***Official Thread for 2020 BSMD applicants***

@mygrad2021

If you meant traditional route by “colleges”, the following are known to give generous merit awards too without NMF being the criterion. But they may not be full ride or full tuition but still significant enough and handed out to a small percentage of incoming classes. All these are supposed to be having great pre med tracks and are prestigious: USC, Emory and North Eastern.

I think you worry too much about NMF. Even you get NMF or SAT 1600, that doesnt lead straight acceptance to BSMD. The application process is so long and grilling, that is why we parents are all anxious here. I would be happy as long as my S got an offer from any med school .
NJIT is fast in giving out 14k/year merit to cover tuition just few days after the interview. But it is a long wait to wait getting to hear from NJMS .

Average SAT score is 1570 for NJIT on their website.

I happened to receive many brochures from Vandy, and it claims to have 250 merit scholarships .https://www.vanderbilt.edu/scholarships/
So just apply and see :slight_smile:

To get a better picture of what colleges advertise on their websites versus the reality of what they actually give out, better check the latest common data set for the concerned college in the financial aid section (think section E2A or something, the one which covers non need based)

The 250 merit scholarships number at Vanderbilt may be for the entire undergrad population and not every year. So it may be only ~60 per each incoming class (250/4). Check out their common data set as suggested above.

On Vanderbilt website :Roughly 1% of the entire freshman applicant pool will be offered a merit-based scholarship award.

But BEING TOP 1% out of top 1% (SAT 1500+) with an outstanding essay , who knows ? Merit scholarship is very attractive for middle class that would hardly qualify for financial aids. It doesnt hurt to try , that is the only way to find out !

@rk2017 , @goldenrock , How is Temple different from other EAP programs like St Bonaventure ,Drexel ,etc ?

@orm2020

Most likely no scholarship aspirant is going to apply there with a 1500+. It should be 1550+ or 35+ ACT. Below is the extract from their CDS for 2018. The figures are for incoming class of 1600. It doesn’t reveal how many are full tuition/rides. So assuming 1% it will be 15-20. The 2 sets are for incoming and total undergrad respectively.

H2A n) Number of students in line a who had no financial need and who were awarded institutional non-need-based scholarship or grant aid (exclude those who were awarded athletic awards and tuition benefits) 122

704

H2A o) Average dollar amount of institutional non-need-based scholarship and grant aid awarded to students in line n $ 19,977 $ 24,217

@Somo2020

Don’t know much about Temple and SBU, but if you search the beginning to middle of this thread there have been some arguments that people can get weeded out even during the undergrad interview at Temple despite maintaining other requirements. Not sure if there were isolated incidents and of any further stats. Perhaps it is due to this uncertainty, the number of applicants to the program is very low (2-3 hundreds)

Wrt Drexel, the interview seems to be a formality as long as all other requirements have been met. However with the relatively high MCAT requirement and minimums in each sub section and the unstable situation there, I won’t be recommend that program. Unless they give full ride or something for undergrad, which I highly doubt they are doing (then worst case, you can get out and try elsewhere)

rk2017, thanks for the illustration :slight_smile: Each med school barely offer 10-20 seats, so there is no guarantee . If Vandy is half tuition off, it would be an attractive choice for UG.

Where are the results for BSMD 2020?

Vanderbilt is a very good premed program.

Half tution at Vandy is very attractive as a backup but with full tution it can be considered to give up BS MD seats for lower rank programs

It would be April 2020 :slight_smile:

@mi2019
Consider this, what are the chances to be in 15-20 of the incoming class there to receive the full tuition? And that too spread across various schools and departments. Perhaps a couple of students in each school of studies there? The average merit grant of around 18k (if you subtract the higher grants for the full tuition awards and then averaging for the rest) is perhaps 1/3 rd of the tuition there? (haven’t checked the details) and given to around 8% of incoming students.

Not that I am advocating something here, but no matter how good a pre med program may be, it doesn’t guarantee a med school admission and the stress and uncertainty and gap year(s) till that point. I came across a bright student who did BME at Vanderbilt and is now pursuing MD in Caribbean at St. George’s.

@bearsfan21
Results thread for 2020 won’t be started before Feb or March at the earliest.

@orm2020 The merit scholarship given across multiple categories. Typically the full tuition or close to highest amount is like Presidential scholarship and that may be just 2-5. Nest it may have dean scholarship or whatever different names in each school. Bottom line rarely any schools gives merit full tuition for so many students. To get Presidential award or highest award in any college, it is not just perfect test scores or perfect GPA is results in that. It is what other extra ordinary things students has done.

N=1; My C got admission in both Vandy and Rice (both are great schools) with perfect scores. But $0 aid.

That is interesting. Will update if receive more than $0 with NON-PERFECT scores after admission :slight_smile: Thanks and it is good not to be over optimistic at the point .

Thank you @rk2017, @GoldenRock and @orm2020 ! Following the discussion.

@rk2017 , Thank you for the details about Temple and Drexell. Where can we find the details about how many kids apply to any school and the success full rate of the program?

Any one waiting to hear from Stevens - Rutgers Medical program? When are the interviews typically for this program?

@bearsfan21
Refer to post # 1 of THIS thread for getting info about results thread for 2019 (not 2020).

@staycalm123
W&J has 5 seats with Temple for BS/MD.

However, W&J does not have a high reputation in the region for its undergrad program.