BS/MD Results - Fall 2021 cycle

Pre-Med & Medical School Multiple Degree Programs
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Hey Guys I wanted to make sure, 4.0 UW is a 95+ GPA right? Or is it 93+?

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I originally had no plans of doing this, but some of the people here like to dishearten some applicants so I hope seeing my profile might help others who have been discouraged by some, ahem, negative users.

GPA: 4.0 (UW), 4.49 (W) at the time of application

Class Rank: 1

ACT: 34

SAT Subject Tests: Took them, did not submit (only to GW)

AP’s: 18

Teacher / Counselor Recs: Pretty strong, I knew all my teachers well

Gender: F
Ethnicity: Non-Caucasian

Awards:

  • Science Olympiad state comp (placed many times)
  • HOSA state comp (placed many times)
  • HOSA international comp (top 5)
  • State Science fair (placed 1st in category and 2nd overall)
  • Yale award
  • RPI Medal
  • University of Rochester science award
  • Coca-cola semifinalist
  • State youth award
  • AP scholar with distinction

Leadership:

  • Student Director for state youth orchestra
  • HOSA state officer
  • NHS club officer
  • Girls Who Code club officer
  • Science Olympiad Team Captain
  • Principal second violin in state youth orchestra

Community Service:

  • mentor for middle school Science Olympiad
  • religious teaching
  • clothes drive for needy (2 yrs)

Medically related activities:

  • Physician Shadowing (80 hours, 4 different specialties)
  • Research (3 years, 2 publications)

Other:

  • work as tutor (5 years)

Applied to the following BS/MD/DO Programs:

  1. Pitt GAP- received supplement-> interviewed-> ACCEPTED
  2. RPI/AMC- forwarded to AMC → supplement → interviewed → ACCEPTED
  3. Upstate- supplement from feeder → forwarded → supplement → interviewed → ACCEPTED
  4. NJIT/NJMS- interviewed with NJIT → forwarded-> interviewed with NJMS → ACCEPTED
  5. Nova Southeastern- interviewed → ACCEPTED
  6. Pitzer College- interviewed → ACCEPTED
  7. rest were rejected pre-interview

Decision: prefer not to say

Reflection:

  1. I thought that I wouldn’t get any BS/MD program because of my lower scores so I applied widely. It doesn’t help that so many users here claim that people won’t get in without a super high SAT/ACT score. Honestly, just apply. You can be 100% sure that you won’t get in
 if you don’t apply. Despite what some people here say, you can have low-ish test scores and still get into a good BS/MD program. I mean, I did get into Pitt GAP with a 34 ACT.

  2. There’s so many misconceptions around Pitt. It is still worth applying to WITHOUT perfect scores or a perfect GPA. There are so many users here who preach, “Don’t apply to Pitt without perfect scores; it’s not worth.” DON’T LISTEN. Apply where you want. Don’t let a bunch of guys tell you where to apply and where not to apply.

  3. Don’t spend much time on this site. I know it’s been said over and over, but I have a different reason for saying this. It didn’t raise my stress, but so many of the users were annoying and spammed the thread with so many random things. These ranged from bragging about their kid’s success in the regular route (good for you, but jeez I don’t care), to rudely answering questions even when their kid was done years ago (if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all), to constantly bragging about their kid’s achievements and acting superior to everyone else (no one cares about that internship or your educational credentials), to being against the BS/MD path (it’s the BS/MD thread FOR A REASON). This being said, some people were nice, but it was rare. Only use this site to see if there’s been an update to the programs you’ve applied to, because otherwise the discussions are pretty much useless and inapplicable to most applicants.

  4. I didn’t use a counselor because I didn’t want to spend a ton of money and I was spending a lot of money on application fees anyway. Besides, I wanted to get into somewhere through my own merits, and I have full trust in the process that these programs take those who fit well. I got a full ride into some regional state schools, so if BS/MD didn’t work out, I was more than happy to go there.

Good luck, and don’t let this site get to you! Some people are annoying and rude, but don’t let that discourage you when applying :slight_smile:

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@quaranteen - Congratulations to you on your multiple BSMD acceptances. You have a very strong profile with 2 research publications, multiple olympiad/science fair/HOSA awards, multiple school level awards like YALE/RPI/Rochester medal and last but not the least Coca-Cola semifinalist. Looks like you were quiet busy during high school and it paid off as seen from the results.

Wish you the very best at your BSMD school !! hopefully it is UPitt GAP?

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Congratulations on many BSMD acceptances and good luck to you where ever you matriculate for UG. You are an exception with 2 publications. The BSMD process is very unpredictable. Wish you the very best.

