Rejecting a BS/MD program?

Pre-Med & Medical School Multiple Degree Programs
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<p>With regards to residency lists, you can’t evaluate them and you shouldn’t use them as a basis of selecting medical schools. My point with posting Brown’s residency list was to show how much variation there is from year to year even within the same school. You can see that some years only 1 student matched into a certain residency and in some years 5 students matched into the same residency. It really depends on the individual med school class. This year a ton of students, for whatever reason, are applying to radiology from my med school class. We’re probably going to match 20 students into radiology which is a large amount but the school hasn’t changed from last year when we only matched 10-15.</p>

<p>I barely know what the “good” programs are in radiology and I definitely don’t know what the good programs are in other specialities. So, I know HSers are full of it when they say so and so med school has a good residency match list.</p>

<p>Same principle with USMLE scores. Highly individualized. Some of my classmates started studying right when they got to med school. Others (like me) studied for 5 weeks after our second year. Don’t get too caught up over whether a school has an average of 225 or 230. Your individual attributes will determine 95% of your USMLE score.</p>

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<p>@BigFire, if you want the answer to the residency match list question, look above. Norcalguy took the words out of my mouth. You can’t look at a list and interpret it because it’s totally based on what students do that particular year and there’s no way a high school student can pick out all the best residencies/the quality of each residency in all the fields. Additionally, unlike when students apply to undergrad schools and med schools, those who apply for residencies are not just choosing the best one. At that point in time, students are married (maybe even have babies) and there are so many factors in choosing a place to apply for residency (where spouse’s work is located, near family/support network for young families, good location to live in the future, particular residency program offers something the student likes, etc.).</p>

<p>Point is, there are way to many factors when it comes to match lists and picking a bs-md based on that is pointless. I rolled my eyes when a student in my group at my BS-MD group interview asked about matching into fields (how good the med school was at placing students into residencies). </p>

<p>And norcalguy is right about people changing paths. Students should try to keep an open mind too. I just had an test in my exercise science class where I had to memorize the names, origins, insertions, and actions of 48 muscles, some of which were only slightly different (1 extra action, one less action) and I didn’t enjoy that.</p>

<p>Although that is probably due to my extreme senioritis and my lack of effort in anything as a second semester senior, if I feel the same bore in university, I can’t see myself forcing my way to med school. I got 94% on the test even though I started studying the night before at 8pm (I stayed up until 1am), but it was so boring. So, I’m keeping an open mind and I think others should too. (Although, I really think that this was due to senioritis because first semester I had Biology, which is a lot of memorization, and I didn’t mind studying for those tests and my exam and I actually enjoyed it) </p>

<p>I completely agree that people in BS-MDs know they want to do medicine and that many will go onto med school, but for some, med will not be right. And it’s always nice to be at a school that you can easily change majors at/career paths without being hurt in any way.</p>

<p>EDIT: Is this going to get stickied? :smiley: This must be one of the best CC debates ever!</p>

103

<p>match stats are also unreliable when looking at these BS/MD programs because they track the ENTIRE class, not the 10-30 students who matriculated in by meeting the program’s criteria. some of these students may have matched highly, or they may have matched into a lesser residency, but there is no way to tell how they matched unless a BS/MD program keeps its own match statistics. bottom line: to match into a top residency of your choice, you have to bust your ass in med school, regardless of the path you take to that med school.</p>

<p>i think the whole argument on this thread boils down to one thing: fit. for some people an accelerated program is great, for others it isn’t. some applicants stand out more now than they ever will again due to their amazing high school achievements, so these programs are a great way to benefit from that.</p>

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<p>I completely disagree with norcalguys post; THIS entire post is the misconception that those who dont understand bs/md programs have. </p>

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<p>Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, WRONG. Maybe YOU did this in your highschool career, and maybe the majority of rejectees (who, by the way, happen to get into ivies and other excellent colleges and wonder why the bs/md programs are so hard) have done this, but I can tell you for a fact that that at least the majority of people I met at my interview have done so much more. True, a small fraction of my time has been spent doing the menial tasks like stapling papers, and in my case coloring with kids in waiting rooms, but the majority of it has been working with kids with special needs, learning about different cases through shadowing, and pretty much diagnosing patients (this was abroad, where they didnt really care if i was in highschool because im the states, which i used to my advantage). True, I might not have the EMT experience, but other kids have even had stuff comparable to that (often times in other countries, where it is more lax). As said before, i work alongside college kids in most of my extracurriculars nowadays, and am treated as such.</p>

