Sure, do whatever you feel makes you comfortable before reaching final decision. Yes, Upstate has good name (not withstanding whatever some rankings website may rate them).
And remember, one always has an option to quit the program (thereby foregoing the guaranteed spot) and apply out. In fact that’s what I asked if my child wants to consider after sophomore year in their program, with strong impressive credentials in all of MCAT, gpa and other stuff, but the answer was a firm no (no one in their batch did that as well).
As i said/asked… write down what your concerns are … and see if College A or College B helps you. Again your concerns “are yours only and may be simple/crazy to others” so don’t bother.
I have an example where student doesn’t want “certain states” to what they perceived as rural and won’t suit them.
I have this year a sure BSMD student accepted into a NY college and waiting for PITT decision …an instate student (after interview.)… who didn’t apply anywhere other than tristate area schools.
Yeah sure if one is so overhung by some fancy names, But go with whatever suits you going by your gut feeling. No right or wrong thing.
There have been cases on this forum when students did just that. Saying no to Yale in preference to each of UConn SPIM(instate) and BU, Stanford in preference to each of REMS, BU and Brown programs, Princeton in preference to NJMS, MIT and Harvard to Penn State/SKMC, Duke and UPenn to RPI/AMC, Yale ( + Columbia) to VCU GMED (instate) … I am sure you will find more if you scroll through the results threads of past 4-5 cycles (some of them of course shared in the main threads but not necessarily posted in the results threads)
I am just now reminded of a student who was deliberating between Barnard/Columbia and Upstate couple of cycles back (I think withthe feeder being SUNY Purchase). S/he was communicating with me over Private messaging here for about a month before decision making and finally chose Upstate. You mentioned you already spoke to few students of the program, but if feel it will be beneficial to talk to another reference or data point and get his/her latest take on it, PM me. I don’t remember the name handle but can look for it if you need. Hope s/he won’t mind sharing some thoughts on this. Good luck with whatever decision you end up making.
Good luck to all those who are still debating BSMD vs traditional path or which BSMD program to select. Remember there are different paths to medicine and don’t worry about all you hear about others failures or who gave up what to pick BSMD. Decide based on your strengths and weakness and don’t mortgage the farm for BSMD or Ivies.
I am signing off for now but can be reached thru PM. I may come back next year around same time to counter all the -ve examples with +ve examples, we can’t have one sided debates on anything
@s.d
Michigan Medical School categorized the specialties by competitiveness, which you can see in the link below. To dig deeper into it like how many matches for each specialty, you can count of occurrence of each specialist from this link against the Upstate match list you have shared. As a quick check, Upstate grads matched into 17 surgery specialties, which itself IMO is a good sign. You can check the last couple of years’ match lists to check the trend.
If you want to be a physician for sure then, IMO you can pursue RIT/Upstate. If you are not sure then you can go with Yale. If you decide to go to RIT, I am sure you will find a few fellow students/senior BSMD students who gave up Ivys/T10s to join the Upstate BSMD path. If you go to Yale, you will surely find some students/seniors who gave up BSMD acceptances and chose Yale instead. IMO, it’s more your personal choice on whether you want to pursue a guaranteed BSMD path with some compromise on rakings or are willing to go with Yale knowing the risks in the traditional path. You will be successful irrespective of whichever path may be your final decision. Good luck. https://medstudents.medicine.umich.edu/student-support/match/critical-components-match#usmle-step-2-clinical-knowledge-ck
@NoviceDad
Some of the users were more active in other BSDO thread, a few of these have both BSMD and BSDO acceptances. IMO, BS/MD Fall 2022 results thread can be open to them by posting a message in the below group. Thoughts?
Thank you @BSMDapplicant for posting your stats and perspective son the RESULTS thread.
Congratulations on Union/AMC.
Hope you get the additional aid to make from Union.
Wishing you the very best.
@moodybluepapaya@Lakshmi_Padyala
Can you please copy and paste your stats and perspectives that you posted on the BS/DO thread onto the RESULTS thread?
It will make it easier for future parents to find that information in one thread.
hey we are deciding between BU, Case, UIC all for direct MED. We have not heard any further from Case PPSP about an admitted student day or anything like that. Are you still considering Case? If so, please DM me.
@lindagaf added the word DO to the results thread title and so people dont assume it is the wrong thread to post.
I dont believe anyone is deliberately applying just for BS/DO and ignoring BS/MD. So we need people to show all results in one place so next batch has an idea who is able to get into each of these tracks based on their stats and activities.
you have to finish in 7 years. They do not allow GAP year until you graduate from undergrad (which is year 4). It is possible that you can take a gap year after you are into medical school
Yeah. Can’t agree more with @Rali_Jan. I’ll suggest you draw up a comparison chart for all your options and allocate numbers (based only on merits) to each elements and add them up to see which one wins. I remember having to do this with one of my kids to help choose between Stanford and JHH for a research opportunity and it worked out well
We are facing the exact same dilemma between Case and BU. I am seeing some posts that Case PPSP has high attrition rate from PPSP - but not sure how validated this data is. But am hearing Case Match rates into competitive specialties are better than BU. So its a real toss up.
