The Cons of BS/MD

<p>^^^I think the exact opposite. I don't think the med schools get very much out of this for the guarantee that they're giving.</p>

<p>Every bs/md student entering that program are probably the cream of the crop in respect to that college. True most probably had to give up their spot at Top 20 colleges. I guess what i want to say is that some of us were uncertain which college to go to and most of us probably got plenty of offers. Personally i never had any sort of dream school that i would die to go to. But we do have one thing in common which is we want to become doctors and exploiting whatever route possible to get there is golden. Now if you know for sure that you really love this school because it was your dream, i would tell you to go there. Because regardless of that guarantee, if you are not happy at that place, chances are you might not do so well at the program too. However, i would be wary of assuming that all bs/md students will end up doing well in the traditional route. Of course this is anecdotal evidence but there is one girl who gave up her spot at the UCSD 8 year guarantee medical program and decided to go to harvard. But she ended up after the 4 years not being able to get in any medical school because she claims "low GPA." Well of course not all of us might be like her. Some might just be like my friend's cousin who somehow got a 3.9 GPA at Berkeley and will be attending Columbia Med School.</p>

<p>All right, enough with anecdotal evidence. If you go the traditional route, you might win big or come home with nothing. But if you go BS/MD, at least you go home with a license. Either way, work hard, party hard, good luck to you guys.</p>

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If you go the traditional route, you might win big or come home with nothing. But if you go BS/MD, at least you go home with a license.

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<p>Not exactly. We have gone over that already madame. That's the mistake exactly, to think that if you go BS/MD you go "home with a license". Score poorly and you end up with nothing at all.</p>

<p>yah but if you score poorly at a bs/md, well how would you survive in a top 30 school? how would even be successful as premed? Of course if you are saying if you dont well on your boards, well got nothing to say there. you just screwed yourself completely. Fine i guess what you are pointing out that there is no such thing as a guarantee in anything in life. Just find something suites you best</p>

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You don't need a 43 or a 4.0 to be a good doctor. But I don't think a 3.5/30 is too much to ask. The thing is, most BS/MDers (just as with most premeds) are not capable of attaining this. The attrition rates at even elite schools like Cornell or Berkeley attest to the fact that most smart high schoolers are not smart enough/dedicated enough/driven enough/whatever to make it to senior year with 3.5/30 stats.

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^^^I think the exact opposite. I don't think the med schools get very much out of this for the guarantee that they're giving.

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<p>Norcalguy, I tend to agree more with you. I suspect there are indeed quite a few BS/MD students who couldn't get into med school any other way.</p>

<p>Where we disagree is that you seem to think that that's a bad thing. I am rather neutral. I would say that if you're so concerned about that, then you should be equally concerned about all the ways that less statistically qualified people are getting into med school. For example, affirmative action. Or the Caribbean schools. Or the OD schools (as OD's are fully licensed to practice medicine). I don't know why you'd want to single out the BS/MD programs.</p>

<p>It also leads to the issue of grade inflation. You say that getting a 3.5 GPA is reasonable to expect. Yet I think we can all agree that some schools grade harder than others, and some disciplines grade harder than others. It's much harder to get a 3.5 as an engineer at MIT than in, say, Leisure Studies at some creampuff school. But med school adcoms sadly don't seem to care very much about that. {Which leads to numerous perverse incentives that I have pointed out in other threads - i.e. that it is better not to take a class at all than to take it and get a poor grade.} </p>

<p>But the bottom line is this. If the problem is systematic, then you should take it up with the organization in charge of running the system. Perhaps we should ask the AAMC why they're willing to sanction BS/MD programs, if they are in fact loopholes. Maybe the board exams need to be tightened up. Maybe the residency matching process needs to be tightened up to do a better job of selecting only those MD grads who are well prepared. </p>

<p>But if a loophole in the system exists, it's hard to fault individual people for exploiting it. It's not their fault the loophole exists. You should blame the people who created the loophole.</p>

<p>If 3.5 is a reasonable GPA, then why a low GPA requirement is a criticism for BS/MD programs? 3.5 is a very average reguirment in BS/MD programs. Some BS/MD programs have higher requiremnts: 3.6, 3.8. I have seen only NEOUCOM having 3.25 reguirement. It most likely reflects inability to fill 105 spots from one state (Ohio) with candidates capable of sustaining higher GPA in cruelly intense program (very short breaks, well over 20 credit hours). 3.25 under these conditions is actually indicating very high caliber of very dedicated students. Besides ability level, there is a correlation between the grade and how much time you have available to work on attaining a good one.</p>

<p>"Where we disagree is that you seem to think that that's a bad thing. I am rather neutral. I would say that if you're so concerned about that, then you should be equally concerned about all the ways that less statistically qualified people are getting into med school. For example, affirmative action. Or the Caribbean schools. Or the OD schools (as OD's are fully licensed to practice medicine). I don't know why you'd want to single out the BS/MD programs."</p>

