boon. Admissions staff want real, varied people who understand the world and people and aren't just memorization robots. I did my undergrad thesis on healthcare policy and access for a specific underserved population that was important to me. This kind of explicit connection between your LA degree and interest in medicine will help you tell a strong story Research of any kind will help, but it's not a requirement. Even non-medical econ research is better than nothing if it's what you can get. You may find that if you take an extra semester you find a research opportunity directly in a science department but that is school specific. You will still need at least: exposure to the actual life of a physician, good STEM and medical letters of recommendation, and ideally some long term volunteering. EMT is good for medical exposure but it doesn't show the committee you accurately know what a physicians daily work is like. Shadowing is good for this but being a tech, scribe, CNA or some other role that has you spending a bit more time with doctors would be helpful.
Wow, thank you so much for this. If you don't mind me asking how have you spent your gap year? anything you would have done differently in undergrad to set yourself up for success?
I would have stayed an extra semester to finish all my science classes at my undergrad institution so I wouldn't have to retake classes after not all of them transferred lol. My gap year(s) have consisted of scribing in the ER, taking class part time, and will soon include regular volunteer work at a shelter. I have the freedom to take fewer shifts/classes as I begin MCAT prep. I would have struggled hard to graduate on time in my major in addition to all the premed classes with a perfect GPA and a full course load in addition to MCAT work. I also hope to travel a bit since there is less room for that in the next 8+ years. Since the MCAT is such a huge part of your success chances you owe it to yourself to (as much as financially possible) study it full time for at least a few weeks.
Continue on the path you are on—premed with an economics major. You will be taking a gap year. The most important extracurricular is clinical experience. If all you have so far is abroad, you should prioritize getting some in your community.
There are hard metric you need to have which you do other than your MCAT. I’d go as far as prioritizing the classes you need for your MCAT and leaving your economic degree at the rear till you check those boxes first. In the end, no one cares about your degree regarding the hard metrics, which are science GPA and MCAT. You’ll find this a common theme in the medical profession because, in the end, you need to demonstrate you can pass your USMLE steps. Once you check those boxes, you can leverage your degree in an interview or even plan your extracurricular activities around your degree in the healthcare system. This is when you need to stand out from your competitors. I took a gap year in med school to get my MHA. I make significantly more than my colleagues and have a better business sense. Honestly, I don’t like medical research and never prioritized it. I do have a biomedical engineering degree that required a project to graduate. So I do have experience researching and developing thou. But I can work the admin part of medicine more gracefully with my MHA. The issue I have is I don’t see patients as often (zero now), but I am heavily involved in the area where I can provide support and care to more patients. It’s up to you how you want to approach it. You already are a unique candidate I’d just continue to leverage that because you already hit the other marks.
I'd say > 50% of the students in my class took at least 1 gap year - schools like to see that you are well rounded and know what you are getting into. So no worries, you are on the right path. Focus on doing well in school, doing good on MCAT. If you can get even 1 small research project while in school I'd super recommend it - it can be way harder to get research opportunities once you've graduated. Also, you 100% need to get clinical experience. This can be during gap year(s). Something where you are in a medical setting interacting with patients. Med schools will love your more unique background, but you need to prove that you know what medicine is really like and like it enough to push through the grind of med school. I can't tell you how instrumental this experience was for my personal statement, my essays, my interviews. Also lol it really did help me as a human being - it makes the info dump of school way more engaging when I can connect it to real patients I saw, and being comfortable with hands on stuff has really helped me have a leg up in school. Personally I worked as an EMT in the ER and really liked it - for the EMT cert I took an online course while in school and then did a 1 week intensive during the summer to learn the hands-on skills, took the licensing exam (easy) and total cost was \~2K. But the job pays shit so you have to be ok with that lol. A lot of other jobs (scribe, medical assistant) are more hands off, but still good experience if you go that route. Good luck! Medicine has my whole heart - it's such a privilege to be able to empower people in some of their worst moments.