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This is a public forum and open to all. It is governed by CC policies. One has a choice to ignore whatever one does not like.

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ANATOMY (MINDSET & MECHANICS) OF BSMD ADMISSION JOURNEY

Who could be a physician? Anyone who can academically obtain a medical degree and pass the USMLE. Who would be the best physician? Someone who has invested time in experiences that demonstrate passion for others and for medicine.

MECHANICS (Total four parts): We created this framework to plan, track, modify and measure/assess it along the way.

Part I Academic Objective Data Plan and Performance
Goal/Requirement Summary: Pursue a challenging course of study in high school. Present academic credentials that would rank among most competitive applicants for admission.

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Key Highlights/reflections Part I of Mechanics:

  • Number one goal shall be maintain all As throughout high-school. Trade-off harder AP class where you may get B or B+ with Honors class with solid A. Be disciplined and don’t be emotional about dropping out of AP class if required.
  • Move up in Class rank as much as possible . Class Rank 1 and 2 are well respected by ADCOM. Try to stay up in top 1%. These ranks are based on weighted average GPA so build a four year plan with few options and do mathematical computational. Strategy here is a) avoid lower points classes b) Take Honors requisite classes outside school to enroll in AP in Freshman and Sophomore and c) Plan ahead (start 8th summer) – It is challenging to catch-up in Junior and Senior year.
  • PSAT in 10th grade is extremely valuable and its importance is not well communicated – PSAT is the driver for National Merit Scholarship ranking (Top 7,600 students in the US)
  • Double digit AP/IB classes demonstrate the rigor of curriculum. No need for community college/university classes if AP/IB offered at the school.
  • Start ACT/SAT prep early and have them completed with goal of 35/36 ACT and 1570+ SAT targets (top 1% in the nation). It is perfectly ok to take these tests multiple times. Target completion no later than second half of junior year. Our recommendation is to take both and report whichever is the highest. Our Kid reported both as felt SAT is better in ADCOM’s mind.

Part II Subjective (Course of study BSMD) Plan and Performance
Goal/Requirement Summary: Participate in a range of extracurricular activities. Engage in meaningful volunteering and shadowing experiences to gain exposure to medicine. Recognize as a leader in school and community. Demonstrate care and concern for others.

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Key Highlights/Reflections Part II of Mechanics

  • Learn how to prioritize and let things go as there are only so many hours in the day left after having sharpen focus to build compelling academic profile in Part I.
  • ADOCOM has love for Music, Student Council, School Newspaper, Debate, and Sport. Length and Depth dimension is critical to demonstrate commitment. Minimum 3 years of experience recommended.
  • Shadowing is not the patient care experience. Even though considered as “Fly on the wall” job shadowing at certain location gives the true exposure to medicine and demanding nature of physician’s career. Avoid Physician parents/relatives and international shadowing - ADCOM discounts this experience and you don’t want to have zero points in this competency. Don’t do shadowing just to check the box, develop relationship with physicians and medical staff – great source to get solid rec letter.
  • Patient Care: Hospice is the best known patient care experience. Under privileged/Rural medical clinic is the next valuable experience that ADCOM likes. Multi-year experience shows commitment than squeezing more hours in last six months.
  • Leadership: Three leadership roles demonstrate your team building skills and maturity as a 17-18 year old wanting to become a physician. Additionally, developing, starting and leading a NEW initiative confirms this maturity.
  • Research: Multiple years of Research at a Medical School is the most valuable. Research publication adds cherry on top and enlighten higher-maturity level for the high-schooler in eyes of med school ADCOM. PI’s letter of rec carries a lot of weight in LOR grading. Cold emailing is the best method we have found for Research opportunity if you don’t have personal/social connection in medical/healthcare community.
  • LOR: Your personal qualities, characteristics, competencies, and capabilities as a future physician from the perspective of someone who knows you. Strategy is to build the multi-year relationships with professionals in school and outside school (non-relatives) who is willing to vouch for you, and how they experienced yours character. Once ADCOM has reviewed your application (academic & non-academic profile and essays), your virtual image will be created in their head. LOR makes this image of yours three dimensional and adds color & voice to it. Now, ADCOM can see clearly who you are and how you could fit to their college community.

Part III Interview Plan and Performance
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Key Highlight/Reflection Part III of Mechanics:
Use the time available in interview to demonstrate your passion for compassion and empathy, your commitment to medicine and why the specific college is fit for you. Make sure to send a thank you email to interview committee members afterwards. During interview, if you can confirm the image that was created in ADCOM’s head through applications and LOR, you won the Jackpot – you have much higher chance of receiving the BSMD admission acceptance.

