Howard University Karsh STEM Scholars Program (KSSP)

Happy Friday everyone! @ChangeTheGame have you heard anything about notifications? You’re the gatekeeper lol.

Hey @MomOfThree80. I have talked to my daughter several times this week, but we have not talked about the KSSP notifications that should be coming out soon. When we talked last week, she was not surprised about the delay, as she said they were “swamped” with a large increase in applicants for the program. Good luck to all of the applicants following this thread and please post if you see the email come through.

And so with bated breadth we wait.

@ChangeTheGame : What a work you have taken on in this thread, shepherding parents through the anxiety-riddled journey from application submission to traversing the DC environs.

Holding to that CC name. This is awesome.

DD got an invitation!

@MomOfThree80 Congratulations!!! My son got an invite as well. See you in DC soon?. Hey invitees, make sure you RSVP to the email address provided in the letter and good luck to all of the finalists.

@ChangeTheGame See you in DC!!!

This is like deja vu for you for the third year in a row! LOL

And congratulations!!!

We are in as well. Congrats to everyone. So glad to take the journey with you all.

Congrats to everyone! My daughter received an invite also.

Congratulations @Mzbuf01 on you daughter becoming a finalist and good luck during Selection Weekend.

Hi all,
My S got invited too for 3/27-28 Selection Weekend. I am new to this and have a few questions:
What is the chance of being accepted to the program when my S goes on the Selection Weekend? What happens if he gets into the program, apply to the PhD or MD/PhD and the schools don’t accept him? I worry for him that he has to pay back the scholarship that KSSP gives him. He would like to go into the MD/PhD program, but as I know, it is not easy to get into MD program, and MD/PhD is even tougher to get in. Is Howard going to well prep these high caliber students that I shouldn’t worry too much?
BTW, looking at the list of the schools these students do research, I am so impressed!!!
Congrats everyone making it to this round. You should be very proud of yourself, and parents, be proud of your kids!!!

Congratulations to your son @gradedu. As far as the chances to being selected to become a Karsh STEM Scholar, it may say be hard to tell for this year (we don’t know how many finalists were selected), but in my daughter’s year 2 cohort, 29 students were selected out of a little over 100 finalists. Some students who were initially selected turned down the scholarship and Howard for other schools so it is hard to know a precise number, but if approximately 1/3 of the initially selected cohort turned down the offer, that means that the chances for the 2nd cohort was anywhere between 35-39 percent of the finalists at some point being offered the scholarship. Cohort 3 had about 140 finalists selected and 30 Karsh STEM Scholars so their chances were lower. The KSSP has slightly upped the requirements and has had an influx of money dedicated to the program so it is hard to predict for this new year.

The scholarship contract for cohort 2 only talks about applying to 13 total PhD or MD/PhD programs so there is nothing to worry about paying back the scholarship for not getting into graduate school. I looked up the most recent MD/PhD numbers and 708 students started matriculating in a MD/PhD program in the last year that data was given out of 1813 applicants (Average Applicant MCAT score 516.1). The number of African American MD/PhD students has fluctuated between 30-40 students the last 10 years so any student choosing that path will need to really put in a lot to become a qualified applicant.

A recent Howard University alum and current MD/PhD student at Stanford has a very detailed YouTube Channel on her current journey called MDPhDandMe. I have attached one of her videos, but her series of videos gives a detailed account about her entire journey. Congratulations again and good luck during Selection Weekend.

https://youtu.be/1mmg0ZYbSMA

Thank you so much for the insight.
MCAT of 516 is 95 percentile. That is very high.

@gradedu said: Thank you so much for the insight. MCAT of 516 is 95 percentile. That is very high

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No doubt…

My son received the Selection Weekend details email which has the ALEKS Math information as well

I just wonder what percentage of students got into the MD/PhD programs after four years. How many got into Howard MD/PhD program (if Howard has the program)? How does Howard prep these students for the application to MD/PhD program?

Thank you @ChangeTheGame

I just took a look and it looks like Howard has a MD/PhD program, but I have been told that for MD/PhD programs, you would want to chose a school that is a part of the Medical Scientist Training Programs (MSTP) because those programs are fully funded (tuition waiver and living stipend) through the National Institute of Health (NIH). Howard Medical School is not a part of the MSTP. Howard Medical School looks like they had 89 applicants for MD/PhD programs and 0 students attend in 2019 (my guess is that it is expensive versus a fully funded program which has no tuition and pays a nice stipend).

As far as your questions around Howard’s success prepping and getting students into MD/PhD programs, I don’t know if it exists, but one data set from the AAMC shows that only 124 African Americans applied to MD/PhDs nationwide in the most recent year, so just being an applicant is a very selective set of students. Just think if 5 of the African American students who applied to MD/PhD programs last year went to Howard, that would be 4% of all African American applicants in the US from 1 school.

I personally believed that my daughter was being adequately prepared for all things needed for her to become a qualified applicant for MD/PhD programs (including MCAT), before she decided on just going for the PhD only. But with only 30-40 African American students a year nationwide who complete the MD/PhD, it was alway going to be hard no matter what school she attended (besides possibly going undergrad at UMBC which produced 10% of all Black MD/PhD’s in the US over a recent 15 year period).

Thankfully, the Karsh STEM Scholars Program is using UMBC’s template (The Director of the Meyerhoff Scholars Program for 20+ years is a consultant for Howard’s program), so I am a believer.

Here is AAMC MD/PhD data. See tables B-7 through B-13.

https://www.aamc.org/data-reports/students-residents/interactive-data/2019-facts-enrollment-graduates-and-md-phd-data

My S is getting anxious about the impact of covid19 on the schedule. He is looking forward to a face to face interview. He prefers that over video based on the interviews he has had for other schools.

Good morning everyone. DD received an email stating all campus tours for Howard were being postponed until further notice. I’m wondering if they’ll cancel selection weekend.

In addition they’ve restricted all travel out of the country. Which I assume Germany would be included in that.