Decision won’t come out til the week of 4/13
B2B BCM results won’t come out til the week of 4/13
It is not difficult to do medical ECs at UPenn for any one, not necessarily only UPenn UG students. In fact, students from many UG institutions in Philly regularly do medical ECs at UPenn hosiptal and find research opportunities within UPenn. D did medical ECs at UPenn, not being a UPenn UG. It will not give any one advantage except getting a LOR.
I would definitely go to the penn program if finance isn’t an issue. Trust me when I say saying that extra year will be well worth it in the long run. The med schools are all similarly ranked, so penn seems like the best choice. As a second choice, I would go with VCU. It has a great medical school and amazing faculty. I know people who have been through all those programs, and they had great experiences with penn and VCU. For UCONN, from people I know, it wasnt the best experience for them and they ended up not going to UCONN med school because of the bad experience they had. They did not feel that their undergrad experience had been that good for helping them in their future career as a doctor. If you have any more questions about any of these programs, I will be happy to answer your questions and if I don’t know the answer, I will ask the students I know who have been through those programs.
Look at my previous comment. I forgot to quote this. Just overall, consider that 7 year programs are better than 8 year ones.
Thanks @Doctor145! Any input on Stony Brook U? Is Penn being 7 year and SBU being 8 year program for preferring Penn? Also, is there a way I can DM you?
My DD did not get any BS/MD interviews.
She had applied to BU, UPitt, Rutgers NJMS, NU/HPME and Rice/Baylor.
STATS:
SAT: 1570 (770 & 800)
Subject SAT: Math, Biology and Chemistry 800s
UW GPA: 3.92 at public magnet HS
5 APs (with 5s)
ECs:
EMS Certified
Founder of a non-profit Better Me
HOSA State
Published Research Paper @ F1000
National Merit Commended Scholar
US Patented Mobile Application for Mental Health Self-Treatment in Adolescent
Research Assistant at Shawber Lab at Columbia University Medical Center
I am little confused - Your daughter has been accepted to some very good colleges - for example - WashU, NYU, Emory.
Why would you want to transfer out to a T10 univ?
On this topic of traditional MD, are admissions becoming harder since the average age of an entrant is 25 with gap year experience, work experience, masters degree, international experience etc
If one goes the regular UG option and gets high GPA and MCAT, wouldn’t they still have an uphill climb to compete against those with above experiences?
Thanks!
Wow, this is pretty impressive stats. I feel sorry for her that even no interview landed. Very discouraging for us future applicants. How were her essays and recommend letters?
Usually people take gap years to repair GPA or take MCAT late or due to lack of time/lack of opportunities for ECs during UG. Some candidates with high GPA and MCAT take gap year(s) to get industry experience or strengthen ECs or award winners.
One thing we considered also average age of BSMD matriculants vs traditional path matriculants i.e. 21 vs 24 and impact on social life.
It is not difficult to do medical ECs at UPenn for any one, not necessarily only UPenn UG students. In fact, students from many UG institutions in Philly regularly do medical ECs at UPenn hosiptal and find research opportunities within UPenn. D did medical ECs at UPenn, not being a UPenn UG. It will not give any one advantage except getting a LOR.
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So if GPA, MCAT are cut offs and EC gives LOR., what is the holy grail for med school selection?
Are you a physician? If so, can you please elaborate on VCU advantages as we are struggling between VCU, GWU (direct meds) and Duke.
In what way you think that extra year (you mean gap?) is worth it?
Also what undergraduate experiences at UConn were bad and did not prepare them for future. I thought the undergrad has no bearing in most direct med schools. May be i did not interpret what you said correctly? Thanks in advance.
Add to that 33% matriculants are without gap years, aka age at 22, ofc there will be outliers cases who graduates at 21, but insignificant just from average age point of view. So remaining 66% lifts the average to 25, their average is ~26.88 years.
Looking at your DC GPA, my question for you and your DC is to assess realistically how well DC would do at a T10 school where there is 3X more competition compared to her HS where DC could not maintain a clean 4.0 (and only 5 APs?). This is not to say your DC cannot do well there but it is important to assess DCs academic strengths, motivation and tenacity unbiasedly in order to set them up for success. If the answer is yes, then T10 is the way to go.
For certain core courses what i noticed with my other child is that most students study almost 18-24 hrs at T25 universities before exams and yet score 60% in the exams. Mind you these are valedictorians and rank holders, from many schools competing in an intense environment.
Among the choices you have presented which ones DC got admission? While it is possible, BU and HPME would be a hard environment to get that needed GPA (>3.8) IMO.
The essays were good, reviewed by professionals as well. LORs were good, and included 1 non-teacher as well from her EMT lead. Obviously it is very difficult to know where we went wrong, but we saw for the following:
Schools with > 15% acceptance rates, she was accepted.
Schools with acceptance rates between 10-15%, she was wait listed
Schools with < 10% acceptance rates she was rejected, all BSMD fell in this category as well.
@ata2020 Have not caught up with all the posts last few days.
What is your state? What specific colleges you got admission? What specific question you have?
Penn
Both programs are great bs/md programs. However, I do believe that Penn medical school is slightly higher ranked than SBU medical school. SBU has a great program, and I know that people have loved it. In that program there is a very close connection between the students in the program and the medical school. There will be plenty of research opportunities and there will be excellent advising. They also have a very easy GPA required to matriculate, which takes a lot of stress on of undergrad. Normally, I would recommend this program, but considering that there is the option of the Penn program, I would have to recommend the Penn program. Given this information, I think that Penn being 7 year program and SBU being 8 year program for is a good reason for preferring Penn. If one is confident that medicine is the career for them, in general 7 year programs are preferable, since in the long run, saving that extra year will allow for one to become a doctor earlier. It also saves a lot of money, as not only do you have to pay for one less year of schooling, but you also get one extra year of salary compared to people on the regular track. You can DM me anytime you want. I believe you can private message someone by doing the following: click on their username to get to the profile page. Once on there, click on the orange button “Message.” Another way is to click on the envelope gear (second from the left in the top right corner). That’s your inbox. When you click on it, you’ll see the “New Message” option. Add the username of the person you want to message in the “Recipients” field. I believe this is how you dm someone. I look forward to answering anymore of your questions, as I know how hard of a decsion this can be.
So far my research says that with UG traditional option:
- The potential for higher GPA than 3.8 is reduced because of the set up of highly competing environment. If you don't make it you wont be getting interviews at medical school. So it is important to assess strengths in BCPM area.
- One might be overlooked when competing with MS and gap year experienced candidates, depending how many are there four years from now (4X the pre-med candidates who failed to secure med college admissions/year for all universities minus those who discontinued), without some stellar UG metric. So what is your 'oomph' factor? Something to think about.
- There are students that i know who scored poorly in MCAT but have 3.9+ GPAs. I still dont understand that. So until you take the test this wont be certain. So consider your analytical reasoning and aptitude skills in addition to subject knowledge to place a bet.
If you have already BS/MD options, some of these factors might be alleviated. Wouldnt they?
Good question @NoviceDad ! I think she feels that she could/should have done better, and wants another chance.
We know that BS/MD is not possible as transfer students, based on our readings (others could correct).
We see the following stats:
Schools with > 15% acceptance rates, she was accepted.
Schools with acceptance rates between 10-15%, she was wait listed
Schools with < 10% acceptance rates she was rejected, all BSMD fell in this category as well.
Obviously we will try and hope to get of the JHU, Vandy and Rice waitlist.
The T10 transfers being considered are: Columbia, Upenn, Brown, Cornell, MIT, U Chicago and Duke. She had applied to all of these this time around as well.