Philosophy majors may be at an advantage when it comes to admission
to professional schools of medicine, law and business administration,
and graduate programs generally. Philosophy students as a group
even have a higher rate of acceptance into medical school than do
biology or chemistry majors! (Obviously these students took the
relevant sciences courses in addition to their philosophy curriculum.)
Indeed, these days many medical schools look with favor on qualified
humanities majors.
A widely cited review of The Standardized Test Scores of College
Graduates, 1964-82, by workers at the National Institute of Education,
compares student performance on a range of graduate admission tests,
including the Graduate Record Examination (GRE), the Graduate Management
Admission Test (GMAT), and the Law School Admission Test (LSAT).
These tests usually have sections devoted both to verbal/language
skills and quantitative/abstract reasoning. It was found that only
one variable correlated strongly with performance on these tests:
the undergraduate major of the test-taker. Here are some particularly
striking results of the survey (borrowed from the
Philosophy Department web site at Wellesley College).
1. On the LSAT and the GMAT, philosophy majors performed substantially
better than all majors except mathematics and economics.
2. On the quantitative portion of the GRE, philosophy majors scored
higher than average – the only humanities major to do so. Philosophy
majors did less well than majors in the natural sciences, mathematics,
engineering, economics, and computer science, but they did better
than all social sciences except economics.
3. With respect to total scores on the GRE, GMAT and LSAT, philosophy
majors performed substantially better than average on each of the
tests surveyed. No other major showed this consistent pattern.
For further discussion of this survey (including important qualifications
and cautions concerning how to interpret the results), see the essay
at the Wellesley College web site
Click HERE for more
information on graduate programs in business.
Click HERE
for more information on applying to law school.
Click
HERE for more information on applying to medical school.
Back to
Career Options
