I missed typing in a quote from the OP which states that the daughter wants medicine 99%. I was thinking that if she got in Northwestern BS/MD but chooses Yale BA, she might not get back to NU or the like later. Boys however are more flexible than girls if they want to have a big family.
Do not be in a hurry to go to work as a physician- there will be decades to work and only four years to enjoy as a college student. My H went through the Indian system and never had the opportunities that I did to delve into a major with its advanced courses or to take all sorts of fun enrichment courses. Fortunately he has other, nonmedical interests. There is so much more to life than just one’s profession!
btw- perhaps your child will discover s/he prefers another health care related field. US college students can get exposed to majors/fields they never dreamed of as HS students.
OP There’s a similar thread going on in another forum: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1921777-are-bs-md-programs-worth-it.html Note post #7.
Engineering, yes. Accounting, not necessarily.
Especially since one must accumulate 150 total credit hours…which means an extra 20-30 credits beyond an undergrad unless one does a double major.
One HS classmate was recruited by a Big-4 firm right out of the blue while she was a junior at Barnard studying Asian lit. Big-4 firm paid for her accounting classes to fulfill the 150 minimum credit and other prereqs to sit the CPA examination. She’s now been working as an accountant for more than a decade and half and is now working at a boutique firm after her Big-4 stint.
Another friend also managed to become an accountant after doing an undergrad at a top 50-100 university in philosophy and taking a year’s worth of accounting grad classes to fulfill the 150 hour minimum credits to sit the CPA exam. Has now been working as an accountant for ~5 years.
MBAs, too. Yes, it’s only two years, but the tuition is higher than for undergraduate programs.
There are indeed some 18-year-olds who bought it into the appeal of fast-track programs. My father wanted such a program for me and my brother, but I wanted a liberal arts education with all the bells and whistles, and he ended up paying for it after all 
My brother pursued a fast-track program and “can’t wait to get out.” He has diverse academic interests and audited several classes on top of his admittedly condensed curriculum. At least for now, he’s a big proponent of doing it his way and does not feel “pressured.” Yes, this is culturally at odds with some people’s idea of what a college education is or should be, but good thing there are different options for different folks.
As a senior in collage. I would definitely go with 4 year program then med school. I started in nursing, switched to engineering (will receive degree in mechanical engineering) and am currently starting application process to med schools. I feel its hard to know definitively what you want to do as a senior in high school. Nothing like having a bachelors degree that says you are something to fall back on in case medicine is not for you. Clearly I was a total flip flopper.
I’d assume that as patients we all want doctors who go to college for 4 years, work for some years, and then choose medicine as their calling.
Were BS/MD programs setup to serve patients better as physicians? Probably not.
On the other hand, does the normal path to physician really work that well?
- Grade-grub through undergraduate (foregoing interesting classes that may be hard in order to protect one's GPA), cram for the MCAT, do specified pre-med ECs, apply to medical school, hope for even one admission.
- Take out huge loans to attend medical school, then try for a residency in a high paying specialty to have a chance of paying off the loans later.
- Spend years in residency, just barely keeping current with the huge loans.
- Chase the money in medical practice in order to pay off the huge loans before retirement (or kids' college).
@ucbalumnus ^^excellent excellent point.
Not sure why there is so much bashing of the 7 year programs here - they are indeed very competitive (and yes it can mean a no from the college if you don’t make that specific program) - but it you are sure you want to be a doctor and you get accepted to one - why not take an easier route and do it. I know of a couple of kids in these types of programs and they have been very successful. One didn’t get in at the time he entered college but got accepted after his 1st or 2nd year (not sure how many schools have this option).
@eiholi, as a patient, I want a good doctor who can make good diagnoses and fix what needs to be fixed (and prevent what needs to be prevented) the best way possible. I could care less if they have outside interests or discovered their true calling later or knew what they wanted to do at birth.
@kiddie: the 7-year option is not easier… it’s harder, and more stressful.
@PurpleTitan: having a doctor with a broad training who didn’t go to school through all summers means a doctor with more real-world experience, hopefully a bit more understanding of human experiences and diversity. While we don’t care about doctors’ hobbies, the fact they had the time to discover personal interests and thus balance their lives does affect us as patients positively. Thinking outside the box and personal wellness often come from having outside interests - and I’d rather have a doctor who’s not exhausted, burnt out, and systematically working from rote. Can your doctor go through a 7-year program and still have that? We don’t know.
I agree…as a patient. But as a parent, I’d want my doctor-offspring to have the chance to to explore a little in their late teens and early 20s.
