those outliers will always be there and there has to be some mistake with the app or red flag.
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please any advise for traditional pre med route will be appreciatedâŠredirect to some other siteâŠwe did sign up for SDN
@Aum2022
If you start a thread on the Pre Med Topics page, youâll find plenty of experienced parents and some pre-meds and med student who will be happy to answer your questions.
SDN can be a good resource because adcomms post there, but there are also some pretty neurotic/overanxious pre-meds
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Was it a bad thing though? They got to go to the Ivy that will stay on their resume forever and still went to a medical school.
I dont claim that everyone gets into top 20 med schools by attending another top 20 college. The 3.9 and 37 with publications going to unranked school from an Ivy just sounds off because Ivys pretty much admit other Ivy kids who do well and these are good credentials although not great on MCAT side.
I can tell you most of my daughterâs classmates from Columbia who had a GPA of 3.9 and scored over 520 ended up in top 10 schools. If she focused on ensuring her GPA was good instead of whole bunch of extracurriculars, she would have made it too but still in a top 25 school. Fortunately, she only applied to HPME and Rice Baylor, didnât make it so we didnt have to wonder.
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Thank you. I did create a new thread - pre med advise traditional route - please experienced parents/students please post to help others in this marathon!
thanks!
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@texaspg - Very nicely written poster and thanks for sharing your Dâs story.
I agree with you that kids should decide about their own future. Parents should not influence them to take BSMD when they would rather attend IVY or a T20 school.
On the other hand, the same logic applies where parents should not influence their kids and change their decision if they decide to attend BS/MD. Right?
Our case is completely the opposite. My spouse and I are from IT. All our nephews/nieces went for Engineering/CS in top universities. We live close to 4 IVYâs within 30mins to 2 hrs drive and hoped kids will apply to IVY or T20 schools. Growing up, I would always take kids to Harvard, the MIT area for food, museums, etc.
Imagine my shock when my son told me that he would not apply to Harvard or any other IVY league! His guidance counselor and teachers recommended to 3 top kids of his graduating class to apply to HYP and the other two kids got into Harvard and Princeton whereas S didnât even apply. He told me that itâs a waste of time to apply since he plans to join BSMD. I have found that he is very sure of himself and itâs next to impossible to influence him.
When you say all the ORM parents are influencing their kids, I am not so sure who you are referencing. There are all kinds of teens. IMO, the majority of the teens will not be influenced. Only a very few kids might be influenced as a teen but eventually, as they grow, they will find their path.
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Nice post and agree completely. Where did your go for BSMD? Does he still like the program and sure he does and is proud of his decision not to apply to ivys
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Nope, it is NOT a bad thing at all.
I have dealt with parents and kids who were âdisappointedâ that their Ivy-league education could not get them into an âIvy-leagueâ medical school.
It is all fine as long folks are aware and manage their expectations.
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Very well articulated.
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Not all Ivy League medical schools are top ranked schools. My daughter went to one that was ranked in the 40s. She went there based on fit, feeling and affordability (financial aid). She had many choices, including a top 5. It seems many on this thread are focused on IVY, top 20, and prestige. I canât help but think parental pressure is at work for many on this thread. JMO
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@srk2017
I appreciate your comment. I knew itâs not just UG GPA, many other things play a big role for T20s and other medical schools to pick or like certain studentsâ profiles for their intake. My friendâs kid with 2 UG degrees from a state school with a perfect GPA, 520 MCAT applied to nearly 30 MD schools, got 8 interviews, and was selected for none on the first try. The kid took a gap year, got some research experience, reapplied, and made it to T5 MD school on the second try with parentâs morale support. Going through all this from a parentâs perspective my friend suggested that if you get a BSMD, thatâs your top choice unless you really want to go a different route and understand the risks around. My second friend has an opinion totally 180 degrees opposite to the first one. According to 2nd friend you got x BSMD means you are capable of getting the same MD school or better in the traditional path, so try the traditional route. 2nd friendâs kid went through the traditional path and got in to T30 MD school on the first try. My 3rd and 4th friends are big fans of BSMDs, because their respective kids went on the traditional path from state schools, got MCAT 518+ (I am assuming they have great GPA), and the kids have decided not to apply to any of MD schools at all - âdropped medicineâ case.