Part IV Acceptance of Admission and Selection of the college
Keeping in mind the end goal of becoming a Physician, Prioritize top 5-10 parameters/factors that are important to you (THE KID) personally (un-biased and not influenced from anyone else) and order them 1 to N. Compare the final list of choices in your hand. Try to stay away as much as possible from outside influences like US News Ranking. In some situations there is an obvious and clear winner.

Our list included – Institution mission/fit, UG experience, Medical School, Diverse residency match, Access to research funding & facilities, Overall resources, Size/Diversity of the college, Location, Brand, and Cost of attendance.

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Key Highlight/Reflection: DO NOT Commit College without visiting both UG and Medical campuses, Conversation with current/prior students & staff and feeling of local environment.

MINDSET

  • Understand and engrave in your mind that you are signing up for a long process and long program - 3-4 UG + 1-2 Gap year (maybe) + 4 Med + 3-7 Training (11+ years). Your siblings, cousins and friends will be married and settled down and you will be still in training earning barely $5,000 per month (key mindset for some!!). For Parents, financial planning (529, part time to full time job, savings, alternate investment, stock market, rental properties etc.) will be instrumental if you plan to subsidize your kids’ college costs.
  • If inclined more than 80% using BSMD route, Go all in, Start planning in 8th grade summer. BSMD admission process is open book exam, create a structure and framework (aka GPS) that helps you navigate thru journey.
  • Self-reflection: Be fair to yourself and have assessment on Demand vs Capacity mapping. This is a great gauge for not to get carried away from surroundings.
  • Build-in some un-expected and un-planned circumstances in your four years plan which may interfere. COVID, Certain BSMD program cancellations, House Fire, Parents Divorce, Major illness are few examples of uninvited disturbances.
  • Give it your best - Control what is in your hands. Be disciplined about your goals.
  • Learn and understand known “biases/limitations” in the BSMD admission – apply to those programs but discount them from your sample size for better outcome and peace of mind. Develop and keep updating your own rankings/groupings based on the fit/match.
  • Periodically (90 days or at the major event) assess & analyze your plan and review your progress – make necessary tuning/sharpening if required.
  • Most importantly, be yourself, be healthy and take good self-care.

Decision: CWRU-PPSP BSMD program, one of the most optimum - reputable and friendly academic institutions in the US: Case-Western Reserve University

Declined offer of acceptance:
BSMD Programs – Brown/PLME, GWU/GWU, NJMS (3), RPI/AMC, UMKC and SLU EAP
UG – U PENN, Northwestern/NU, and Rice
Declined offer of interview:
BSMD Programs – Oklahoma MHSP, Stony Brook

Closing:
Case’s well-structured & detailed processes/communications, Welcoming admission committees/staff and Reputable Medical district/resources has gained our kid’s trust over some of the Ivy and top schools/programs.

Fortunate and happy that we had developed and molded the framework that fits our kid and were disciplined to follow thru over past four years. Kid’s energy, passion, commitment and resilience made the process thus far much smoother and more predictable.

Having access to information, knowledge and process are powerful and important. Very happy to have this opportunity to share the model that worked for both of our kids getting placed in well-respected BSMD programs. Parents are not in the healthcare field and didn’t hire external counseling service. Hope this can help you (students and parents) to plan and execute your path to BSMD admission. Wish you all the best!!

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@Threebrook Thank you so much for taking time to share your wealth of information. It is a beautiful template, well planned and executed by parents and student. It is not easy to expects kids at 13 know the complex and efforts needed. You have all done that beautifully. It will be very useful for future students / parents. Best wishes in CWRU.

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Thank for the detailed feedback.

One question - are you an ORM?

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@Threebrook. Very good post and timeline for rest of us mere mortals. Couple of questions if you can.

  • how did you balance medical/non-medical focus in essays/recommendations? Let’s say you are applying for math/cs on one side and bsmd on another side.
  • doesn’t seeing shadowing etc activities show inconsistency if the student is applying for math/cs at non-bs/md schools?
  • in terms of research, does it have to be medical field related? What about ai/machine learning type projects?
  • can you talk about research/internship/paper publication process? How did you get the research mentor and relatively long-duration project? Is the research project done strictly during summer?
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Computer Science/data science is widely used in biological research in areas like bioinformatics, genomic medicine, computational biology ( CMU has a separate department devoted to it). Some places one can get a BS/BA in genomic medicine. You can combine one’s interest in biological sciences (with medicine related majors) and CS to do a double major. It is also a very good topic to talk about CS and how it is used in medical research.
One has to make own efforts to contact researchers and may be lucky to get a few response. There is a whole hierarchy of researchers under a PI - post-docs, graduate students mostly seeking PhD or MS, UG students and then comes the bottom of the totem pole namely high school students. Most UG students start in a research lab during freshman year doing menial jobs like cleaning equipment and then progress as time goes by. One does not get to publish a first author paper in ONE summer assignment but can get a casual mention in one.

