It can be hard. You have to leave nothing to chance and find a way to effective time management especially in a BSMD program. I currently have a child in medical school right now whose close friend met every of the tough undergrad requirement but were dropped off because they were 1 or 2 points away from the set MCAT score. One thing you have to remember is that you will still be fully enrolled in school with 16-22 credits of undergraduate load while also preparing for the MCAT. I watched my daughter juggle this and it was breathtaking.
Is this a requirement to get into MED school after under grad even with BSMD admission, sorry for my ignorance.
Yes for all schools that stipulate an MCAT score cut off number. If you don’t make that score you will be dropped off the BSMD track and have to return to undergrad to complete your BS
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About 40% of my daughters BSMD cohort fell off the track. Some by getting less than a B in Orgo and the others by missing the MCAT score requirement
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If you don’t mind, could you tell me what program is this.
Howard BSMD
Oh that’s sad. What was the MCAT requirements.
As far as I know for the PMm class, only one person did not meet MCAT requirements and that person will be repeating the test.
I do agree that it is hard and needs lot of commitments
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On a side topic- whoever is interested, there is an in person event for PMM on April 9th . Ms Megan Holmes’s email says to register soon
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An advice I will like to provide to everyone is to always register for your undergrad courses very early. That way you can choose your professors based on previous students experiences and reviews. Your grades which will determine your GPA will benefit from this. There’s a website “rate my professor.com” is a great resource
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Howard BSMD only gives you one shot at the MCAT and that’s it.
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@iskhn, @somcpharm - As a pre-med, Computer science can be a HUGE benefit; you have a lot more power in what you can contribute to research when you have technical programming skills.
computer science comes in a lot of flavors these days and instead of a major, a minor may work better - since you would need to take all the pre-med classes as well.
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At PMM you can repeat it but they take and average so it gets harder. Ideally should be done in one shot
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This is good to know.
It depends on the GPA and MCAT requirement that the students need to meet in order to graduate to med school. And also depends on how easy/difficult it is for students to achieve GPA requirement!
What was the requirement in Howard? And, what reason in your opinion made this hard to achieve?
For the past year the MCAT cut-off was 504 and I think you cannot get lesser than a B grade in Orgo. I think it’s hard because of the heavy undergrad load and the other heavy EC requirements you must fulfil to move forward.
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Let’s be honest (for a minute) 
Medical is tough while making lots of personal sacrifices
Not lots of people will make it… either due to “life, situation, priority, interest changes etc.,”
I always suggest to students… it’s a Marathon (not 100M) so always keep options open (nothing wrong).
As far as MCAT and Grade requirements, ideally its possible but many find an alternate method to succeed… so it’s always “situational” cases IMO.
I gave number before in an earlier thread… but for a reputed BS program in NJ, out of 90+ folks on path to MD , only 30 decided to go through the path while only 20 (or less) did even attend interview … so it’s still looong game.
Good luck
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Does anyone know if Albany sending out communications on rejections also? OR only to those who got accepted or waitlisted?
MCAT score seems low but GPA and mandatory EC requirement can burden students!
In some programs, the college provides a lot of support and ofcourse students in the program can study together and can help each other to get good marks in subjects like Orgo!
one thing that comes out of this is - to ask seniors in BSMD the tips for successfully graduating to the MD portion so the new students can use the lessons learned.
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on the interview day, the senior PMM students told us that MCAT composite score was easy enough but the score requirement for each sections was not so easy!
Yes I agree.
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Especially the CARS section.
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