<p>Hi,</p>
<p>I'm now a rising senior Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. I've been wanting to do Medicine since my Sophomore year here. </p>
<p>Hopkins has like an AWESOME Pre-Professional Society thing, but I was a knuckle-head and like never went to them for advice, and now its down to the wire :(</p>
<p>So, my fundamental question is should I start applying this round--starting now to early weeks of my Fall Senior--or wait and pursue a Hopkins 5-year combined BS/MS and then go to Med School?</p>
<p>My stats: </p>
<p>BS: Biomedical Engineering
Minors: Computer Integrated Surgery
Mathematics</p>
<p>GPA [overall-inclusive of ALL Pre-Med Requirements]: 3.82/4.00</p>
<p>MCAT: 39S <a href="Physical:%2014,%20Bio:%2013,%20Eng:%2012,%20Writing:%20S">only took it once</a></p>
<p>EC:
*Research in BME Labs for a few semesters and a summer term
*Internship [summer] at NIH
*I'm a Tenor in an A Cappella Group [we do a lot of charity work for 3rd World Countries]
*Certified EMT-B and part of Rescue Organization on Campus, and during summer with Firefighters in my community
*Minor volunteering with the Hopkins Hospital
*TA for Orgo Lab, and a Computer Science Class
*Part of Biomedical Engineering Society [BMES]
*I have taken a LOT of design [Grad Level] courses and have a ton of research projects to talk about</p>
<p>I want to get a MD, and I REALLY want to go to a Top 10 Med School!</p>
<p>So do you guys think I should wait and get a MSE before applying to Med School or just send my app out now? </p>
<p>Thanks guys, I really appreciate your inputs!</p>
<p>p.s. Feel free to tell me which school I have an alive chance of acceptance and which schools I should stop dreaming about! :)</p>
<p>Oh I should have clarified. My cousins [both of them], my friend, my other friend [see my last thread about JHU/MIT], and myself all post under the same account “vader1990”</p>
<p>Its really convenient because we can all use the same account, and when there are updates we can inform each other. Also this way its harder for stalkers to find out who we are and stuff of that sort. </p>
<p>Also too lazy to make 2 accounts on the same machine at home [me and my cousin live together]–it auto log-ins into the same account, lol</p>
<p>You can call us paranoid or w/e, but its a good system and it has worked for 3 years now!</p>
<p>Sorry for any confusion :)</p>
<p>What’s your BCPM GPA (this should not include your engineering classes)?</p>
<p>EXCELLENT stats, congratulations. I may not be the most qualified person to post, but my dad is a docotr who graduated from Hopkins undergrad, so hopefully that gives me at least a little validity. I would say to go for the MS, having the master’s degree will definitely be nice if sometime down the road you want to consider switching career paths, and the 1 year it will put you back really isn’t much when you consider that you’ll still have to go through med school, internship, and residency all before you even start practicing. Good luck in the future!</p>
<p>Oh, I’m actually NOT sure how to get that BCPM…see the advisers said duriong one of the sessions that out 3 semesters of “Systems Bioengineeing” and Associated Labs count as out Biology for Pre-med, but they’re Engineering, so I don’t know if I can out that in BCPM. Also I have taken a bunch of Math and I don’t know if “Applied Math”–such as Statistics count as BCPM. </p>
<p>Also I have taken Engineering classes such as “Molecules and Cells” and “Cell-Tissue Engineering Lab” which the advisers said count for BCPM, but I’m not really sure. </p>
<p>Do you thinks the MSE will help me out for any of the following schools?</p>
<p>Harvard
JHU
Penn
UCSF
UCLA
Yale/Columbia</p>
<p>I REALLY wish I can get into one of the above mentioned schools, haha :D</p>
<p>@Sirensong: I appreciate your input: but I will NOT ever switch career paths! I took the decision of becoming a doctor after a LOT of deliberation, I shadowed a doctor for a while, volunteered at a hospital etc. i KNOW I want to do this, its my calling in life! sounds cheezy, but its what makes me happy :)</p>
<p>If you are talking about applying NOW, this summer cycle, the big question is how soon can you get LORs? Your file will not be complete until those are in and profs are notoriously difficult to reach in the summer.</p>
<p>There are stories on SDN of many awesome stats, late applicants who are reapplicants and regret their late start to the process.</p>
<p>If you can get a PS well done and submitted by the end of this month, you could probably still be okay, but you would have to get all over the LOR people or your file will not be reviewed.</p>
<p>If you decide to apply this summer, I would recommend goign directly to SDN forums and downloading the propts for all secondaries so you can have them done before you get them and do a 24 hour turn around. </p>
<p>I cannot imagine that starting from scratch in the fall is a good plan:
A} It is late
B} There is a ton of work do do for the primaries and secondaries to do them well, unless you do that all over the summer how will you make time?
C} If you are focused on the application you risk your grades dropping a bit and having a declining trend senior year which would hurt if you became a reapplicant.
D} It is so darn expensive and time consuming, no one should have to go through it twice!</p>
<p>Your stats are amazing, but you will be in a much better position if you wait until June 1st next year, submit everything then, and have all your secondaries done by August. You could definitely get into some medical schools by applying now, even with a late app, but you will get into more schools and therefore have much more options/choices if you wait a year. As for the masters, if your interested in that, go for it, but if you aren’t that keen on it, you could save yourself some money and just do research and/or work for a year after you graduate…</p>
<p>Oh, the only reason I said I could go for the masters is I dont want Med Schools to think that I’m taking a year off to goof off and do nothing. I wanted to do something quantitative, so that they dont think I’m a slacker. </p>
<p>I had to work VERY HARD all through college and I dont want to ruin all that by having them think I’m goofing off for a year?</p>
<p>Is working in a lab or something good enough? Like what exactly do you guys recommend I do?</p>
<p>Thanks!!</p>
<p>med schools will not think your a slacker for not doing a master’s during your year off. Ton’s of people apply after senior year, and don’t do this. Rather, med schools will think your a slacker if you do NOTHING productive during that year. You can really do anything you want, teaching a Kaplan mcat class, working in a lab, volunteering, whatever, and it will look fine. Do what your interested in- sounds like you only want to do the masters out of fear that being out of school for a year will look bad(it won’t).</p>