***Thread for BS/MD/DO 2022-2023***

UW has a high percentage of seats reserved for specific states as the only medical school available to those states.

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I dont believe so? I remember during the interview it was a guaranteed spot if you met requirements.

Absolutely agree there are weed out courses for like organic chemistry for Premeds in most schools which change and force student path away from medicine. Most of colleges discourage recommendation letters for below certain GPA. I have seen many kids changing path due the same reason, Even in some B S MD programs maintaining high science GPA is required. Know a kid from one program who finally went to IT.

No parent will tell on this forum if this happens to their kids and we only hear good convincing facts that medicine is not worth the time and effort .

I think it should be mandated to have college undergraduate science GPA requirements for BS MD prgram in par with their average GPA of the regular path medical school intake

Atleast with Ivies if you can afford you can have a good story of shifting away from medicine in infact we have two Ivy admissions to consider too. asking kid passion for medicine is sometimes to early in high school and many specially consultants tell to fake it during b s Md interviews which infact is like the consultants assisted Ivy admission over elaborated essays

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Not knowing anything about your situation, I would lean toward Hofstra.

We see the same in BS/MD also.
We have a situation this year where nearly 10 kids from a particular school applied to BS/MD and one kid has been hurting the remaining 9.

The attrition rates that some pathway programs share are good data points to understand the percent change in students actually applying to medicine. Whether parents tell or not, the data is there for everyone to see. The attrition rate during undergrad in BS/MD is lower as the students can survive 1-2 Bs in their grade plus the student knows a medical seat is in hand and they work to make sure they meet the undergrad requirements.

As per the AAMC survey, ~55% of matriculating medical schools decided to pursue medicine in high school.
Asking for a kidā€™s passion for medicine when applying to BS/MD is precisely the right question to ask.
And fakery will be detected in an interview very easily!

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I know odds are slim that my son will be selected for Pitt gap, but just to clarify, is the 3.75 for every semester or cumulative? I have seen different things and want to make sure he has the correct info. Thanks!

You should also find out how many warnings they get before getting kicked out of the program.

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Itā€™s minimum 3.75 in BCPM courses and an overall GPA of 3.75

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I doubt that one gets kicked out on the first infraction. I know that Baylor gives 3 warnings. One gets 3 semesters to get the GPA up. How many warnings do students get before they get kicked out of GAP?

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Yeah, thatā€™s the key, anyone could have a ā€œbadā€ semester (illness etc), but I did see some references in the past to every semester, so just trying to clarify. (If he is lucky to get in, he will call to make sure).

Iā€™m all for keeping the undergrad GPA requirement relatively high to be on par with the previous year entering class. However, a lot of BSMD programs fail to retain students that way. I see the programs refining their GPA and MCAT requirements downward or abandon the program altogether. I wonder if they feel that those requirements are not tied to med school performance.
I donā€™t doubt the AAMC survey result that 55% of med students decided to go into medicine since HS. Itā€™s a known phenomenon that ~50% of premeds wind up dropping out, and changing path to something else.
My own family experienced ā€œthe love for a career in medicineā€ != ā€œthe love for science.ā€ You got to be able to at least tolerate sciences and excel in them to get to the clinical part of the training. We feel blessed that a painful experience such as the decision to forgo something they planned since earlier than HS has led to something they would excel in.

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A disaster in OChem can take several semesters. Lots of people have that experience with OChem in general. If itā€™s just one class, perhaps one can recover to get back to 3.75+ GPA, but if itā€™s a semester, itā€™ll be difficult. It doesnā€™t take that many Bs (which I donā€™t consider bad) to bring the BCMP GPA to below 3.75. Every semester, my own S would simulate a bad semester and insert a couple of Fs in his GPA calculation to see if he could keep from getting a warning. His GPA requirement is only 3.5.

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Yeah, it is a bit nerve wracking. Especially since one cannot extrapolate how well one does in hs to college necessarily. In retrospect, my son should have looked a little closer to requirements and applied more broadly. (He only applied to Pitt gap and a bs/do program because they were schools he was interested in for undergrad anyway, direct programs were not the initial end goal lol).

Due to the nature of HS vs undergrad and also due to a bad experience my S had in HS with chemistry, he ruled out Pitt Med GAP and only applied to Pitt PA GAP. Little did he know, he turned out to be a chem whiz. Awaiting his MCAT score. Thereā€™s no indication that he would have anything below 520 due to all the AAMC full length practice & sample tests he took. Weā€™ll find out in a little more than a week from today.
I know a person doing 7-year DO at Nova. The program allows students to apply out. Itā€™s difficult due having to take the MCAT in sophomore year, but this student did and score at 90 percentiles. They got a lot of research under their belt from work and decided to apply to both MD and MD-PhD. Since Nova got both MD and DO schools, they probably also applied to Nova allopathic SOM. Canā€™t wait to find where this person lands (med school acceptances are still rolling in).
Iā€™m sure your child will do well wherever he lands. Only he can decide what he wants or can tolerate to get where he wants to go. Good luck!

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90 percentiles may not be sufficient by themselves these days, need mid to high 90s , unless s/he has solid research with publications and such, without any other damaged credentials like GPA

Yeah many of the kids going to BS/MDs do quite well in MCAT, usually mid to high 90th percentiles and taken usually right after their sophomore years with not much of formal preparation due to lack of time (especially those in accelerated programs).

I think theyā€™re aware of that. Itā€™s easy to aim high when you already have a bird in hand. Iā€™m sure that score should get them admitted to Nova Allopathic (assuming they considered that institution). GPA is great and got a few publications to the name. Not sure if MD-PhD could be achieved, but definitely an MD path to a decent SOM for in-state tuition. Student has an ambitious parent who pushes for the moon->why they work so hard and applied out (not in the original plan)

Hofstra

Thanks for your thoughtful responses. The bs/do that my son was offered does allow for applying out, so I am glad he has that option. He feels crappy about throwing away big $ at Bama and Michigan state, but wants the ā€œsaferā€ path after seeing some med school admissions struggles.

I just wish Pitt gave their decisions sooner so we can move on! Lol

Actually my son is the opposite and chose Bama with Randall Research Scholars with of course the $. He is turning down OU BSMD program and another at UofSC if selected.He felt more open ended in case chose not to go med path but have all that published research under his belt in case he does. Plus they have several acceptances from RRS into T10 med schools including Harvard, etc with impressive residencies. To each their own and wishing the best for all our students!

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