It is easier to make NMF from Oklahoma than from neighboring Texas (less well qualified applicant pool, less overall numbers.) If you get NMF, then go to OU, which will give you a full ride plus overseas study, plus any monies left over from undergrad can be applied to OU’s grad school, including their med school.
From what I understand, if you are NMF you are guaranteed an OU full ride for undergraduate, plus you can use the funds to pay for OU medical school. A unique deal in the United States.
For med school, you can major in anything you choose. In fact, a non-science major such as music catches the committee’s eyes. All they care is that you meet the pre-professional programs.
Don’t take other health professions like dental off the table yet. Consider nurse practitioner in psych, as well. DEFINITELY don’t exclude OSU Osteopathic in Tulsa. It’s easier to get in, a highly ranked program, prefers kids from small towns. Most docs in rural OK and many in big cities OKC and Tulsa are DOs. The training these days is basically identical with DOs receiving a slightly more holistic education including things like physical therapy and nutrition. And yes, DOs have specialties, like psych.
Are you an Oklahoma Promise scholar?
Contact a DO and MD NOW and see if you can get in some shadowing. If there a psych nurse practitioner (master’s level, advanced practice nurse) you can speak to and shadow? Specialty psych nurses abound in psych hospitals’ out patient programs and rural mental health clinics tend to be full of them. Nurse practitioners can treat and write scrips.
For med school admissions/interviews, it will help if you have a hook/rationale/passion for your degree; maybe you have a heart for rural medicine, or Indian health, or gerontology psych (very, very needed and well funded in school.)
My brother decided on dental rather than med because it was a shorter time to degree, with more time with family afterwards. He graduated from OK Health Sciences with $0 debt, and a professor hooked him up with a retiring dentist’s practice, which he acquired with $0 debt. His wife went to Health Sciences as a dental assistant, works insane hours and she makes close to 6 figures with a bachelor’s degree. My brother never graduated from OU undergrad; he got in to dental school as a junior. He did a few semesters at Rogers State (then a community college) and transferred.
There’s a huge need for mental health professions, dental and general practitioners in OK everywhere outside OKC and Tulsa. There’s also places like Carl Albert Hospital in Ada where you can practice without regards to insurance billing and you make a nice living practicing your craft as a federal employee.
I won’t advise you to get an MSW or clinical psych PhD; expensive programs that aren’t well remunerated after you get out AND you’ll still need to work with an MD/DO for meds and oversight.
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