<p>I'm one of the biggest critic of AA that's out there. However, I do see the problem that it's attempting to address (although I don't think AA is the best method for increasing the population of minority doctors).</p>

<p>I think you mean DO's. I wouldn't let a OD anywhere near my heart! As for DO's and Caribbean schools, their candidates might have lower academic qualifications and but at least they have more experience (clinical, research, and life) and both they and the medical school will be able to make a more sound judgement as to their fitness for medicine. I do not think HSers are capable of making an informed decision about their career choice at this point (which is why 75% of college students change majors) and I don't think medical schools can make an informed judgement about what kind of doctor the HSer will become. It's one thing to see a lower college GPA and MCAT score and still decide to accept the applicant based on other factors. It's another to see a HS GPA and SAT scores and attempt to predict what the HSer would've scored on the MCAT.</p>

<p>That's just my opinion and it was my opinion 4 years ago when UCSD invited me to apply for their medical scholars program. I had better SAT/AP/GPA than most students on the BS/MD forum but didn't feel that the handful of volunteering hours I had was enough to decide that I wanted to go through the toil of medical school to become a doctor. So I didn't apply. After 4 years of premed at Cornell, no regrets.</p>

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cruelly intense program

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<p>Ah, another benefit.</p>

<p>It is very easy to take 3 words out of content and make it part of your opinion. I have discussed ACCELERATED program, there are plenty of 4 + 4 or even 5 + 4 BS/MD programs, and they have higher GPA reguirements. People who have chosen ACCELERATED programs knew what the trade off is. They wanted to finish in 6 years, no matter how intense. You are going off the subject though. My subject was a GPA reguirement.</p>

<p>Eh. Point conceded.</p>

<p>Since we are talking about pros and cons of BS/MD programs -
Here are some numbers I heard from my friend's D who just went through a white coat ceremony at Jefferson MC in PA. She is one of 25 kids that went from Penn State's 6 year accelerated BS/MD program just this August to JMC.</p>

<p>She mentioned that JMC received 8000 applicants for 200 traditional MD spots. She was really glad not to have been one of 8000 applying as a traditional to med school. </p>

<p>For those of you south east asians on CC , the stats below might be of particular interest - Of 200 kids accepted as 'traditionals' at JMC, only 6 kids were SEAs in contrast to 90% BS/MD'ers SEAs in accelerated route.</p>

<p>that's probably true. Just about every SEA i know who wanted to become doctors applied to bs/md programs out of high school.</p>

<p>First, obviously Jefferson admits vastly more than 200 people. Second, most of the 8000 drop out early in the process. I suspect more than half of those offered interviews do not show up. I skipped half of the interviews I was offered.</p>

<p>Third and most importantly, you don't just apply to one school. You apply to lots and lots of schools. Jefferson's 200 are -- by definition -- not going to be the same as Penn's 200, or Temple's 200. But the 8000 probably overlap quite a bit.</p>

<p>Again, you know the national odds are about 50%. And you know the odds for kids who don't screw up the paperwork are better than that. And the odds among kids who got into BS/MD programs and don't screw up the paperwork -- well, that's probably very close to 95%+.</p>

<p>Jefferson stats according to US News:</p>

<p>7800 applied, 741 interviewed, 501 accepted, 255 enrolled</p>

<p>According to Georgetown, 50% of the people who submitted primaries to the medical school ended up not submitting secondaries. Jefferson's secondary is simpler than Georgetown's but it wouldn't surprise me if 2000-3000 of those who applied ended up not submitting secondaries. So you're probably competing with around 5000 applicants for those 750 interview spots. It appears that you'd have to really bomb your interview to not get accepted.</p>

<p>As BDM noted, it's tough to get into any individual school but odds are decent that you will get into at least one.</p>

<p>And I suspect that it's more like 5000 applicants for 2000 interview spots.</p>

<p>To me, it's especially hard to say that a BS/MD kid who don't screw up the paper work get's 95% chance to get in med school if he goes the traditional way. There are so many factors entering that the qualities putting you into a BS/MD can't secure you for in the regular application.
As BGR has said, medical application is a total crapshoot with the most moment of "why did he get accepted"
No one can be 95% sure to get into med school (unless in a BS/MD)</p>

<p>At any given school, the odds are very random. The odds overall for a very smart kid? I don't think 95% is a stretch at all.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/08/16/med.student.essay/index.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.cnn.com/2007/HEALTH/08/16/med.student.essay/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>this is why students need to go to college, shadow physicians, volunteer, do clinical stuff. College students do these to understand what is life as a doctor and yet some are yet wrong. BS/MDer will likely have a higher rate of students with the wrong image of medicine.</p>

<p>It should be obvious that I'm not a defender of BS/MD programs, but in all fairness it doesn't seem like she was a joint degree student. Does NYU even have such a program?</p>

<p>Yah NYU used to have one, but they closed the program</p>