Can anyone with knowledge of Combined Medical Programs please chance me on the Drexel, Penn State, St. Bonaventure, Case Western, and Rice/Baylor combined med programs? Thanks so much! Any tips or help on maximizing my chances would be much appreciated!
SAT: M 770 CR 800 W 800
Total: 2370
SAT II: Math II:800
Chem:800
GPA: 3.75 Cum UW
UC GPA: 3.88 if Honors classes do not count as UC approved honors and 3.96 if they do (does anyone know anything about this?)
Cum Weighted: 4.03
Weighted Classes:
Soph: Honors chem, AP Euro
Junior: AP Chem, AP Lit, Honors Spanish IV
Senior: will be taking AP Bio, AP Lang, AP Psych
AP Tests:
Chem:2
Euro:3
Lit:4
Extracurriculars:
Piano (9-12): Completing all 10 levels of Certificate of Merit Evaluation Exam, received branch honors and qualified for musical convention recital in level 8, receiving senior award (completing 3 levels in HS)
Conducted Research at Schmahl Science Workshops (10 summer-12): Submitted research on Parkinson’s Disease to Contra Costa Science and Engineering Fair (won 2nd place, alternate for CA State Fair)
Attended Telugu (Indian Language) School: Completed all 4 levels of telugu school, learned to fluently speak, understand, read, write Telugu
250 hours volunteering at Veterans Affairs Hospital (9-12): Honorary Volunteer at Veterans Affairs (Volunteer 200+ hours)
Internship at UCSF vascular surgery lab (11 summer): conducted vascular research along with other faculty at lab
Solo author of submitted research paper/article (11th grade): Submitted research paper on Parkinson’s cure to Elsevier Editorial for Parkinsonism and Parkinson’s article to Imagine Magazine of JHU Center for Talented Youth
Submitting research project on Parkinson’s Disease to Intel STS and Siemens National Competition (11,12)
Attending Stanford Pre-Collegiate Conference (12): 1 of 50 students in CA selected to participate in conference where we share and discuss our scientific research with professionals and other students
President and Founder of Charity Dress Club (10-12): Raised money and collected clothes to send to underdeveloped countries around the world: Sent two cargo shipments overseas to India and raised $5000
Active Member of School Congressional Debate Team (9-12): Varsity member of congressional debate team in grades 9-12, won 3rd place in 2 invitational tournaments (Congress 3, MLK) and won 2nd at Congress summer camp in HS
224 PSAT score: Likely national merit semifinalist
CSF (9-12): Active member of DVHS CSF for 5 semesters, 60 hours volunteering
Piano Volunteering (9-11): Played piano for elderly at senior citizen homes: 50 hours
Athletics (9-10): Captain of school Junior Varsity volleyball team
Work experience (10-12): Teach piano to elementary and middle schoolers around my community
Hooks: N/A
Ethnicity: Asian Indian
Income: 150,000+
Intended Major: General Biology, Molecular Biology, Human Bio, or Neuroscience (which is least competitive?)
many of these essays ask “why medicine?” Do you suggest I talk about my research experience or is there another way to approach all these essays that you guys think would be successful?I have heard essays and ECs play a major role in these programs, so I want to make mine stand out. Thanks!
The schools should be able to give you admissions stats. I think the interviews are very important. The Bonaventure program accepts only 10 - 15 students and according to the internet well over a 100 are called to interview. So you would think many more than that apply. There are two interviews in that program.
I don’t think it’s possible to come up with an acceptance chance with these programs.
Dude great scores! I wish I had those… Back to the point, if you have good scores, good ECs, you should focus more on your essays now since those will show your personal side that isn’t obviously seen through numbers and list of achievements. For your list, CWRU and Rice/Baylor are super competitive so keep that in mind. I would look into the full list of BS/MDs and find the ones that interest you.