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<p>Disagree again. At least for me, I’ve considered and explored quite a few other fields (law, business (which still interests me, which is why im going for an MBA during my first 4 years of school), veterinary studies, research (I really only hate it now because i found it quite slow while working in a lab), marketing, engineering, music major). And really, I went through every single one of those completely 100% seriously before rejecting it. I didnt even want to be a doctor until my junior year, AFTER going through all of those.</p>

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<p>Is residency match result based on your USMLE score, recs, ECs, research and publications…
If your med school’s student body is not strong, the USMLE score tends to be lower,
then it will reflect on the residency match result. Am i right?</p>

<p>So to judge how good the medical school stands, the residency match list is a key criteria. Other criteria maybe partly from US News ranking, residency director assessments, and overall research or primary care reputation.</p>

106

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Agree, the definition of good is pretty hard to come by. But for me at least, I consider a good match list one in which a high percentage of students get their first choice residency. Of course, this measure of judging isnt perfect (standards are lower in some colleges and other reasons), but it is the only standard that is even remotely close to a good judge (which it isnt, but nothing really is)</p>

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<p>I completely agree with the first phrase, and my respect for you has gone up significantly because you have the courage to speak the opposite. Note that even though I do disagree with you, i think its really important and helpful to have this discussion and hear the cons.</p>

<p>However, you tend to NOT support opinions with statistics and research, which is why this debate is still going on. You mention that the success rates are lower for bs/md kids, and after questioning from 3 to 4 people about the validity of the numbers you mention some random site on which nobody can actually find it (I tried, and could not). </p>

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<p>The first sentence sums up this entire thread. Really, couldnt have stated it better myself.
But i disagree with the second sentence. If they stand out best during highschool, something’s wrong there. The main benefit one gets from bs/md programs is more free time/less money spent; if you already have gotten into a med school you like you can spend the time you would usually spend on resume bulkers/applications on other things (for me an MBA, for others possibly a music minor, for some a humanities major).</p>

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<p>The one thing I don’t understand is how one can say that they ‘like the medical school’. How could you know? What do you like about it? The location? That’s the only thing I can think of. A traditional applicant can understand what there is to like about a school and what they want in a medical school (PBL, pass/fail for year one, getting to choose the order you want to do your rounds in…I know Baylor allows for this and it lures some cross-admits with UT-Southwestern as a result…, type of research focus, where the students to rounds at…another example, people sometimes choose UT-Houston over UT-Galveston because the UT-Houston students do rounds at better hospitals, and more).</p>

<p>How can high school students ‘like’ a medical school without knowing what they’d want in a med school in 4 years? Just throwing that out there…it’s something I though about when I read some posts about liking the med school. To be honest, I can’t see how a high school student can find that ‘fit’ when they don’t have enough information to judge.</p>

<p>I think it’s analogous to telling an eight-grade school student to pick an undergrad university without considering anything they’d want 4 years down the line (LAC? Large state uni honors? Ivy? What program/area of study? Location? Scholarships/cost to attend?, etc. all arise if a grade schooler had to make this choice and they wouldn’t consider any. Analogous to a high schooler saying they like a med. </p>

<p>Sorry for sounding like I’m super traditional route-pro, I’m actually closer to the middle on this than I might seem, but I think this is something to consider and is why I firmly believe that a BS-MD should be non-binding (unless of course, as BigFire brought up, if Harvard had a BS-MD, you can be pretty sure that it’ll work out in the end if you go that route just because it’s one of those schools that has everything come together…people, ranking, ‘fit’ (at least for most intellectual students), location, etc.).</p>

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<p>^well for me, I mainly liked the curriculum, class structure and style of teaching. I would think most kids probably did extensive research when looking up “why this med school?”.
Each med school has some unique feature or emphasis, with the one I will be attending being that you get hands on experience from your first year (through a class you have to take every semester your first 2 years in which you work directly with an actor pretending to be a patient, get paired and work with a doctor, and have problem solving groups all). I liked the location too, for reasons other than the fact that its the nicest city to live in probably anywhere; its a couple blocks from the white house and NIH. </p>