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@Umich05 please see my responses in " BSMD 2020-2021 Applicants (Part 2). Thanks.

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The OP (Threebrook) answered, yes to the question in the other thread.

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My son is a Junior right now and interested in BS/MD program. As you have already done research
we are in NJ which school is easy to target.

He has GPA 3.9/ EMT/Doctor Shadow/Internship/School President/Eagle Scout/15 AP with all 4 and 5. He has low SAT 1490

Any sugestions !!

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Wrong thread. Try posting here, someone may respond. Good luck.

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@shaily IMO, NJ is a very competitive state with many excellent ORMs applicants (mostly desi and other Asians ). One needs near perfect stats UW GPA and SAT/ACT scores to be competitive. IMO, try UG regular route MD with your son’ stats.

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  1. Try going for a 1550 SAT. 1530 at least.

  2. NJMS and Rowan Cooper are good med schools in NJ area

  3. EMT activity is great. Maybe try to add some medical research (a pub would seal the deal for sure but may not be possible considering time constraints)

Good luck to your son!

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GPA: 94.87 (UW)
Rank: ~ 40/350
SAT: 1470 / 780 M - 690 EBRW
Race: South Indian
Gender: M
Income: 180k+
APs: Stats (4), World History (4), Bio (3), APUSH (3), Lang (4), APES (4), Calc BC, Chem, Physics I, Lit, Comp Gov ~ I suck at Standardized Tests lol

Teacher / Counselor Recommendations: Band Teacher, Sci Research Teacher, and Math Teacher: They are Probably Pretty Genuine and true to my character.

ECs: (Theme → Music + Medicine)

Honors:

  • Music and Med Research Journal Publication
  • All-State Alternate Saxophonist
  • National Convention “Best Young Performer” Award
  • All-County Saxophonist
  • AP Scholar with Distinction

Extracurriculars:
1.) Professional Freelance Saxophonist
2.) Global Youth Ambassador for a Music and Medicine International Nonprofit
3.) (Music Therapy + Autism) Research @ World-Renowned Institutes
4.) Public Health Youth Rep / Campaign Musician for a State Senator
5.) Organize and perform in an annual multiday Concert and all proceeds go towards medical treatments in India
6.) Junior Firefighter / EMT-Trainee
7.) Virtual Concerts Host / Performer, Youth Mentor @ A musical arts school
8.) Pre Med Club Senior Executive
9.) Tri M Music Honor Society Historian
10.) Peer Leader

Results (Applied as a Neuroscience + Music Double Major)

  • UPenn - Rejected (Early Decision)

  • Northwestern - Rejected

  • Johns Hopkins - Rejected

  • Yale - Rejected

  • SBU BS/MD - Rejected (ACCEPTED UG)

  • Stevens University BS/MD - Rejected (ACCEPTED UG)

  • Temple University BS/MD - Rejected (ACCEPTED UG)

  • UCONN BS/MD - Rejected (ACCEPTED UG)

  • Hofstra BS/MD - Interview → Rejected (ACCEPTED UG)

  • Sophie Davis - Interview → Rejected (ACCEPTED UG)

  • Macaulay Honors College → Waitlisted

  • UMichigan - Waitlisted

  • Columbia University - Waitlisted

  • Cornell - ACCEPTED

  • NYIT BS/DO - ACCEPTED

  • Saint Louis University Medical Scholars Program - ACCEPTED

  • Brooklyn College BA/MD Program - ACCEPTED

  • Adelphi + SUNY Upstate Medical University BS/MD - ACCEPTED

DECISION: Adelphi + SUNY Upstate Medical University BS/MD

Reflection: Wow. The College Admissions Process is something that I will never forget. I have been researching the whole process for the last year and a half I am glad that everything worked out in a strange but awesome way. Choosing between an Ivy League School like Cornell and a combined BS/MD program was a very difficult decision but I am glad that I chose the right path. I am more than willing to offer help to anyone if they need it. However, my best advice is to do what you love (find a niche), explore more about it, and be able to write and speak well on that certain niche.

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@nmanalil12 - Congratulations on selecting Adelphi + SUNY Upstate Medical University BS/MD. Good choice!

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Congradulations! Can you IM me the contact information of the counselor?

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