six~eight year medical/dental programs

Applying to College
1

<p>How difficult are the six~eight year medical/dental programs to get in?
For example, I heard that U Penn 7 year program is almost impossible.
I realized there are many schools with this program; so far I know Penn, Brown, Northwestern, Tufts, CaseWestern, BU..</p>

<p>Please tell me more about the program. The information from the colleges was too superficial.</p>

2

<p>Extremely difficult, as you may have guessed.</p>

<p>Check out the Multiple Degree Programs forum:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/forumdisplay.php?f=476%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/forumdisplay.php?f=476&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

3

<p>They are very difficult to get in. Usually you would have to go through multiple rounds of admissions until you reach an interview round in which the school invites you over to interview. Competition is intense and admissions rates could go for around 5%</p>

4

<p>Unlike the programs available in my day, those now are pretty much uniformly 7-8 year commitments. U Penn does not have a program, by the way, as far as I know. See:
<a href="http://services.aamc.org/currdir/section3/degree2.cfm?data=yes&program=bsmd%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://services.aamc.org/currdir/section3/degree2.cfm?data=yes&program=bsmd&lt;/a>
for a reliable list of all those available.</p>

<p>BS-MD programs offer the obvious advantage of guaranteed acceptance to medical school directly out of HS. While they vary, minimal requirements once accepted regarding maintenance of overall and science undergrad GPA are typically quite "gentle," B to B+ or so. You should make it your business to investigate these for each school you’re considering. In general, these programs eliminate much of the classic pre-med pressures so prevalent today and allow you to experience your college years both personally and academically with much more freedom. The peace of mind offered cannot be understated.</p>

<p>You should be aware that many programs offer in-state residents preference. Many are also not available for application/acceptance directly out of HS but rather during sophomore year of college. The affiliated medical school often makes these available to a specified few undergrad schools.</p>

<p>I’m most familiar with HPME, Northwestern's program. It is the nation’s oldest, most established, and understandably very competitive. Median SATs of those attending are in the mid-1500's with SAT IIs in the upper 700s. Remember, these are medians, not application requirements. Virtually all attending have turned down several top 10 universities including HYPS. In general, if you are truly competitive with top 10-15 universities you should consider yourself a potential applicant. Competition nonetheless remains, as frutiaspice correctly argues, unfortunately quite intense.</p>

5

<p>Acceptance rates are often below 5% so... pretty competitive...</p>