<p>I’ve looked up stuff like that for other schools too, namely ucsf and stanford, and spent about a week comparing the schools and looking at what each school would offer me. I talked to a lot of people about the school and got opinions, as well as online research on forums, and other neutral websites.</p>

<p>I disagree with the middle schooler analogy, thats like comparing a 14 year old dating a 4 year old and a 60 year old dating a 50 year old. Same age difference, but wildly different situation.</p>

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<p>This makes no sense. It doesn’t answer the question, “How can this med school get me into the residency of my choice?” Top med schools have top students who get top notch USMLE scores and match into top programs. That’s expected. And the excellent match lists are reflecivet of the efforts of the students, not the med school itself. The same students could have theoretically matched at the same places even if they had gone to a diff med school. So, how does looking at match lists help you choose a med school?</p>

<p>And you still didn’t answer my question, “what makes a good match list?”</p>

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<p>This is where data manipulation comes in. First of all, a med school has no way of reading your mind and determining what your top choice residency is. They only have access to your rank list. You can only rank programs that gave you interviews. If I applied to Mass Gen, UCSF, Stanford, Johns Hopkins, Podunk Hospital for radiology and I only receive an interview from Podunk Hospital. Well, I have to rank Podunk Hospital #1 on my rank list and I will match at my “#1 choice” even though it’s not really my #1 choice. </p>

<p>I’m sure you know that the match is done by a supercomputer with a preset algorithm. The algorithm strongly favors the applicant so that most applicants get into a program that they ranked #1-5. So, it’s actually not as impressive as it seems when a med school says, “90% of our students got one of their top 3 choices.” First of all, med schools don’t even let you apply to specialties for which you aren’t competitive. </p>

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<p>It’s natural that most people will stand out the most in high school. As you get into college and med school, your competition will be stiffer and you will have a harder time standing out. I went from really nice HS stats to decent college stats (3.94 GPA and a 37 MCAT) to good USMLE score (240+) but in med school I’m barely in the top half of my med school. </p>

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<p>lol some random site? PubMed is hardly a random site. As someone old enough to choose a med school, you should be old enough to familiarize yourself with this site. Anytime you want to look up a research article in a respectable journal, go to this site. You will use this site a lot in college, med school, and as a practicing physician.</p>

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<p>If you’re interested in the performance of BS/MD students, this is a good article:</p>

<p>Albanese M, Vaneyck S, Huggett K, Barnet JH. Academic performances of early-admission students to a BA/MD program compared with regular-admission students in relation to applicant pool fluctuations. Acad Med. 1997 Oct;72(10 Suppl 1):S66-8.</p>

<p>The study was done looking at the performance of BS/Md students at University of Wisconsin. They found that BS/MD programs are most useful when the general applicant pool is low. In the late 1980’s, the # of med school applicants dropped below 30,000 and the average GPA of accepted applicants was only 3.40. In these years, their BS/MD students heavily outperformed the traditional med students. However, in the year 1990’s when medicine regained interest, traditional students began outperforming the BS/MD stuents. In 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995 (which is when the study ended), the traditional students outperformed teh BS/MD students in terms of med school grades and USMLE scores were virtually the same. This led the authors to conclude that BS/MD programs were most useful to “buffer” the med school during times when medicine was not popular. Medicine today is obviously very popular and hence I asserted earlier that BS/MD programs were being shut down because the traditional applicant pool which is well over 40,000 today is very strong. </p>

<p>And someone earlier challenged me to prove that BS/MD programs has its costs. This paper also tallied up the costs of the BS/MD program at Wisconsin and found a total cost of $50,000 per year (in 1995 money) as well as an additional $1,500 per student for other expenses. Hence, med schools will only continue to run these programs when benefits outweigh the costs.</p>

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<p>When analyzing BS/MD programs, you really have to consider what’s in it for the med school. We know the benefits for the students. They have a guarantee, they have low requirements, and most of the time they can even apply out.</p>

