Daughter has ACT 33 . good GPA. EC’s focused on neuroscience . She was selected for a NIH funded research program and is working on it. won state neuroscience and placed decently in national level brain bee. she also placed second in the neuroscience olympiad at a local university. interested in TBI and does TBI research. School refused permission for new clubs but took her a whole year to allow her to start a neuroscience club. ILC HOSA 4th place and State HOSA winner. only does 3 clubs at school. brain injury association volunteer -did not do a lot with pandemic as we have immunocompromised grandparents at home.
Her peers have been telling her that unless she gets a 36 on her ACT she has very less chance at BSMD. she is insisting on writing again while I have been trying to tell her to focus on research, GPA and EC’s.
I am thinking now that maybe she is right. I would appreciate it if you guys can shed some light and help me make this decision. She will get into Neuroscience at local state univ and we are happy with that. she will be applying for three in state bsmd programs . Her friends are applying and all of them have the same plan.
As parents we are fine with anything bsmd or otherwise but since I found out this forum I wanted to ask. I also wanted to find out if there are any bsmd admission coaching that anyone has tried. That will take us parents out of the equation and might help her present her stats better. Thanks everyone. If I posted this in the wrong thread please let me know.
what are the 3 instate BS/MD programs? Have you checked previous year results on this site to see what kind of students made the cut to the programs?
I think the comparison with the Asian-American population is incorrect.
The comparison should be with what percentage of applicants are Asian-Americans. Colleges choose students from their applicant pool, not from the general population.
As per AAMC, in 2021-22, Asians-only were 21.5% of the applicant pool while Asian+Other Races (i.e., Bi-racial Asians) were another 2.3%, i.e., collectively, they constituted 23.8% of the applicant pool.
As per TMDMAS, in 2021, Asian-American applicants numbered 2,000 among a total of 7,359 applicants, i.e.,27.2% of applicants.
So, TX medical schools having ~30% Asian-Americans are closer to the applicant pool demographic make-up.
Can you provide more details?
Her exact unweighted GPA, the state you are from, and your ethnic background?
@jjung111 - 3.65 GPA with 3.65 Science GPA is required every year. In fact the SLU website, shows the detailed year-by-year requirement. MCAT is also required. Also, other requirements (ECs) are mentioned.
However, all of this guarantees the interview only. Not everyone who meets the GPA requirement gets accepted to SOM. Of course, if the students aim for a higher GPA and MCAT scores, they not only have a better chance at SLU, but they can also apply-out to other universities (MD and DO programs)
@texaspg Toledo , case , Cincy. There were not a lot of posts about Cincy or Toledo. I found a member whose daughter got in to Cincy. His daughter had a very good ACT score. That is why I was thinking that maybe my daughter was right in wanting to retake . Thank u for replying
@NoviceDad 4.106 unweighted GPA. Indian , from ohio. We moved to the city just before high school.
Thank u so much for replying
Toledo is an EAP program.
For an Indian-origin student, ACT=33 is on the low side.
Last cycle @happyFlamingo’s child made it to Cincy.
Look at the Results thread to get their stats and other ECs. That will give you an idea.
FYI -
BU’s EAP program (MMEDIC) requires a GPA of 3.2 and an MCAT of 80th percentile.
So, its requirement is lower than the incoming class stats for medical school.
@Vicky2019 Thank you so much for the information! I also came across these statistics for SLU Medical Scholars program from PerfectMD website (not sure how outdated this is) Everything you need to know about Saint Louis University’s 8-year BA/BS+MD Medical Scholars Program – The Perfect Med
Program statistics:
Number admitted to program: 130
# dropped from program due to GPA: 95
# interviewed by medical school: 35
# admitted by medical school: 30
@Hardyhibiscus
IMO, your Daughter’s peers are right about improving her ACT score. Try for ACT 35 or SAT 1550 scores. With strong ECs and profile and probably hooks one can overcome the less competitive scores, but the success rate is usually on the low side. You can try test optional with low scores if the program allows. Apply widely. Good luck.
@texaspg
On your note “Check out their class profile that says 517 MCAT and 3.72 GPA while the requirements are only 3.5 and 511 for their combined students. Is the average lower because of the combined students or is it excluding the combined students?”, I doubt if BU avg is lower because of the BSMD combined students. I assume although reqs are low side for combined students they do perform well and on the stats part, they compete with M1 students who came through the traditional route. I am thinking Colleges recruit diverse groups to reach their target diversity numbers, some probably coming with low GPA and MCAT but they may have strong ECs and unique profiles qualifying them to get into the college. Its possible low avg is because of those groups. COA could be another factor, M1 candidates with high GPA and MCAT scores, who received multiple acceptances, some of them could be avoiding colleges charging a toll on their pockets because of their own reasons. We have seen some cases in CC, folks ditched T20 MD schools for low tuition fee state schools.
@rk2017 child is with BU combined program, hoping @rk2017 can shed some light on the low avg part.
@Hardyhibiscus At first glance, I see more than one admitted to Cincy in the admitted group.
Pardon my silly question as I am trying to understand the system. How can UW GPA be more than 4.0?
I dont believe schools need to accept by race as a percentage of applicants is correct.
They are ensuring that URMs have at least the number of seats by proportion of the population and that is a part of the equity goal at most med schools. There are far fewer people applying in URMs if the above was the goal.
Baylor is currently at 41%. My position on that is that the students are so good they couldnt reject them. I have heard from faculty that Admins are trying to change that by minimizing the academics in their admission process and adding lot more other attributes to give credit for to make it more diverse.
@Hardyhibiscus check out the results from Bluee, AvidEnthusiast, cow123, and
happyFlamingo. They cover either Cincinnati or Toledo in terms of being admitted. Unfortunately, I didnt come across anyone rejected (one was waitlisted in Cincy and admitted in May).
Not at all surprised by this move. More and and more medical schools are seeing big difference between BSMD students and traditional path students in terms of achievements/experiences and maturity. Remember the main purpose of taking any BSMD over prestigious UGs is to avoid gap years (we heard so many failure stories here) and/or save one UG year and money. Unfortunately Medical school adcoms are valuing gap years and equating them to maturity ( I don’t agree with it that part) and also they typically have much more research and service experiences than BSMD programs. UTSW cancelled their program after one batch matriculated from UTSD.
UTSW had several batches from UTD but I think their last batches are already in UTSW at this point. They cancelled UTAustin program without ever admitting anyone if I remember correctly and everyone ended up at UT Houston. UT Austin scrapped their program and after 2 or 3 batches. University of Houston started one, scrapped it after 4 years when they started seeing 4 or fewer out of 10 reaching med school. Baylor has several programs feeding them (Rice Baylor, Baylor Baylor, Debakey Highschool - University of Houston - Baylor to name a few) and at some point they will start scrapping them. Rice used to have 15 seats and now they are down to 5 or 6.
UTD matriculated 4 batches only, cancelled after seeing first batch. May be BU started seeing big difference as well.
Irony is kids from outside US still able to do 5 year MBBS or equivalent, come here and clear USMLE and successfully manage to bag residencies by the age of 26-27, but for home grown talent they have to prove their worth and experience through gap years also!