The moral I learned was that these parents have their kidâs unique stories behind them, I better understand/know my kidâs own strengths so I provide my kid with info, provide some recourses to my kid can talk to, and advice on what I believe would work for my kid. There is a proverb⊠âyou can lead a horse to water, butâŠâ Ultimately itâs the kidâs choice. Good luck to your son and I wish good luck to all the students irrespective of what path they eventually take on.
Referring to my comment, that prompted your response, I made a minor tweak to bring in more clarity to the verbiage. One can totally ignore my views if they donât like.
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He is in the Penn/Jeff PMM program and loves it. Although we couldnât have guessed, it seems like a perfect fit!
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One of the most common questions many students are trying to evaluate is Ivy league undergrad versus BS/MD.
Of the students that I work with, practically all of them have their desire to be a doctor. Many times, schools or elder siblings of friends introduced them to BS/MD.
Yes, among many parents, discussions that a child pursues medicine, CS, engineering, law, and business happen more than pursuing classics, sociology, drama, and the like. But that should not be taken as parental pressure. I know of Indian American parents letting their children go to Acting, digital art, political science, animation, ROTC, and many other careers. All because their children wanted to do it.
Every college admitted student day that I have visited has sessions where the Dean or Admissions Officer talks about âhelicopterâ or âengagedâ or âtandemâ parents and their role in a childâs education.
So, parent pressure/ involvement is a valid concern, but one feels one is discounting the fact that the students do think for themselves.
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I applaud your son since he knew what he wanted to do and it sounds like you let him do it for which I applaud you too. We are two IT parents so I know exactly what you went through!
I dont discuss ORM parents, I only say Parents, period. Unfortunately, most parents I know are ORM and there are too many who push their kids into BS/MD route. The two parents whose kids changed their own paths were very close friends of mine and although I did not know their children well, I told them their kids wont be happy by being pushed into choosing BS/MD while they held admissions at Harvard, and Stanford/Yale. Sure enough, one applied out and landed at a top notch school and the other just blew off medicine altogether.
Make sure your child makes the decision is all I am advising.
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I agree with you sir. One of the parents I give an example of whose kid didnt get to go to Stanford/Yale had his own example where a Texas Stanford kid had an admission at UT San Antonio which was a major step down and the parents were throwing a fit saying what was the point of Stanford. He got into UTSW in the last minute, did radiology followed by interventional radiology and settled in Houston. I dont think it would have mattered in the least if he actually attended UT SA because I know many interventional radiologists who went to UTSA too.
OTOH, if he chose not to do medicine, he would have have been a star whatever he wanted to do coming out of stanford with an engineering degree. Your pathways are completely different after attending some of these schools, irrespective of what you choose to do.
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Your examples shows there are different paths to get into medical school and results mostly depends on kids and appreciate you mentioned all vs some constant drumbeat for BSMD with only traditional path âfailuresâ
I have same argument as your second friend ie if you got couple of BSMDs you have what it takes to succeed in traditional path since you already did the ground work.
I also have seen lot of ORM parents pushing kids into BSMD or medicine and even deciding which school they should choose. When I see some parents constantly claiming BSMD is the only path and they never mention a single traditional path success I seriously doubt that they let their kids decide.
There will be some language on conditional acceptance.
Colleges will want the ability to deny/defer admissions for âunusualâ cases and many times they will have language that will give them that flexibility.
In some cases, the language will reflect the program characteristics e.g. medical school will decide based on the interview and the rest of the application to see if the candidate is comparable to the incoming class. Such language indicates interview is not a formality and you could get rejected post an interview. Such programs are not âtrueâ BS/MD.
If there is a specific language you are concerned about, call up that schoolâs admissions office and get a clarification.
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What specific questions do you have?
Do you happen to know if bsdo programs care whether applicant is an ORM or not? Or is it bsmd programs only?