<p>As a prospective medical student, I've been browsing the net for some 7 year joint BA/MD programs for quite some time now. While doing so, I came upon quite a lot which require you to express your experience in healthcare related volunteering activities during high school- mostly in your essay. The only problem is, though I'm an American citizen, I go to a boarding school in India, and I'm currently doing the IB Diploma Program. I have done a lot of community service through this program, but unfortunately none of it is health related. Community service itself for high school students over here is really rare, seeing how everyone is so academic-crazy, but healthcare related? I haven't found any organisations that let you do so if you are below eighteen. Plus, my school exclusively supports 'save underprivileged children' and 'save the environment' campaigns. So my question is: will it lower my chances of admission if I don't volunteer at hospitals? Even if I explain my situation to the admission officials? I mean, I have pretty good grades: 9th and 10th grade cgpa of 10 (out of 10 : cbse system), IB predicted score of 42, ACT Composite score of 34, Writing Component: 10, and some awards from my school. For extra curriculars, I have Music, Tennis, Piano (Third Grade: Trinity Institute of Music), Grand Master of Abacus (pretty common here), one year of art and HTML Designing and about 300 hours of community service.
They can't ignore all that, can they? But I suppose I could always go the traditional route of 8 years, and do a lot of health service during pre med, like my mom said. So what do you think? Do I have a chance of admission at ANY 7 year program?
Thank you in advance!!
(Sorry for the length).</p>
<p>Competition for those combined-degree programs is intense. (I don’t know why. I think they’re a terrible idea.) Getting into a relatively obscure one of those is often as difficult as getting into Yale or Harvard.</p>
<p>So, will it hurt your chances? I think the answer may be yes, but to be horribly cynical about it, I don’t think it will make your chances particularly worse than they were before. Nobody’s chance is really very good.</p>
<p>Can they “ignore all that,” meaning your qualifications? No. But they can select one of the hundreds or thousands of other applicants whose qualifications are just as good.</p>
<p>Thanks for the reply!
So it’s better to go the normal way? You know, pre med, then medical school, then residency? A lot of my teachers said so, at least…</p>
<p>I think so. I’m not sure you’ll like my reason, though. I think 17 or 18 is just too young to commit to a career in medicine–or anything else. People change their minds.</p>
<p>My wife entered medical school at 25, graduated, and during the middle of her residency changed her mind about practicing medicine. Eighteen-year-olds change their minds more frequently than 25-year-olds do. In part, that may be because they can, but I don’t see how that’s a bad thing. There’s a window of time during your life when you can explore occupations, areas of study and ideas that you haven’t encountered previously. I don’t think anybody should forgo that freedom to explore. If you go have a “regular” undergraduate experience, you might emerge from it still committed to a career in medicine, but you might discover that you’d prefer to be a geologist, a journalist, an economist, or something else.</p>
<p>And people change their minds about practicing medicine for good reason. My father loved being a doctor. He used to say he would have practiced medicine for free if he could have been sure that somebody would provide for his family. But that’s not everybody’s experience, especially as fee-for-service medicine becomes an increasingly hard way to make a living in the U.S. I don’t know as many unhappy doctors who don’t want their kids to become physicians as I know unhappy lawyers who don’t want their kids to go to law school, but I sure do know a lot of them.</p>
<p>Besides all that, I don’t actually want a doctor who went to one of those programs. Medical training is technical and scientific, but it’s narrow. And the practice of medicine shouldn’t be just technical. I want a physician whose educational and life experience is broader than just molecular biology, pharmacodynamics and nephrology.</p>
<p>So, I see a huge potential downside to these programs. In exchange for all that risk, what’s the benefit? You finish medical school seven years after entering college, instead of eight. What’s the big damn hurry?</p>
<p>^Agree 100%. Most college students will switch majors at least once in their college career. It is too much to expect a high school student to know what he’ll do the rest of his life. The problem with these BS/MD programs is that they are so hard to get into, once someone does get in, they develop tunnel vision and do not adequately explore other career fields. Some BS/MD programs are structured so that you CAN’T explore other careers. That’s the biggest downside to BS/MD programs. Medicine is going downhill as a profession. It is very difficult to practice as a physician today. From talking to many high schoolers, it seems they simply do not have a good appreciation for the medical climate as it exists today. Still too many answers of “I want to help people” as motivation to enter into medicine. Those kids are going to be very disappointed in the future.</p>