<p>So, why do medical schools even have BS/MD programs? What do the school get out of it? Probably not much these days. Very few new BS/MD programs have cropped up in the last few years. The trend is for these programs to go by the wayside. These programs were very instrumental in keeping the quality of med students high back when medicine was not popular (and, yes, there was a time when people didn’t want to become doctors). Northwestern used to have 60, yes, 60 students in its BS/MD program. However, today, there is just no need for these programs. I think I have brought up numerous examples already that the academic performance of BS/MD students are being called to question. In addition, they require additional personnel, programming, program directors in order to run, adding extra costs. These programs are only useful if they can achieve their goals. I think the diversity goal is essentially bunk by now. But, for these programs to stay around, BS/MD students need to perform at a high level, not drop out at 10-50% clips. And long-time outcome studies need to show that BS/MD students are going into priimary care in underserved areas. Many BS/MD programs were created to serve this purpose.</p>

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<p>“Top med schools have top students who get top notch USMLE scores and match into top programs.” agree!!</p>

<p>“the excellent match lists are reflecivet of the efforts of the students, not the med school itself” disagree! </p>

<p>As i said b4, good match list is one of the criteria ( not all ) to judge how good the school is.</p>

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<p>No, the match list tells us how good the students are. But, it tells us nothing about the medical school.</p>

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<p>“the excellent match lists are reflecivet of the efforts of the students, not the med school itself” again, we are here to talk about school not individual. How is the school’s overall match, not individual. </p>

<p>Everyone has his own priority (married, location, specialties, …etc) i agree, but all med schools students need to deal similar situations, but in general, when match list comes out, school still looks student who match to UCSF, John Hopkins, Mass General or Huston Cancer center and some others as their achievements. </p>

<p>Sometimes you still found there may have few students got no match at all … Why??? Partly because USMLE score, Recs, ECs weak, Research, Publication?</p>

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<p>why are people still arguing with norcal who is clearly correct…</p>

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<p>^because people want to defend bs-MD programs tooth and nail.
@awesomenesssauce, you have done your research, that’s for sure but I know that the vast majority of bs-MD applicants have not considered the qualities of the med school and they say that they “like” the med. Blows my mind really. I mean, even in your case things may change but you’ve done your research to the point where you can be confident in your choice, so props on that. Others though see NU or USC or Pitt or Brown and say they like the med…personally, I like the idea of pass fail for the first year to transition into med but we’ll see down the line.</p>

<p>I think many students actually don’t research the meds in-depth for these programs. If they did I think most students would only apply to ~3. Programs bc very few would meet most of the criterion that I posted and be meds thy are good for them. I did my research like you did and only applied to 2 programs.</p>

<p>I’m confused. Are these students:
a) liking the med’s ranking
b) content that it’s a decent med that’s “good enough”</p>

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<p>norcalguy,</p>

<p>Note that according to that article, HPMEs actually outperformed the traditional students in th earlier years. This has changed as Feinberg has become increasingly competitive in the last decade. It is probably near/already in top-10 as far as selectivity goes. Feinberg decided to make the two groups more even by making HPME more selective and shrinking them. It’s done for the medical school’s best interest; it’s not an indication of anything intrinsicly wrong with the program.</p>

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I believe this was already implied by norcalguy — that the bs/md program was good while the medical school was not as competitive.

this again was touched upon by norcalguy … that the performance of bs/md students is falling wrt the students from traditional track … because of this reason the usefulness of the program from the med school standpoint is going down. </p>

<p>IMO, the combined program gives good options to the aspiring medical students from HS years, but is becoming less useful for the med schools. On a side note, I was just amazed to see how this program is so popular among the indians, but not asians in general. their (indian’s) relative high performance I felt was due to the preparation from a very early age by their parents, their strong interview skills, and their de-emphasizing of the prestige of UG colleges.</p>

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<p>^I disagree, esp. about the strong interview skills part.
For one college i interviewed at which had two rounds, the first round had about 4/5 indians, the second round about 1/2 indians. I feel like a lot of times the parents are doing resume bulkers for their kids (I know a mom who started a nonprof in his sons name so he can have something impressive for his college apps), and they end up getting the numbers and “passion” (through brainwashing from the parents), but it shows during the interview.</p>

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<p>^There could be some truth to that. At the BS-MD program I applied to, the first round had over 95% Indians while in the second round (at least when I was around the interview room), the demographics were something like 70% Indian.</p>