Congrats! Tell your D to start banking sleep! Hope that things are back to normal by the time she starts 
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Congratulations to your D and your family!
DS got second acceptance, from a T5 research school!
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A well deserved journey. Congratulations to your son and proud family.
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@srk2017 Congratulations to your S and your family. Great accompolishment.
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Congratulations @grtd2010
Very happy for you
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Congratulations @srk2017
Very happy for you.
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Time is flying by, spring Q was a mandatory P/F grading.
Covid certainly threw a monkey ranch in vital ECs like Shadowing and Clinical.
Supplemented those with more research, tutoring to underprivileged kids, PPE related activities.
Fall Q, son continues A streak.
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Glad to hear the A streak is continuing and he was able to adjust ECs and be productive.
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My daughter went into bsmd njit/njms in 2017 after turning down opportunities in tech with considerable financial upside, cos she wanted to serve. She enjoyed her college life, which was a priority for her, and started at NJMS mid-CoVid with all classes remote. She traveled, chaired clubs, did volunteering and research, continued coding and Hackathonās, and basically had a very memorable and pleasant 3 years at NJIT and graduated with excellent GPA (not sure if 4.0 but close) and decent MCAT in one sitting (94 percentile I think, though it didnāt matter).
We never talked about classes, grades, academic stress, MCAT etc. all three years, and we hung out and had fun all the time - seems very different from the experiences of most bsmd students here.
However, first year MED school seems very hard for her so far, being remote and not having others to confer or study with. Plus classes were in EST, which meant many started from 5am PST, something she had to get used to all over again. We hardly saw her without headphones listening to a lecture or working on her cards on iPad since school started. She seems to have ramped up now, and spent the whole day with us playing games and hanging out as family for the first time in months, so looks like things are getting better.
I asked her if she should have maybe worked harder in bachelors for easier medical school, and she said medical school is hard, no matter what.
Heads up and good luck to everyone out there starting medical school next year!
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One point to note: USMLE step 1 is becoming pass/fail from class of 2024 at the latest. I donāt know enough about the impact but am told this would place heavier emphasis on the medical school for residency selection, and hence make most bsmd programs a worse choice than earlier for motivated students that are interested in specialist or top residencies. Something to consider before deciding on bsmd as this is supposedly a HUGE change.
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Thanks for coming back and giving detailed update. Glad to hear that she had excellent experience at NJIT. Looking back does she think she made a right decision by opting for BSMD?
Also, is your second D applying for BSMD? I am not that actively participating in this yearās BSMD thread.
Yes, this was discussed extensively on the other site. One prevailing wisdom is most residency programs may look at Step 2 scores, but like you said some say school prestige may become bigger factor. One reason my son didnāt go for BSMD is he wants to go for a hands-on specialty (other reasons are cost and prestige).
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Hi @srk2017! Hearty congrats to your son on his options!!
As you might remember, my older daughter chose BSMD because she wanted to be a doctor, no matter what, and did not want getting there to become a stressful journey. She was highly risk averse snd also wanted to enjoy college life. She says she would do it in a heartbeat again, especially when she saw how stressed non-BSMD Pre-Meds were. She also jokes that if someone is going to continue to be stressed about academics in BSMD, they should just go the traditional route, cos in most cases, they are giving up better opportunities for nothing then.
She is not keen about a specific speciality and actively trades stock for money (with a financial engine she is developing), so medicine is mainly a way of life and service for her, which I am realizing is not typical. She has settled into medicine with a zen-like calmness - we almost never talk about it. She shared yesterday that usmle step 1 becoming p/f is a serious impediment to many bsmd students in mid-tier medical schools getting good residency.
My younger one is applying to BSMD with a level of competitiveness that is typical of most bsmd applicants. My older one is cautioning her to consider traditional route instead. yesterday was the first time we really spent time together and the conversation was very interesting and somewhat concerning. I suspect this is going to be the flavor of the month topic, but it is almost too late to change anything now. Weāll see.
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I want to share my thought that if you have connections in medicine, e.g. the parents is a doctor or research MD, then traditional route is likely the better option. For those like us, without medical field exposure, getting those research opportunities or even being able to shadow a doctor in California with its strict HIPPA rules, is quite challenging. Medicine is one place where nepotism seems more prevalent than elsewhere and it really matters who you are, where you work and what connections you have. Every doctor wants their kid to be in and is able to help them get better opportunities than they could by themselves. It is not necessarily a bad thing but it does put kids without those ties at a distinct disadvantage in being able to go after the top admissions on their own.
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Aka the push for diversification at so many schoolsā¦
I will say that sweat smells so good once you are at the other endā¦
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Who knows that may be one of factors that 2 top BS/MD programs are discontinued from this year.
Fall 2020, D got the letter of acceptance to the medical school for Fall 2021 class. She finished semester with 4.0. She has been doing research related to cancer in a wet lab during the year.
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Agree. If top students start evaluating if giving up top residencies is worth the comfort of just having an MD admission that they have a good shot at even otherwise, and start turning away from bsmd programs at mid-tier schools, the schools could discontinue bsmd programs. Will take a few years though.
The usmle step 1 p/f change seems pretty drastic and abrupt though - there is medicine for you 
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