Hi!,
I am currently a student at a state school and I’m doing pretty well in all of my classes (sides calc) and I’m torn between doing LECOM or transferring and taking the MCAT. I am a Freshman and If I stay here I can enter a 7 year BS/DO with LECOM and skip the MCAT. LECOM is a rank 70 medical school and is not bad. If I have the opportunity to transfer to a rank 40 and below undergrad should I? The problem for me is risking the guaranteed program only to have a chance of getting into a higher medical school.
Thank you for your time!
This is a decision that only you can make. There is no right or wrong answer.
Is the LECOM 7 year program binding or does it allow you to apply out of the program without losing your guaranteed seat?
Would you be prepared to take the MCAT and put together a competitive application at the end of the next school year? (Highly unlikely, but theoretically possible) If so you could apply broadly to med schools/early assurance programs and see what happens
Would you be able to live with your decision if you transferred then didn’t get accepted to any medical schools 3 or 4 years from now? Would you be OK if you never got accepted to med school ever? If the answer to these questions is no–then you have your answer.
What type of doctor do you want to be? Are you Ok with being a primary care physician? Do have a burning desire to become a sub-specialist or a surgeon? Osteopathic grads tend to match mostly into family med, internal med, peds, and some of the less competitive specialties like neurology, psych and EM. They have a hard time matching into OB/GYN and all of the surgical fields. So if you want to be orthopedist or a dermatologist–then LECOM isn’t going to be a good way to get there. You need to pass on LECOM’s guaranteed program and apply to med school in the traditional way as college junior or senior.
The rank of your undergrad really doesn’t have any bearing on your ability to get a med school acceptance so transferring simply to attend a higher ranked undergrad really isn’t a good reason to transfer colleges and it won’t improve your chances for getting medical school acceptance.
It’s definitely worth considering. I know a DO who is prosperous orthopedic surgeon. A guaranteed spot in medical school is good considering that DOs have all the same opportunities for residency as MDs. I wouldn’t worry about rankings. They’re unreliable anyway. Ultimately, the decision is yours, but if it were me, I would have a hard time turning down an offer like that.
LECOM is binding MCAT wise I believe, but it is very unlikely I would be able to take the MCAT by next year.
I would not be okay if I didn’t get into med school, but if the reward outweighs the risk then I am willing. I want to be a primary care physician.
My main concern is if I could do better at a different college (that has more resources for MCAT prep and service) and get into a better medical I would have a higher chance at residency.
Thank you for your response c:
Frankly, I do not think you’d be better off by transferring. Med school do not care much about the UG you went, the GPA and Mcat is the key. If you cannot make it in a BS/DO program at LECOM, you might have problem in another institution. What do you mean “binding Mcat wise”, does it mean if you cannot take Mcat at a prescribed time, you will have to drop out of the BS/DO program? If so, maybe its time to consider transfer, but I am not sure what is your specific problem. Do you have problem to get enough total credit to graduate in 3 years in the UG part? GPA problem? Can you finish enough premed prereq for Mcat?
My suggestion, if it is a GPA problem, transfer do you no good. If you cannot take enough credits either total or prereq, drop out of BS/DO and transfer is one way, the other way is to complete a 4 year UG in the current institution, get a BS degree and apply out.
The big wild card in transferring is losing credits. It’s impossible to know how many, but you can expect to lose 1-2 semesters in the transfer. Also, you’d be taking a gamble going the traditional route. The vast majority of medical school applicants don’t get accepted, even with competitive grades and MCAT scores. You, my friend, are already accepted 
DO schools are actually a place where student’s go to be a PCP by choice. They have a lot more PCP residencies than medical school, because osteopathic school takes a more holistic approach by it’s very nature.
https://www.piedmont.org/living-better/your-doctor-the-difference-between-an-md-and-do