Thank you for sharing your stats and perspectives.
Congratulations on your acceptance and wishing you the best at whichever college you decide.
Two questions:
- Are you ORM?
- What was your thought process to apply to a very limited number of BS/MDs?
Thanks. He is pretty confident of going into medicine. He is leaning towards Upitt due to the amount of resources available without the stress of getting into a top 20 med school. I want to make sure he challenges himself even if it is in other ways and not necessarily preparing for med school. He is almost certain of picking Upitt. Thank you all for you wonderful advice and discussions. We have learned a lot from this forum.
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yes, I am an ORM.
Iām not sure really. I wasnāt as high on BS/MDs as other ppl even tho Iām 100% committed to medicine. It might be because Iām aiming for a pretty competitive specialty, so I was kind of frightened at the idea of going to a āless prestigiousā med school. For example, I wouldāve probably attended a T20 UG over many BS/MDs and just taken my chance at the traditional route. However, thatās changed over the last few months and I realized the value of BS/MD (primarily from reading this thread lol). So in retrospect I probably should have applied to more, but again, very happy with the acceptances I have now
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Thank you for sharing your reasoning.
Wishing you the best.
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Thank you. You are welcome.
A lot of college experience will be dependent on the student. Being part of Pittās Honors program, we will be surrounded by like-minded students, most of whom will have academics as their first priority. There are enough things to keep him challenged.
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Just posted to the results thread! So happy that this whole process is over and Iām happy with my decisions, so I hope this can help future students.
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Just posted in the results thread for my DS. Glad the application process is over and he made the decision.
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As an update, I think Iām going to pick RIT/Upstate over Yale!
Finances ended up paying an indirect role. Iām saving around $300,000~ by choosing the BS/MD due to scholarships and in-state discounts, so Iāll likely graduate from medical school with no debt! Definitely something I donāt want to take for granted.
Since Iām set on going into medicine, I didnāt really see the benefit of attending Yale. Maybe I couldāve gotten into a better medical school and thus a better residency? Even that wasnāt a guarantee in todayās climate, unless I was willing to possibly take some gap years, as most Yale pre-meds do before applying.
The only real thing attracting me was prestige, but that seems silly now. The most likely outcome out of Yale wouldāve been attending a medical school ranked similarly/slightly better than Upstate, in which case Iād be spending an extra $300K for essentially the same career outcome. The Yale degree adds little value, too, since Iām dead set on medicine.
Besides, there isnāt really a situation where I see myself regretting choosing the BS/MD. Iāll have ample time to develop myself as a person outside school, and Iām still going to a pretty chill school. Had I chosen Yale and struggled throughout undergrad (or had some issues w/ med school applications), Iād be punching myself for not carrying through with Upstate!
Thank you to all who supported me through the process! Excited for whatās to come!
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For those of you who were deciding between Ivy and BSMD, what major would you do in Ivy for pre med?
In other words, besides biology, chemistry, psychology etc, what are other useful UG majors for Premed students ? Has anybody done Bioinformatics, public policy or economic?
Thank you @BSMD2122 and @bsmd_nj for sharing your stats and perspectives.
Congratulations !!!
Wishing you all the very best for Pitt-GAP and BU or NJMS (as you decide) respectively.
Congratulations on all your acceptances and making a decision that is right for you.
If you have not done so, can you please also share your stats and this and other perspectives on the RESULTS thread?
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Biology usually meets all the premed science requirements and still has a lot of time left over to do a dual major. I have seen people take on business, CS etc without actually trying to major but do enough to get a job if not doing medicine.
Both my kids did biomed engineering but it does not cover enough premed and has a lot of extra hours (about 30% more than needed for graduation).
Every Ivy is different. Columbia is one of the harder ones because they have a lot of what they call core requirements that are not part of premed or major because they want students to take classes in many subjects. Brown is easiest because they require 30 classes to graduate (4 per semester +2) and it is upto you how you fill them to meet your premed. Yale has similar policy but they need some major requirements but I have seen people graduate with triple majors and so I assume it is not heavily concentrated in each major.
Princeton classes are hard so it is hard to take 5-7 classes a semester to cover everything you need to finish (pick your major wisely).
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@Somcpharm
Vanderbilt listed 5 popular UG majors taken by itās Pre-med students representing (59) majors during the 2018-2020 Cycles, in their annual report below.
AAMC data below includes the popular majors taken for 2021-2022.
Premed advisors with the school you are planning to go with can advise on the popular premed majors specific to that institution.
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Congrats! Pitt is my top choice (Iām a junior) and I was wondering if you are comfortable with sharing your stats?
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Yes, I am thinking of Bio Informatics and Economics
I got into RPI-AMC, & GW Med, Rowan SOM. For UG NYU, Cornell, and few honors college include my in-state.
Debating between Rowan SOM and NYU (majoring in Computational Biology & Data Science).
Thanks everyone for all the support and help.
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@MarchMom99
Updated my previous post for additional info belowā¦
Yale has some data you are looking, not sure about other T10s. In addition here is āhow many have applied from each Ivy to MD school in 2021-22ā AAMC data in which you can see Ivysā¦Not surprised to see 5 UCs in the first 20 colleges on this list.
- Yale Class of 2021 MD Acceptance/Matriculation Data:
https://cdn.ocs.yale.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/77/2022/02/2021-Cumulative-for-Yale-College-Applicants.pdf - Yale APPLICANT STATISTICS ENTERING MEDICAL SCHOOL FALL 2021:
https://cdn.ocs.yale.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/77/2022/02/2021-EXTENDED-STATISTICS_YALE-COLLEGE-MEDICAL-SCHOOL-APPLICANTS.pdf - https://www.aamc.org/media/9636/download
Is Rowan MD or DO?
why not GW med?
Why NYU vs Cornell?
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Congratulations on your acceptances.
I am sure you will come up with the right choice for you.
If you havenāt spoken with the students there to get a subjective feel of the coursework, environment, support, and other factors important to you.
Two key thoughts on Computational biology and Data Science as a major for regular undergrad (for BS/MD, as long as your GPA is above the minimum required, it should be okay):
- GPA: Make sure you can achieve good grades in these majors. You will have to take advanced statistics, probability, and other math courses. Usually, the rigor and grade curving is difficult. I have seen kids getting Bs in some of these advanced math/stats classes. This may make your medical school journey a bit more difficult.
- Overlap with pre-med requirements: You will have to make sure the pre-med requisites and major requisites do not require too much additional course work to reduce focus on your ECs.
All the very best.
And please share your stats and perspectives in the RESULTS thread.