<p>My research mentor said that it is easier to get into a MD/PhD program than a regular MD program. Is this true?</p>
<p>Remember, I'm only talking about admission, not the difficulty of the study itself.</p>
<p>lol no. MD/PhD programs emphasize clinical experience less than MD programs but they emphasize MCAT, GPA, and research MUCH MORE. 3.7-3.8 with a 34-35 would only put you in the middle of the road as far as MD/PhD applicants go.</p>
<p>There might be a higher acceptance percentage for MD/PhDs than straight MDs simply because people don't enter 13 year commitments for the hell of it, but with some MD/PhD programs being as small as 1-2 admits per year, I don't see how it can be "easier".</p>
<p>Another route is to do a PhD and then go to an MD program for PhDs. I don't know how many of those exist, but a friend with a biophysics PhD did one of them. The medical school curriculum was highly accelerated.</p>
<p>haha, MD/Ph.D's are ten times harder to get into...girl from my lab applied to MD/PhD but only got into the MD program of a certain school. She said the admissions reps wanted to see consistent committment in one lab and she had worked in several labs as an undergrad, so yea, MD/PhD's want to see a lot more research in addition to gpa, mcat...</p>
<p>good luck</p>
<p>
[quote]
Another route is to do a PhD and then go to an MD program for PhDs. I don't know how many of those exist, but a friend with a biophysics PhD did one of them. The medical school curriculum was highly accelerated.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't think they accelerate anything for anybody nowadays. Several of my classmates have PhD's and certainly nothing was accelerated for them.</p>
<p>Just out of curiosity, what do you have to major in to be accepted to an MD/PhD? For MD, I don't think it is necessary to major in a biological science, but I wonder how a philosophy major would be able to do his PhD in a biomedical science.</p>
<p>Anyone has an idea?</p>
<p>There's one school that I know of which would permit you to do an MD/PhD outside of the sciences, actually -- but I can name many that definitely won't. (They'll let you do the PhD, of course, but you won't get the MSTP stipend.)</p>
<p>I will say this. If you want a PhD in the sciences, I would suggest that you will probably also be the kind of person who wants a BS in the sciences. Not always. Not necessarily. But... usually.</p>
<p>What I wanted to ask was not about the PhD but the BS. I wondered if you could major in sth like engineering (not necessarily BME) and be accepted to a MD/PhD.
Though, thanks for the info.</p>
<p>My point was that since Penn will let you get your PhD in, say, Economics, obviously they would permit you to get a BS in Economics and still admit you to the program anyway.</p>
<p>it's probably easier for MD/PhD route than MD because everyone knows you have to be crazy to want to do that and probably feel bad for you! jk jk</p>
<p>does the mstp program take into account the fact that your school may be extremely difficult to get a 3.8 in?</p>
<p>i know caltech is extremely difficult to get a high gpa in and it seems kinda ridiculous to think that a student is not capable just because of his relatively low gpa, when in reality, the student may know more about the sciences than many of his/her other competitors.</p>
<p>research is a given for a student in a school like caltech, and i think the MCAT score would be relatively high for a student that came out of caltech with studying.</p>
<p>any thoughts?</p>
<p>Medical schools in general do factor in difficulty, but don’t expect it to save you if you are much lower than a 3.5. Unfortunately, uber hard schools like Caltech and MIT get the short end of the stick. Low GPAs can be rough, and the time it takes to get a high one there precludes a lot of ECs for many.</p>
<p>Well, let’s take a look at one example from Caltech. Insane MCAT with a 3.3, and was rejected without interview at a ton of schools and eventually got into one school. </p>
<p>[MDapplicants.com</a> - View Profile](<a href=“http://www.mdapplicants.com/profile.php?id=5526]MDapplicants.com”>http://www.mdapplicants.com/profile.php?id=5526)</p>
<p>MD/PhD applicants on average have higher stats than MD only applicants. Accepted MD/PhD students also have higher stats on average than MD only students.</p>
<p>In general, the dual degree individuals are generally viewed as the best and the brightest from both worlds</p>