As an academic & medical professional, I can tell you that it is customary for people entering medical school to have an undergraduate degree from an accredited undergraduate college or university. Whatever your degree is in, the Bachelors Degree should represent that you’ve earned a formal college education. There are people who enter medical school with undergraduate degrees ranging from the traditional sciences, to english, to math, to humanities. The key is that you can quickly grasp the concepts of medical school regardless of the background you have earned. Medical school is rigorous, but if you are committed, that is half of the investment. Good luck!

Not necessarily. If you are an exceptional student you may be accepted into what is called a combined degree program. This is a six year program that enables you to pursue your undergrad degree at the same time as you are pursuing your MD degree. Here’s a link that lists the schools that offer this type of program (and I highly recommend you go to the schools’ web site to review their admission criteria): http://services.aamc.org/currdir/section3/start.cfm

To clarify some misinformation—1. You do not need a BS degree to be accepted to most medical schools. You do need to complete all of the prereqs and have a total of 90 semester hours. That is the minimum qualification as stipulated by the LCME, the accrediting authority for all US and Canadian med schools.

The other misinformation is that you do not need to be a life science major to be accepted into medical school. It used to be that way, but now the admission committees are looking for students from diverse backgrounds. So, it’s better to study what interests you (on the presumptive basis that you’ll get better grades).

In the United States, you normally need a bachelor’s degree. In most European countries, you go straight into medical school.

Yes. Get a bachelor’s degree in something related to science and math to prepare for medical school and declare yourself a pre med student to get the best out of it.

Yes, typically you have to have an undergraduate degree in science.