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You can't be admitted to med school without so many undergraduate hours in chemistry,biology,physics and math,I believe at least a year of each.

You can be admitted to med school with zero hours of music.
 
Another thing he's likely wrong about is the reason that music/art majors have a good acceptance rate to medical school is that those students who had the luxury of that sort of major often went to private schools and were already advanced in the sciences prior to ever going to college.

Now this is anecdotal evidence, but when I taught physics and chemistry labs for a small private, expensive college--it was the dance/music majors who excelled and that was because our courses were a review for them, AND they were highly disciplined students as opposed to, say, the public school hockey players who needed their hands held throughout freshman-level courses. The Dean of the department always accepted these private school students because they were the cream of the crop, and our school had a fantastic arts program so they could pursue both interests.

Ender and I also had an argument about students having discipline, and he's opposed to disciplined students to the point where he doesn't think it matters if they can read or communicate, which strikes me as bizarre, especially now that he's all for those who have the discipline to be capable of handling both the arts and the sciences.

Do we even speak the same language? I do not remember an "argument" but I do know know that I have NEVER said I was opposed to disciplined students.

What I am opposed to is teachers who think they are the disciplinarians.

It is the student who must learn to discipline themselves and then they become real learners and are engaged in real learning. Any outside force only results in the regurgitation system: Force it in, burp it out, forget it.
 
You can't be admitted to med school without so many undergraduate hours in chemistry,biology,physics and math,I believe at least a year of each.

You can be admitted to med school with zero hours of music.

In Summary

See below for some interesting study results:

1. Studies conducted in Georgia and Texas found that middle school and high school students who participated in instrumental music scored significantly higher that their non-band peers in standardized tests. The studies found a significant correlation between the number of years of instrumental instruction and academic achievement in math, science and language arts.

Source: University of Sarasota Study, Jeffrey Lyn Kluball; East Texas State University Study, Daryl Erick Trent

2. Students who were exposed to music-based lessons scored a full 100 percent higher on fractions tests than those who learned in the conventional manner. Second – grade and third – grade students were taught fractions in an untraditional manner by teaching them basic music rhythm notations.

Source: Neurological Research, March 15, 1999

3. Music majors were found to be the most likely group of college grads to be admitted to medical school. Physician and biologist Lewis Thomas found that 66 percent of music majors who applied to medical school were admitted, the highest percentage for any group.
A study of 7,500 university students revealed that music majors scored the highest reading scores among all majors including English, biology, chemistry and math.

Source: “The Comparative Academic Abilities of Students in Education and in Other Areas of a Multi- focus University,” Peter H. Wood, ERIC Document No. ED327480. “The Case for Music in the Schools,” Phi Delta Kappan, February, 1994

4. Music study can help students understand advanced music concepts. A grasp of proportional math and fractions is a prerequisite to math at higher levels. Music involves ratios, fractions and proportions and thinking space and time. Second- grade students were given four months of piano keyboard training ,as well as time using newly designed math software. The group scored over 27
percent higher on proportional math and fractions tests than children who used the math software.

Source: Neurological Research, March, 1999

5. Piano students are better equipped to comprehend mathematical and science concepts. A group of preschoolers received private piano keyboard lessons and singing lessons. A second group received private computer lessons. Those children who received piano/keyboard training performed 34 percent higher on tests measuring spatial-temporal ability than the others. This concept has long been considered a major obstacle in the teaching of elementary math and science.

Source: Neurological Research, February 28, 1997

6. High school music students score higher on SAT’s in both verbal and math than their peers. In 2001, SAT takers with coursework/experience in music performance scored 57 points higher on the verbal portion of the test and 41 points higher on the math portion than students with no coursework/experience in the arts.

Source: Profile of SAT and Achievement Test Takers, The College Board, compiled by Music Educators National Conference, 2001

7. Music training helps under-achievers. In Rhode Island, researchers studied eight public school first grade classes. Half of the classes became ―test arts‖ groups, receiving ongoing music and visual arts training. In kindergarten, this group had lagged behind in scholastic performance. After seven months, the students were given a standardized test. The ―test arts‖ group had caught up to their fellow students in reading and surpassed their classmates in math by 22 percent. In the second year of the project, the arts students widened this margin ever further.

Source: Nature, May 23, 1996

8. A 2004-2005 study found that students in high – quality school music education programs score higher on standardized tests compared to students with deficient music education programs. The study conducted by Dr. Christopher Johnson, Professor of Music Education and Music Therapy and Associate Dean of the School of Fine Arts, University of Kansas analyzed test scores from 4,739 elementary and middle school students in four regions in the United States – South, East Coast, Midwest and West Coast. The breakdown of participants was 1,119 in either third of fourth grand and 3,620 in either eighth or ninth grade.

Results from the elementary schools indicated that:
a) Students in top-quality music programs scored 22% better in English and 20% betterin mathematics than students in deficient music programs.
b) These academic differences were fairly consistent across geographical regions.
c) Students at the four elementary schools with high quality programs scored better than students participating in programs considered to be of lower quality.

Results from the middle schools indicated that:
a) Students in top-quality instrumental programs scored 19% higher in English than students in schools without a music program, and 32% high in English than students in a deficient choral program.
b) Students in top-quality instrumental programs scored 17% higher in mathematics than children in schools without a music program, and 33% higher in mathematics than students in deficient choral programs.

Source: Journal for Research in Music Education, June 2007

9. A McGill University study found that pattern recognition and mental representation scores improved significantly for students given piano instruction over a three-year period.

Source: Dr. Eugenia Costa-Giomi, “The McGill Piano Project: Effects of three years of piano instruction on children’s cognitive abilities, academic achievement and self-esteem,” presented at the meeting of the Music Educators National Conference, Phoenix, AZ, April, 1998

10. A ten-year study, tracking more than 25,000 students, shows that music-making improves test scores. Regardless of socioeconomic background, music-making students get higher marks in standardized tests than those who had no music involvement. The test scores studied were not only standardized tests, such as the SAT, but also in reading proficiency exams

Source: Dr. James Catterall, UCLA, 1997

http://www.wwu.edu/music/advising/Why Major In Music.pdf
 
That does not contradict my post in any way.

The study where 67% of music majors were admitted to med school was back in the 70's, and it's really hard to find information about it online, although I have managed to track down where I can read a hard copy. It may be that numbers of music majors in the study was very small, since it was a broad study of applicants to med-school from all majors.

And what you're pointing out is really important. The music majors in question are ones who were pre-med. So these are people who are gifted in both music and science. This kind of person usually is really smart in a wide range of fields. We're not talking about people who got into med-school because of not being scientists, but because they were probably some of the very best scientists. The point shouldn't be to take our science questions to non-scientist musicians instead of scientists, it should be value music (among other things) as part of the formation of doctors. And that's what Lewis Thomas was driving at.
 
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That does not contradict my post in any way.

I am not trying to contradict you- I am showing a different perspective on "education".

I taught a kid last year who was a bass player; he hated math and hated school. He came to the freedom school I teach at and began to follow his interests. He found out that he loved math when he wasn't forced into it and is now in college studying astro-physics.

What is called education, in today's world, was invented to make compliant factory workers. Even the degree was invented for people who couldn't actually do the do. The real genius used to be the amateur.
 
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