Networking is important not only in the medicine-related career, but also in many other career paths. For somebody who does not believe in this, he will likely find out that the greatest achievement for his whole life is obtained when he is still at a school but keep going downhill from the day he leaves the schooling system. This is the reason why the “soft/people skills” that you get from ECs (sport activities also) are so important. And whether we like it or not, the connections through family or friends are important in landing your next job or opportunity too. For those who do not have these, they need to be thanksful that there are still such hard-number based merits like standardized tests, GPAs, and yes, the prestigious value of your school’s name (assuming that you can get in and your family can afford it – the latter is another source of the potential unfairness because the financial resources of every family are not equal.)</p>
<p>For most of the BS/ MD combined programs, it is not easy to get in. DS tried it while he was a high schooler (not very seriously endeaver at that time.) He even did not know where to start in order to build up his “medicine-related credential” (it is much much more than the stats) in order to have a decent chance!</p>
<p>I haven’t done much research outside the Midwest, but there’s Northwestern University’s HPME, Brown’s PLME, Case Western’s Pre-professional scholars, Ohio State’s MAP, and Oklahoma’s medical humanities scholars, at least. These are all programs where high school students can apply directly to medical school. They still need to take four years of college, but they have a guaranteed spot waiting for them in medical school if they just keep a certain G, and the minimum requirements are usually below those of the average accepted student at the particular medical school.</p>
<p>These programs aren’t quite the same as Mt. Sinai’s program that’s in the original post. In fact, BS/MD programs are getting scaled back or being eliminated altogether. UCLA Med, University of Michigan SOM, etc. all used to have BS/MD programs. They no longer exists. The HPME program, which has been around for a long time, has essentially been cut in half. This has to do with the fact college applicants are getting more competitive and there’s no reason to take high school students anymore.</p>
<p>There are feelings, and then there’s reality. After three years, I’d say I know my classmates reasonably well, and while I’m sure I know more chemistry than my HuMed classmates do, there’s no reason to think that they are any less academically capable than those of us who got in the regular way. The only difference between them and us is that they decided that they had better things to do in college than take orgo and physics, and Sinai agreed with them.</p>
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<p>Past performance can be used to predict future performance, so high school is not a completely inconsequential part of someone’s educational background. People who are good at writing generally communicate well with patients. That’s a critically important skill. As for artistic ability, an eye for detail, color, texture, and shape are pretty relevant for physical diagnosis, reading radiographs and slides, autopsy and surgery, just to name a few things off the top of my head.</p>
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<p>While it’s absolutely true that the program now heavily recruits Ivy League students, this hardly counts as providing an easy road to acceptance for the offspring of rich, well-connected physician-parents.</p>
<p>I’m at Emory right now, but back in my home “region”, the Rio Grande Valley, the need for doctors is so pervasive that a BS/MD program has actually been set up with the local tier 4 university, UT-Pan American and Baylor School of Medicine. 15 students get instant acceptance to medical school provided they achieve mediocre GPAs and MCAT scores (think 3.4 GPA and 28 MCAT) at a rather mediocre university (the average SAT score for the student body entering is I think below 1000). The SAT average for the program’s acceptance is also a joke, something like a 12-- score.</p>
<p>Oh, by the way, they pay for your college and your med school tuition regardless of your family’s income. </p>
<p>It pains me to think of all the kids who get essentially an easy ride into medical school doing minimal work, while I work my ass off and take out student loans to get my pre-med education a top university. Perhaps I’m just bitter that I didn’t hear about the program until it was far too late to apply.</p>
<p>^ I believe the program you have described is JAMP. They likely recruit students from a particular segment of society, e.g.,for students from some tier-3 or tier-4 colleges mostly in some rural/poor community. If you are a typical student from a flagship state college, you may not be qualified for such a program. This is because such a program does not exist in a “good” college.</p>
<p>A fact is that there are just not enough MDs who are willing to serve these communities. So, there is such a program. Spin this from another point of view: the poor community only deserves doctors whose education background before medical schools may be inferior. Is this a quote from “animal farm”: Some animals are more equal than others. (animals = patients here.) But if we look at this from a more positive point of view, we at least give (or try to give) these communities some doctors rather than none at all.</p>
<p>This kind of program (i.e., JAMP) is very very different from the humanity program from Mt. Sinai for their purposes. The latter just recognizes the value of the education other than just sciences, sciences and more sciences. After all, a doctor works in the service industry who needs to interact with human beings on a daily basis, and it is hard to say whether a science nerd is always a better candidate for a caring doctor.</p>
<p>ctxmike, Although I sympothized with you because you now need to compete against a crowd that are more academically qualified in a nationally recognized university, I think it is likely adcoms will give you some break if you are from that community or a disadvantaged grow-up environment. They will likely recignize the value of your more rigorous education (hopefully you are not an ORM or a majority though.)</p>
<p>Would anthropology or cognitive science be ok for this program? They’re social sciences, which I know counts, but I heard that this program favors humanities majors.</p>