My GPA right now is 3.7 and my SAT score is 1370 and I want to major in pre-med, but because of my low scores would I I have any chances of getting in (especially in the northeast region)? If I don’t get accepted, what are the other alternatives through this science related track? Also what are some of the good pre-med colleges that would accept me with these scores (in the northeast region)?
Also I was considering Pharmacy has my other option because I heard that just taking pre-med in college isn’t the best option (is that true?) and also because of my concerns mentioned above. Is pharmacy a good alternative with my scores?
You do not major in “Pre-Med” it is an intention not a major. You can major in any subject as an Undergrad and take the Medical school course requirements.
I suggest you read up on what it takes to get into Medical school so you understand the process:
https://www.kaptest.com/mcat/medical-school/medical-school-prerequisites
There are dozens of healthcare careers beside medicine and pharmacy.
Here’s a website to help you explore your options: [Explore Health Careers](https://explorehealthcareers.org)
In lot of cases, your HS performance has nothing to do with what can you perform in College. Plenty of students turned around in college with a lukewarm performance in HS, OTOH, a lot of failures to otherwise a high performance students in HS when attending a college or even graduated from a college.
So, don’t be discouraged because you were not having perfect scores in HS, go to a college that has a good pre-med advisory and do your best, if it turn out that you could not make it to med school, at least you have tried.
Are you in high school? If so, you have a lot of distance ahead of you. Don’t fret yet, just work hard and do your best. If you don’t get into medical school, there is a lot you can still do - DO school, dental school, Caribbean medical schools, pharmacy, PA school, basic sciences, etc.
Thank you very much
^Caribbean schools shouldn’t be an option (please do yourself a favor and apply to DO schools instead, because US DO schools WILL graduate doctors, unlike Caribbean schools). Otherwise, yes there are lots of options.
@MYOS1634 I know that there are accelerated medical programs where they have undergraduate programs here in the US and medical schools in the Caribbean such as Caldwell University / St George’s University School of Medicine and Franklin Pierce University / St George’s University School of Medicine where they accept pretty low scores such as 1200 on the SAT and 3.5 GPA. Is it a bad idea to consider these medical programs? Is it a bad idea to study international like this? Do the students over there have very slim chances of graduating?
Caribbean medical schools are for-profit educational entities. They have a fail out rate of 30-40% during the first 2 pre-clinical years of medical education. (According to what little date they have released.) It’s part of their business model. Pre-clinical education is relatively cheap to provide and offer a high rate of return on investment. Clinical education, otoh, is expensive to provide and the schools only have a very limited number of clinical slots available.
Students who persist and graduate from international med schools face serious challenges finding residency positions in the US. (A medical residency is required to obtain a US medical license.) In 2016, only about 40% of foreign medical grads matched–and those who did match mostly matched into less competitive specialties (psychiatry, family medicine, general internal medicine), usually at community (non-academic) programs, or into one year dead end contracts (preliminary surgery or IM).
[Charting the Outcomes of the Match for International Medical Graduates–2016](http://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Charting-Outcomes-IMGs-2016.pdf)
The 2014 Charting the Outcomes of the Match shows results by country of the medical school–
[Charting the Outcomes of the Match for Internaional Medical graduates–2014](http://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/NRMP-and-ECFMG-Publish-Charting-Outcomes-in-the-Match-for-International-Medical-Graduates-Revised.PDF-File.pdf)
Grenada (home to St. George’s SOM) produced 534 US citizen medical graduates who applied to the Match in 2014; only 258 of them matched.
This post–https://■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/threads/is-caribbean-med-school-that-bad.1246500/#post-18718865
will link you to several threads by adcomms and other individual knowledgable about medical school and residency placement about why attending a Carribean medical school is a poor idea and should only be a last resort plan if you hope to practice medicine in the US.
With all the negatives described above by WOWM, that does not mean Caribean Medical Schools have no merit at all. However, the odds are against the students who went there. Besides, the debt for the graduates are much higher than those who went to the US route. An ex-tenant of my apartment is a graduate of Ross, he had over $500K of student debt(I know that via his rental application), even though he found an EM job in a very large hospital paying around $200Kish, he was bogged down by high student debt payment that he could not buy a house. Nevertheless, he is the lucky few.
It was said that if you were top 10% of the Caribbean Medical School graduates, you will have a good chance to get into a mid competitive specialty residency and THE top student has a crack at transferring to SUNY Downstate SOM after two years.
^Basically, you can avoid all that headache and debt if you attend a US DO school. Because 40% at Caribbean med schools will fail the first years (remaining with a useless program and high debt), only 60% remain, and only 40% of those match, and only the top 10% of these get into positions that they could have had if they’d gone to a DO school.
(And the stats above will worsen as rules have changed.)
IMHO, it is better to apply for a PA school if all MD and DO route failed than attend a Caribbean Medical school. PA is lot easier to get and do not have the same risk as apply for medical residency. Granted, you make much less money with PA, but they have less insurance risk as well.
It still sounds like you are in high school, which is too soon to be sorting this out.
In any case, to be the devil’s advocate - and I am in no way encouraging Caribean medical schools - consider the stat mentioned above that about half of their med school graduates matched for residency. Not a very good number unless, I am guessing, that a very high percentage of their medical students got into zero USA medical schools. So students without a snowball’s chance of getting into medical school at all parlayed that into a 50% chance of finishing medical school and matching in a USA residency. That is somewhat miraculous. But at a cost of 4 years and loads of cash.
^^^ All these discussions have been the results of OP wishing to attend a BS/MD program in the Caribbean Med School.
No, not 50%, but 10% of 60%… which is 6% right? So, 6% get something which near 100% could have had if they’d gone to a DO school.
(A poster here explained that “the star student” at one of the Caribbean schools actually worked in his dept - and it was for a one-year non-renewable contract, not a residency, but it was still flaunted by the school. And that’s BEFORE the tightening of the regulations for residencies.)
Students need to understand that BOTH MD and DO schools graduate doctors, so it’s better to apply to DO schools than “Carribean MD” schools.
I also agree with artloversplus, a career as a PA is a straighter trajectory than Caribbean, leads to steady employment in hospitals or doctor’s office, and the pay is quite good (not at surgeon level, but the debt level isn’t the same, nor are the hours.)
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That was me. Indeed, here is a redacted version of the article I had found on him.
Headline:
Sub-headline:
It says he won an award at the school (I’m assuming top clinical grades in the class based on the title of the award but I don’t know) and the article concludes with
Based on our pager system, it looks like he actually did get into our vascular surgery program as a PGY-2 but that article was written before he knew that and there was no guarantee he would be in any program this year at all, let alone a PGY-2 vascular surgery resident at our hospital.