July 30, 2026
Written By
Dr. Michael Minh Le
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You picked a major that has nothing to do with science, or you're about to, and now you're wondering if you just closed the door on medicine.
In this article, we’ll answer the question: can you go to med school with any degree? You’ll learn what it really takes to have a competitive application and what to do if your degree doesn’t line up.
Want to see for yourself exactly what it takes to get into med school? You can see 8 real AMCAS applications that earned acceptances to top med schools right inside our Application Database. See how each student differs and what winning factor they each had in their personal statements, activity descriptions, and most meaningfuls.
Plus it’s completely free inside our student portal. Create a free account here.
I'm not a bio major, am I already behind?
Take a breath. You’re not out of the running for med school because you didn’t choose biology as your major. I know you’ve heard differently. It’s common for premeds to be told that biology majors are more likely to get into med school.
Technically, that is true, but not because AdComs are favoring science majors. These students are accepted at higher rates because, on average, they arrive with slightly higher GPAs and MCAT scores.
To put it more simply: the major is a proxy for stronger stats, but it’s not a cause for admission.
So, what matters if your major doesn’t?
Let’s stay focused on the academic side of things first. What AdComs care about is this: prerequisite coursework.
You don’t need a specific major, but you do need specific classes on your transcript. Just think about it. Premed isn’t a major. Being a premed is really more like a checklist. It’s declaring that you’ll take a certain list of courses before you graduate.
Here’s what you’ll need to take:
(Exact requirements vary by school. Some also list psychology/sociology.)
So, sure, being a biology major may be the easier option to check off this list. Most of these courses are built into the major requirements. But that doesn’t mean you can’t major in something like English and take these courses in addition to your major requirements. AdComs don’t care how you do it as long as you take them.
But just because your major determines acceptance doesn’t mean that certain majors don’t have an advantage. Sure, you can take the coursework in addition to your major requirements, but it’s not the same as being immersed in a science major.
If that’s you, if you’ve chosen English or History, and you want to get back on the same playing field as a Biology major, then do these three things.
A biology major learns scientific vocabulary and lab habits just by being in that major. A non-science major needs to get that exposure intentionally. You’ll likely need to add on some self-study beyond simply taking the prerequisite courses.
Here’s a few things you can do:
What goes into a Bio major’s GPA and what goes into an Art major’s GPA are two very different things. A bio major might take 30-40 science courses over four years. That means one bad grade barely moves their science GPA.
A non-science major might only take 8-10 science courses total just to get the prerequisites. One B- in organic chemistry hits that GPA much harder because it's a much smaller pool of grades.
Here’s how you can avoid a tanked GPA from one grade:
At this point you may feel a lot of pressure as a non-science major. It can almost feel like something you need to apologize for, at least to yourself for adding all the extra work to catch up. But your major can actually be an advantage to your med school application that a typical science major wouldn’t have.
You’ll have a unique angle or story that will make your application stand out from the crowd. AdComs read hundreds of bio major applications each cycle and if those students aren’t careful, they start to sound like everyone else. A philosophy, art history, or economics major is memorable by default.
Why? You have a different set of formative experiences to draw from when writing your application. It’s not just the clinical experiences that shaped you but the semester studying labor economics or a language immersion program.
Too far down the path to recover a weak science GPA? Didn’t take all the prerequisite courses because you found out about the requirements too late?
There are three paths you can take to close that gap and make yourself truly competitive for med school.
Your major doesn’t get you into med school. And your prerequisites are only a checkbox. If everyone has them, how do they choose who to accept and who to reject? There’s more to your med school app than you may think.
Here’s what you’ll need:
The MCAT (Medical College Admission Test) is the standardized test you’ll need to take for any med school you apply to. They all require it.
It's a single exam that’s the same for every applicant regardless of major. And it’s a score AdComs look at alongside your GPA as a first filter before they ever read a word of your personal statement.
The test has four sections:
It's scored out of 528 total. 511-512 is the average score among students who get accepted. But 514-518 is generally considered a strong, safely competitive score for most MD programs, as they all have their own averages that they deem competitive.
Those science prerequisites we talked about earlier? They are going to be your foundation for the material that will show up on this test. But the test isn’t just raw knowledge. It’s used to see how well you reason and apply concepts.
That means you’ll need to apply knowledge to situations you've never seen, instead of just recalling facts. You’ll also need to read and interpret data, graphs, and experimental setups that you’ve never seen before. That’s why it’s important to do practice questions and even full-length practice tests.
It’s not just the courses and the grades. You’ll also need to show you’ve already started participating in medicine, that you’ve exposed yourself to this career.
But you need to be careful. I see students all the time who think something is a clinical experience when it’s not. Then they’ll get to their application and realize there are gaps.
So here’s your definition. Clinical experience is direct patient interaction. You need to, in some way, have participated in their care. Not just observed care like when you shadow a doctor, but did something and interacted with the patient in some way.
Common roles that are almost always clinical experience include:
It can be paid or unpaid; it doesn’t matter. Clinical experience that’s volunteering-based is perfectly fine as long as there is direct patient interaction. That means you can’t add any time spent in soup kitchens, tutoring kids, or doing admin work at the hospital.
And don’t confuse it with research either; that’s its own distinct category on your med school app. Ab/bench science, clinical research (patient data, trials), or research in things like economics or public health policy are not clinical experience.
The other part of the clinical experience conversation is how many hours. That’s a common pain point for almost all of the premeds I talk to. But here’s the thing: the number of hours you rack up is way less important than what you got out of the experience.
AdComs know when you’re coasting and just trying to check off boxes. Your experiences will come off flat and generic in your app. But if you pursue your interests and dive deep in your experiences, then you’ll have a real story to tell.
Most schools want 3-5 total letters of recommendation, with at least two from science professors and one from a non-science professor. But each school has its own requirements.
There’s also the committee letter option, which is where a pre-health committee or advisor writes a composite letter on your behalf. Nearly every med school accepts a committee letter in place of their individual letter requirements.
The potential trouble that a non-science major may run into is getting enough letters of rec from science professors. It’s easier for a bio major to build relationships with several science professors because they’re taking so many of those courses. A non-science major might only ever sit in front of two or three science professors total, so if you don’t build a relationship with each of them, you may be without the letter you need to apply.
And you can't just settle for a letter from someone who barely knows you. These letters are endorsements to med schools that you can handle it. AdComs interpret a generic letter as evidence the writer didn't have much to say about you, which reflects on you, not just the writer.
So, bottom line: yes, you can go to med school with any degree. You’ll need to take the required coursework and still nail the MCAT, but that’s doable. The rest of the app can feel more daunting with clinical experience, letters of recommendation, etc.
That’s why you need to see what it takes to create a competitive app from multiple very different students. We put together an Application Database that gives you access to 8 real AMCAS applications that earned acceptances to top med schools. You’ll see their personal statements, activity descriptions, most meaningfuls, and more so you can see how they crafted a compelling narrative no matter what their background was.
It’s completely free inside our student portal. Create an account here.
Based on matriculation, these are the most common majors?
Yes. MD and DO programs require only a bachelor's degree. That’s actually the most common level of education that matriculants have. Someone with a graduate degree is actually considered a nontraditional student.
The fastest path is completing the prereqs while you're still an undergrad, by taking extra science courses each semester or during summer sessions. If you've already graduated and are only missing a handful of courses (not the entire science sequence), taking them individually at a four-year institution is faster than enrolling in a full post-bacc program.
No, not at all. The only time you would want to enroll in a post-bacc is if you're starting from little to no science background. DIYing it in that case would be quite difficult.
