Thread for BS/MD BS/DO 2021-2022

Has anyone who got interviewed at Albany Medical College not gotten their results yet?

@NoviceDad - Curious of your thoughts on UCONN SPiM program or UPitt Honors and premed track in the School of Public Health - not GAP at Pitt.

If you are 100% sure about medicine, choose UConn SPIM.

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I know few folks who interviewed in Feb are all waiting (not declined). Guess all the info will come next week or two.

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@liveyourlife78, @NoviceDad, @Vicky2019

Haven’t been following these posts frequently so not sure how many of these programs you have offers for. Assuming that you got into all these, couple of inputs

TCNJ/NJMS - rarely anyone gets full ride for the undergrad. The max they give is like around 10-15k/year based on what I heard. Other feeders like NJIT/Rutgers-Nwk do give full rides for undergrad but people may or may not like the locations.

Syracuse - 57k/year is amazing scholarship and the undergrad experience at Syracuse will be awesome. You (or kid) must be having amazing credentials to win it. Upstate is a decent med school but weather may be a factor.

CCNY - not sure what you mean by this, but guess Sophie Davis. Would advise against it unless that is the only choice you have. Based on the feedback from one of the students on this forum who chose to go there leaving Rice and seemed to be regretting it later.

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And both got scholarships and one of them gave up BSMD.

UConn SPiM, no scope for any questions there

@KK333
UCONN SPiM matriculation conditions seem standard on the GPA (3.6) and MCAT (80 percentile min) part. They listed “Have favorable interviews during the senior undergraduate year” as one of the matriculation requirements. You may want to check with SPiM program students on this requirement. You can opt-in for the traditional route if you are not sure about becoming a physician. Good luck.

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Any thoughts on the Brooklyn BA-MD 8 year program? Have any previous students or parents a part of the program dislike the program in any way, or is it generally a good opportunity?

My pick would be UConn SPIM. It is an eight years BSMD program. UConn is a top 25 public university. Instead of pre-med anywhere else, you could do it at UConn. If you don’t want to continue on to MD at UConn afterward, you could easily opt-out after 4 years of undergrad (you would lose your guarantee for opting out).

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@liveyourlife78 - Thanks for sharing the details. your top two options are TCNJ/NJMS and Syracuse/Upstate. TCNJ/NJMS will be the cheapest & nearest (location-wise) for you. Also, it will involve the least adjustment (weather, distance, culture, etc.)

Syracuse/Upstate also seems a wonderful option. 57K/yr UG scholarship sounds great. They must have thought you were a great fit for their school. also, Syracuse costs around 80K so even with 57K/yr, you still would need to pay a considerable amount. Also, you would need to pay out-of-state medical school fees. Syracuse is the best undergrad out of your options as per us news ranking.

Some questions to consider -
Do you prefer private or public universities?
Is the distance from home an important factor? Is harsh weather acceptance?
how important is diversity for you?

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Its a great opportunity if you manage to get in. Coincidentally happened to meet and chat with a parent couple of days back whose child is in the program with a full ride for the undergrad - through Brooklyn College for the Bachelors which is very decent - though it seems they give the flexibility to choose the feeder if you apply through multiple of them.

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Yes, agree with @Vicky2019 at a general level. But for the undergrad portion depends on weather or not they give any price breaks (generally most programs do, so that it matches at least the in state rates). If I remember correctly there was a student few years back who was in state and choosing to go there over Yale for regular undergrad. You can find his/her profile in results thread few years ago. The interview before matriculation seems to be a mere formality. But anyway better get clarity on such issues from the program folks before final decision making.

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hello everybody, i have been an avid reader of this thread for the last year or so and have gained a lot of insight from many of you. just wanted to provide an update and really, a word of caution for future applicants.

D had applied to the 8-year programs at both rochester and case, and rejected from both. and we expressed continued interest for the under grad programs for both universities. we live in ohio and Case was always her undergrad top choice if she landed a good merit scholarship. with her single attempt ACT score of 35, straight As student with 4.4 GPA, lots of leadership positions in school, hospice musician volunteering, leader of school music clubs etc, we always believed she had a great chance of getting some good merit scholarship from Case for under grad.

on Fri, she was admitted to rochester with a deans scholarship (10k per year).

and most shockingly, got waitlisted from Case yday. and their reason for waitlist is housing concerns and too many applicants, at least thats what they said in the letter. maybe this is their way of yield protection? idk.

next steps -
on april 1, CWRU will tell her how much merit scholarship she will get IF she were to get admitted.
on april 8, they will send her an email asking if she is still interested.
before may 1, they want her to commit to another univ.
on may 2 and beyond, they will let her know if she has a spot in Case and if she is admitted, she should forfeit the fee at the other univ and commit to Case.

applying to PPSP has really put us in this most difficult and hopeless situation. never imagined she wouldnt have an undergrad admit from Case. several of her friends who applied to Case in EA or RD with much lesser scores and resumes have gotten admits with 20k scholarships.

moral of the story from our experience - if u badly want that undergrad admit with merit scholarships from schools like Case and that would be your top undergrad choice if BS/MD does not work out, do not apply to their 8-year program.

D has interviewed with cincinnati connections, will find out in the next ten days or so.

thanks for reading and good luck to everybody!

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Sad to hear and Good luck to your D


She has good scores so she will eventually achieve her goal. Don’t give up
 cheering for her from far away.
She still can achieve that (and GL to her upcoming decisions)

I will cover this topic (in particular) in the results posts when it’s ready.

Lots of folks (IMO) fall in love with A or B but also need the “Game plan”.
The first goal should be to get into the “Play in tournament” then only you will have chance to compete for the “coveted championship”.

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thank you for the kind words @Rali_Jan! your analogy is spot on :slight_smile:

@happyFlamingo - Thank you for sharing your story. U of Rochester is a good pre-med program and is about 3 hours 45 minutes drive from Cleveland, OH. Congratulations on this option. Wish your DD the best for Cincinnati connections. Hope she gets in.

There have been many students with similar stories over the past years. In fact, most successful bsmd candidates usually only get into 1-3 programs and many don’t even get in.

Ultimately, BSMD programs are ultra-selective, especially for ORM students. People should apply to 12-15 programs and add a few UG-only colleges as well. UG alone colleges also should have a reach-match-safety type of colleges in the list.

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Well said! students should not develop a strong liking to 1-2 programs over all others. Even after applying to 10+ colleges, students get rejected by most except 1-2. So, it’s better to love/become fond of the college where they got admitted.

Colleges have expertise in selecting students who are likely to be a good fit, year over year. It’s their business and they are good at it. On the other hand, students (teens) develop a liking for a college without grasping if it is really a good fit or not.

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This is a new development at Case.
Usually, PPSP kids who do not get an interview and agree to be considered for regular undergrad get admission and scholarships.

Sorry about your D.
Wishing the very best for Cincinnati.

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Some of my observations about how factors such as merit $$, location, diversity, demonstrated interest play a role in (selective) college admissions -

  1. reach colleges are less likely to give merit aid when compared to safety colleges.
  2. Colleges look for diversity in their class. This is more evident with private colleges where in general the total undergrads are fewer than flagship state universities. This applies to very selected programs as well such as BSMD where the class size is generally very small. The program is unlikely to get all its students from the same state.
  3. Other types of diversity can be in the form of race/gender/ECs/awards/honors etc. Last year a student got into Brown PLME and mentioned that a Brown professor reached out to him and informed him that they were impressed by his AP Latin score of “5” as well as some awards in Latin. Of course, this kid had a great overall profile as well.
  4. safety and match colleges look for demonstrated interest since they don’t want to be a “backup school”