<p>Most HSers think that premeds are “weeded out.” In reality, many premeds drop out because they discover in college that memorizing stuff, forgoing a social life, and being in an ultra-competitive atmosphere is not what they want for the rest of their life. They drop out WILLINGLY to switch to a career they’d be happy in. It’s funny to read on this forum about people trying to avoid the competition of premed and trying to “have a life” by going through BS/MD programs. Um, you realize you are never going to “have a life” ever again, right? That med school, residency, and practicing medicine is a stressful, competitive environment? That’s why premed is structured the way it is. It is a reflection of how the rest of your life is going to go.</p>
<p>As someone who is currently in the medical school part of a ba/md program and loves the opportunities a ba/md program afforded me, I disagree that hs students are too young to decide on medicine. Sure, there are a lot of people who are not sure what they want to do with their lives at 17/18, and they should absolutely go the traditional route.</p>
<p>Also, I found that I had a broader curriculum than most of my traditional pre-med counterparts who went from undergrad → med school. They took biology, biology, and more upper level biology. I had more variety in my education with a minor in the social sciences, business classes, ethics classes, psychology courses, English courses, international relations courses, public health courses, and many more.</p>
<p>That being said, I do not doubt that the some of my classmates in med school that entered medical school later (at age 26, 26, etc) have a far wider range of life, educational, and world experiences than I do. I am, of course, sometimes envious of their experiences and I am sure those experiences will serve them well. However, I have personally talked to many of those students who do wish they were able to med school earlier — for a variety of reasons including putting less pressure on them to pick residencies with shorter years, make family and life planning easier, etc. </p>
<p>However, in most other countries, people DO go into medicine directly from high school (Europe and Asia). There is no such thing as pre-med. Furthermore, the idea of a liberal arts curriculum (which I think is a great idea) is still a very Western idea. In many countries, students go directly into technical colleges after high school that only offer one discipline to study (whether that be engineering, business, medicine, or anything else). If all of these students in all these other countries are ‘mature’ enough to make a decision about their future career paths and is in fact the norm, I find it hard to believe the argument that the majority of 17/18 year olds in the US are inherently unable to make career decisions.</p>
<p>Of course, ba/md programs select applicants based on how much knowledge they have about the medical field (via health care experiences – whether it be volunteering, shadowing, or research).</p>
<p>Sikorsky, to return your question, unfortunately I do think you will be at a large disadvantage for ba/md programs without dedicated health care activities. I personally know some students who have been in your situation (US citizens/permanent residents) and went to school in India, but all the ones who got into ba/md programs did have health care experiences.</p>
<p>I think you would be a great candidate for HYPS type schools. Go to a great undergraduate institution, work hard, and you’ll be fine for med school! Its what 95% of students in the US do anyways.</p>
<p>Johnstoops, I know there are other opinions on the matter. I was just giving mine.</p>
<p>But I’m glad you’re finding your BA/MD program a fulfilling experience.</p>
<p>Because of the nature of the BS/MD programs, programs want to select students they know want to do medicine and much of this is demonstrated through medical related activities. BS/MD programs want students who have already had the experience to make a somewhat informed determination regarding the career they want to pursue rather than the average student w/o much experience who enters in a normal undergrad as “pre-med.” As a result, it’s almost a requirement that one who applies to such programs has medical experience.</p>
<p>The traditional route seems like the most likely option and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it. It seems, you probably do want to have those health care experiences before making a determination about medicine.</p>
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<p>And you are supposed to know what medicine is like via 100 hours of hospital volunteering and a summer research internship? </p>
<p>I argue that a college orgo course, going through the competition of college science courses, being under constant pressure to be perfect, forgoing social events to study, memorizing large amounts of material are far more instructive of what medicine and medical school is like than sitting around the nursing station or making beds for patients.</p>