But is the traditional path much better? I.e. do most traditional premed undergrads spend their undergrad years grade grubbing, following the premed formula for ECs, cramming for the MCAT, and avoiding taking any academic risks to their GPA? Seems like they have little time for exploring their other interests, unless they are so brilliant that they earn all A grades in hard courses and top MCAT scores without grade grubbing and cramming.
The 7 year programs do not involve summers- they are 3 years of undergrad with an automatic admit to medical school if requirements (gpa, MCAT) are met. Students can get into medical school with just three years of undergrad, although that is rare- I knew some who did that (they got a BS in medical sciences or some such from their undergrad school after successfully completing the first year of medical school). Many of us are questioning this parent because we are concerned about pushing for medicine without full consideration of a college education and options… Like I posted before, I took so many enriching courses in college and included an indepth study with my major that my Indian educated physician H did not have time for. The actual medical school part is the same- we all had to learn the basic sciences and go through clinical rotations. Followed by a residency and maybe a fellowship.
Currently some medical schools are offering a few medical students a three year time intensive medical school experience with no summers off. This is meant for those who want primary care in needed areas, not the usual student who gets to rotate through big medical center specialties.
That seven year plan is just 3 instead of 4 years of college followed by the regular medical school. It means not having room in one’s schedule to major in something along with getting requirements for medical school done, forgoing the extra year of getting as more well rounded education. It is no more difficult than many other majors. I know that chemistry majors have more hours of classroom time required than most students do (those labs also require time outside the lab, btw).
Yes, we know you don’t care about your physician having a life beyond the job but it is important to physicians. We have the right to a life outside of work just as everyone else does. One of the sad things I noted when some elserly old time physicians died was how much their patients praised them while their families never got their time. Likewise I couldn’t care less if you wanted to go home instead of doing your job because you want to spend time with your family or other stuff.
Let’s face it. There are two kinds of college students. Those who are intense and focus on academics, taking the honors/rigorous courses and those who are the typical student who gets a degree but makes sure they have time for more social activities. Those drawn to medicine and grad schools usually are more focused on academics than the average college student. Many are smart enough to not need to go all out without a life during college. Those that can’t handle the workload without any time for fun probably shouldn’t get into medical school- they will be overwhelmed.
the title of this thread should be “my daughter is APPLYING” to these schools. U til the applications are sent, and admissions are received, there is NO WAY to know what the real plan will be.
This parent is also looking at Ivy League schools for,this student.
^^
It appears that the OP is a parent who’s experience is with schools outside this country. In the US, it’s not a pure meritocrisy as to getting admitted to the better undergrads or to med school. Students with “top stats” often get rejected from better schools and from med schools.
Much of the premed/med school app process is counter-intuitive which is why many students/families misunderstand it and make missteps, particularly foreign-born people.
If one’s really sure about studying medicine and wants to further cut time to graduation, one also has the option of pursuing a medical degree abroad straight from HS as one friend of my post-college roommate did.
His program is 5 total years as seen here:
https://www.tcd.ie/courses/undergraduate/az/course.php?id=DUBMD-MEDI-2F09
Don’t know about potential residency issues for his case as last I met him, he was going into his 3rd year, but he didn’t seem particularly concerned about finding internships/residency positions in the US. Especially considering the few classmates who wanted US residencies had no issues getting them from what he gathered from his advisor and older classmates/alums.
Also, before commenters chime in about the seemingly lack of “liberal arts education”, keep in mind that in Ireland and other countries in which one can major in medicine and law straight from HS, the liberal arts education isn’t necessarily ignored.
Rather, it was considered covered in the respective societies’ HS curriculum for college-track students BEFORE COLLEGE. In some college-prep high schools such as the Gymnasiums in Germany, the college-prep curriculum has been considered by US military intelligence analysts during WWII and by education scholars as equivalent not only to the college-prep curricula of the elite/respectable US day/boarding/public magnet high schools, but also the first 2 years of elite/respectable US colleges.
Reasons why US citizens should not pursue a medical school degree overseas:
https://pages.wustl.edu/medprep/virtual-advisor/going-abroad-medical-school
“If you are a USA citizen I have never recommended applying to a non-USA medical school for reasons that you invite additional significant challenges to practicing in the USA unless you have had at least 2 -3 well done (not suboptimal) unsuccessful applications to USA MD and/or DO medical school.”
- Increasingly you may not get back into a Residency in the USA. About 10 years ago the medical schools were asked to increase their class size by ~10% and most have however the funding for Residency (by Graduate Medical Education) was not increased and therefore the residence slots were not increased. As the USA medical graduates finish medical school they are getting the priority for residency slots and not foreign medical graduates