Could you provide more context for your gpa (class rank? competitiveness of school?). Looking at raw numbers, it looks pretty weak but everything else checks off. I would hesitate to endorse you for a lot of the good BS/MDs without understanding your gpa better.
The other quality BS/MDs I would say are Miami’s and BU’s 7 yr programs or Rochester/Pitt/UCONN for 8 yr but you could consider other programs on the list. I wouldn’t say a guaranteed program is the best choice in all cases (especially some of the lower tier ones). As for the essay, research is a fine topic to mention but I wouldn’t overkill with that because part of your responsibility as a physician will be to care for patients. Typically you could talk about your medical experiences and/or personal anecdotes to convey your medically-relevant experience/rationale but you don’t have to stick to a formula.
@dblazer regarding my GPA, I go to one of the most competitive high schools (ranked 29th in California). However, my school does not do a class rank. Hope this gives you a better perspective. Do you know any programs that could be of my caliber according to these grades, scores, and ECs?
Still doesn’t seem like your UW gpa is in good shape and your AP scores don’t convince me that your grades suffered simply because your school was rigorous, but maybe i still don’t know enough.What kind of schools would someone with your gpa typically get into? Typically students competitive for such programs would have a 3.9+ UW. Everything else is decent and if your gpa was considered ‘good’ i could say you would be competitive for the PSU/Miami/BU tier and in good shape for Drexel/St. Bonaventure. But w/o a solid gpa I wouldn’t feel comfortable saying you are likely to get interviews at a lot of your choices. Apply to a range of schools regardless.
Veterans Hospital would be a fine topic to write about since you can throw in some patient experience. But you don’t have to stick to just writing about those experiences if that’s not how you actually became interested in medicine. There are a lot of books and resources you can find that may be relevant if you google how to write a med school essay.
@dblazer I think my GPA at school would not be considered great but it is definitely above average at my school. I think anything that is 3.8+ would be considered quite good at my school. Based on this, do you think I have a shot?
I share the same concern with the other posters, since many of these BS/MD med programs require that you maintain a certain GPA threshold (see each program’s website for the GPA requirement) to allow you to continue their BS/MD program, and as a result they do consider grades a bit to gauge whether or not you’d be able to meet their minimum requirements. A 2 on the AP Chemistry test might hurt a bit as a result. The BS/MD programs are all very competitive.
That being said, I share the same admiration with the other posters in your ECs, since they’re very impressive both time-wise and success-wise. At the end of the day, what you want to come across in the eyes of admission is something along the lines of “this kid has genuine passion for medicine.” Thus, how you go about expressing this should be based on your personal experiences. Did something during patient experience burn a strong memory in your mind? Did your researching excite you in some way, or better yet, why does it continue to excite you even after spending countless hours in the lab? The passion is what they’re looking for, which is why the ECs (and I would argue essays and interview) are so important when it comes to them giving you one of their precious (since there are very few per university) BS/MD spots.
And just to butt in on the conversation you had with @batesparents2019, some colleges do require that you take the MCATs, but the score you need is lower than normal (for example, you must have a composite score of 30 on the MCATs to continue with your BS/MD program at Penn State). Others, such as Case Western, allow you to waive the MCATs altogether. Once again, refer to each college’s requirements to determine if you need to take the MCATs or not.
I’m riding with you on this road to admission into a BS/MD program, so my answer(s) may be naive, but in my opinion, I think the BS/MD programs are still worth applying to. I like to think of the them as I do with the top-tier ivies admissions: they’re part holistic judgement (with large emphasis placed on science courses/research) and part luck, since many (such as yourself) are qualified. Your GPA is worth something, but it’s not worth everything. And plus, though you might have a 2 in AP Chem, that SAT II Chem 800 looks really good!
your ecs are good but it seems kind of counterproductive to mention that you applied to science competitions with your research and then did not get selected as atleast a semi finalist, that being said you should really try to focus on your other ecs and patient experiences in your essays
side note: did you do research at ucsf by simply contacting professors?