<p>Programs require rigorous high school stats to prove that the student is capable. At BU, the program students averaged a 3.7 and 33, well over what they need for the program. Many other countries have students choose medicine straight from high school too.</p>
<p>Also just FYI, some programs require you to have completed high school in the United States. </p>
<p>You’ll be at a disadvantage without any clinical experience as well. The BS/MD candidates at my undergraduate university all came in with hundreds of hours of hospital volunteering. How can you really know that you want to do medicine unless you have volunteered and/or shadowed physicians?</p>
<p>All in all, I would recommend the traditional route. If you’re intelligent and a hard-worker, chances are that you’ll succeed in college and have several choices for medical school. :)</p>
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<p>And in those countries, medical training is usually 6 years and a whole lot cheaper, even free. It’s one thing to ask a high schooler to commit to 6 years of free medical education. It’s another to ask them to commit to 8 years, a $300,000+ education, and a healthcare system that is very much in flux. </p>
<p>Let’s be real here: parents and cultural factors are the real driving force behind BS/MD students. Why is it that many of these programs are 60-80% Asian Indian? It’s silly to think that these students have fully considered all other career fields before college. In fact, for many Asian Indian kids, going to college and being away from their overbearing parents is the only time when they truly consider something other than medicine or engineering.</p>
<p>^"Why is it that many of these programs are 60-80% Asian Indian? " Which school? could you list them out so we can avoid. We need fact and figures.</p>
<p>Here is the link you can start from. [Direct</a> BSMD Programs - Direct BSMD Programs](<a href=“http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/]Direct”>http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/)</p>
<p>^Most of these programs are between 30-60% Asian-Indian. That was pretty universal across all of the programs I have seen.</p>
<p>norcal, I find your assumptions somewhat egregious. Even though I have parents of the ethnicity you target, I can say I certainly don’t feel pressured or forced as I find I am genuinely interested in medicine. I have considered my options and I personally don’t find something as rewarding and interesting as medicine after considering my options. What do you think, I’m going to face challenging coursework and suddenly want to pursue dancing? I realize, to a degree, that it’s going to be tough, but I want to reach the end goal so much that I’m willing to put in the effort. Even if I didn’t want to do medicine, I would unhesitatingly voice my opinion and my parents would gladly support what I what to do as long as it has a reasonable outlook which I have enough sense to want to consider. </p>
<p>Now I do realize that these programs don’t have a large percentage of Indians/Asians simply by chance. In Asian cultures in particular, values such as working hard are more prevalent leading many to lean towards routes that guarantee success. I think the high representation of Asians in top colleges compared to their proportion in the U.S. population is something that highlights this cultural value. As a result, many young Asian individuals want to aim for successful careers earlier on and they see rewarding fields like medicine as a possibility before many others know what they want to do. </p>
<p>I find your portrait of the parent-child relationship to be an incorrect assessment of at least what I have observed. Many of us commit ourselves to medicine not because we are forced to by our parents, but because we have the opportunity to find something we really enjoy, medicine, before many others have the experience to say they can commit themselves.</p>
<p>I’d also like to add that I have had the fortune of being able to serve patients as a hospital volunteer for hundreds of hours, have two summers of research, shadow doctors of several specialties for hours, and work on the field as an EMT. I fail to understand how these medical experiences are any different from the medical experiences many undergrads have before deciding on medicine.</p>
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<p>They’re not. Which is why I never cited clinical experience as a reason why college undergrads make better medical students. Hospital volunteering and EMT work are nothing like being a doctor.</p>
<p>What I said was that orgo (ie memorizing a large amount of info in a short period of time), forgoing social events to study, feeling constantly pressured to be perfect are actually better approximations of what it’s like to be a medical student and to be a physician. In other words, you learn about the sacrifices of being a physician by going through premed, not by shuffling papers in a hospital. That is why precisely everyone must go through a rigorous premedical course in order to decide whether they want to live that way for the rest of their lives.</p>
