We may never really know the true reason for a college stopping BSMD program.
Like @rk2017 suggested there is no help in discussing why many colleges are backing out but I don’t believe that colleges are scrapping BSMD due to “bad quality or grades of BSMD”.
BSMD program “may become” tedious to some colleges for just 5/7 seats and that could be the reason too for getting rid of it or they have huge demand anyway for their traditional and why bother “huge” effort for just 6/7 seats…
I can say this from “close” experience. Kid was NOT selected in 1 BSMD but they offered her the admission to UG and in speaking with “authority” they almost hinted/guaranteed that she will join the same pathway after her UG due to her credentials.
So, I inferred the reason she didn’t get in this batch is due to “random class structure they want based on current demographic”. (In the end she chooses BSMD of her choice anyway).
Hi How many clinical shadowing hours are needed or considered good or competitive for bs/md application. It is tough to get anyone to agree for clinical shadowing but wanted to find out how many hours are considered good.
Never made any sense why these programs with 6 or 7 slots operating all these days anyway. Half of them would have been allotted to in state students anyway. They should have been shuttered down long time ago. The programs are meaningless if they don’t serve a sizeable critical mass of student bodies in them.
The shocking ones were the sizeable programs, NU HPME few years back and now BU SMED. For both these programs the student quality can in no way be responsible. As sample stats given by me earlier, and confirmed by someone else, infact the BS/MD cohorts proved to be more accomplished than those coming through traditional routes and capturing the deans scholarships and other laurels at higher rates than the other incoming streams. The attrition rates were minimal to non existent.
The main reason could be the diversity bug, with most of these batches filled by ORMs, coupled with the news going around that a certain character of power moving around from medical school to medical school and sinking these programs there on that pretext.
One can sense it all over the horizon, whether recent demolition of nationally renowned magnet for STEM, TJHSS or eliminating Step 1 scores in med schools, one can figure out the motives behind.
@verdant19 – Congratulations on admissions to multiple BSMD programs and Ivy’s. REMS is an excellent choice. You will do well there.
Thanks for sharing your perspective on your result as well your college admission experience. You are spot on regarding unique experiences. As you have experienced, BSMD admissions are ultra competitive. Every aspect of your application is important. Once you clear the initial screening stage in your application, Essays and interviews play a major role.
Your tips will be valuable to the future applicants. Thanks for taking the time.
I am pretty sure but feel free to correct me if I am wrong on this.
What RK is tryingto say is that the education Policy makers have systematically lowered the standards across the board for everything including med school admission (activities, subjective standards), Step 1 scores (being made pass fail) and admissions to magnet schools.
TJHSST (Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology) is a magnet school ranked atthe very top in the country … It is in the Northern Va area (Fairfax county public schools) where it was very tough to get admission into. This past year onwards they scrapped the entrance exam and made other criteria to gain admission into it. Too much to go into it here but it is ptetty much lottery system now even though the BOE claims it is not.
Thanks @Park1212 for explaining, I am sure I couldn’t have done better and sorry @Vicky2019 for missing a letter at the end (didn’t realize) and causing any confusion.
Yes TJHSST = what is referred above. So you can see it written all over, high school levels*, med school admissions, residency placements and fellowship decisions making.
I am sure that apart from TJHSST, have read similar news on elite public high schools’ admission policies severely “overhauled” in Boston, Chicago and elsewhere.
Medical schools are moving to holistic admissions vs mainly merit. According to a full professor, Baylor has changed their policies in the last two years to where they can see close to 10% African American students where as it used be five or so in the past. Penn medicine has announced initiatives to work with HBCUs to recruit their students. Schools like Harvard and Stanford already have an embedded holistic process in place. An URM with high stats can dictate their ticket where Harvard is offering rich URMs full scholarship while they only offer financial aid officially.
Many believe they went to pass/fail on Step 1 to ensure people dont have to take it repeatedly just to pass or needing a high score to make it to good residencies. This lowers the bar a bit for residencies.
Thank you for all your thoughts. Another words, it’s getting harder for ORMs. They will have to fight for fewer seats? Do you think holistic means that scores will count for less for ORM’s as well? Or do you think ORMs will need to even achieve higher merit now?