<p>The draw of BS/MD programs is that they shield you from this hard work and competition. I really don’t understand this concept. You are going to be in a high pressure, high stress, highly competitive environment for 40+ years and yet you want to hide from this during undergrad for 4 years? </p>
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<p>Asians are of course going to be overrepresented at top colleges and in med schools. Asians make up 5% of the US population. So a 25% representation is already a vast overrepresentation. That’s what you see at top colleges and that’s what you see in medical schools.</p>
<p>But, 60-80%? That’s an abomination. BS/MD programs are not diverse and in general reflect parental pressures. Unless you’d like to argue that Asians truly have had a much better exposure to medicine at a young age vs. Caucasians and other races. Of course not. They’ve had exposure to one thing that Caucasians have not: Asian parents.</p>
<p>^Norcalguy, I also think the perception of physicians constantly forgoing social events and living in a high stress, highly competitive environment are not necessarily true. Sure, as a resident in most specialties you’ll be working 80 hours. However, even that’s not true in all specialties (think dermatology). Furthermore, after work duty hour restrictions put in place for residency, the average number of hours residents work has gone down significantly. </p>
<p>As an attending, the average physician works 51 hours ([Doctors</a>’ workweek getting shorter - amednews.com](<a href=“http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2010/03/08/bisa0308.htm]Doctors”>http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2010/03/08/bisa0308.htm)). Sure, if you’re in surgery in academic medicine or a high-volume private practice setting, you’ll be working significantly more. But you do have the option of going into more flexible specialties or more flexible practices and working much, much less or even part time if you want. Just join a large group private practice or an academic center where you can split your time between research/teaching/clinical work. </p>
<p>The perception of the 100 hour/week resident and the attending in an individual private practice setting putting in 80 hours work/week is becoming less and less true. The truth is, as a physician, you have much more flexibility (if you want it) than someone working, for example, as a newly minted law grad working as an associate at a big law firm or a business grad working in the high stress finance world.</p>
<p>Unless there is a paper or study statistics presented here, any allegations against BS/MDs are based on imagination, unfounded facts, unhealthy attitude, and hate (i don’t know
why).</p>
<p>To BS/MD or not is personal preference, people take opportunities, not right or wrong. Period.</p>
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<p>I take issue with your assumption that BS/MD programs “shield you from hard work.” Guess what, BS/MD students still have to take all the required courses that normal pre-meds take (e.g. Orgo), and, in many cases, the acceleration makes the time frame condensed, leading to more challenging semester course loads. In BS/MDs work you hard, but the main difference is that you know that your hard work won’t be to no avail with regard to getting into medical school. And yes, the assurance that hard work will pay off and take you to med school is a draw. BS/MDs are selective for a reason - they choose candidates who have spent their time in high school challenging themselves and who have a precedent for continuing to be good students. </p>
<p>And I’m having a little trouble agreeing with your view of an undergraduate education; medicine is a stressful/demanding pathway, therefore we should spend our undergrad stressed out? Undergrad is the final chance for us to take interesting courses and experience different things before a lifetime of medicine and its easier to appreciate these experiences without the constant stress looming. Of course, the other main purpose of undergrad is to provide students with the background to be successful in medical school and, in many cases, the BS/MD students are the strongest students in the med schools. Many whom I’ve talked to who have completed BS/MDs feel satisfied with their decision and have lead successful careers. </p>
<p>BS/MDs are not for everyone, but I feel you are doing a disservice to those who know they want to do medicine (who are you to say we don’t know what we want to do) and advising them to go through a stressful undergrad. While some may find it too stressful and find other interests, the vast majority of cases I’ve heard involve students who wanted to do medicine through undergrad, but were academically uncompetitive for med school, even after years of hard work (and many have to choose the foreign medical education pathway as a result). The point of a BS/MD program is to mitigate this risk and many of us see this as an advantage.</p>
<p>Still disturbed by your notion that BS/MDs must not be a valid pathway just because they contain a high proportion of Asians.</p>