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

Most med school costs (even for in-state) are much higher than the in-state and OOS rate in Texas. It’s a no brainer for students who have double-state-residency in TX and another state to try for TX MD programs if they have the grades and the MCAT score. With an interesting research background and a 90 percentile in MCAT, even if this student doesn’t get admitted to an MD-PhD program, I think they should be competitive for a TX MD seat. I noticed that for TX schools, it seems that the female applicants could have a slight advantage and could have MCAT at the lower end of the admitted group if they have a great GPA. Of course, it’s only my observation in the cases that I know. These are Asian female applicants.

According to AAMC data below, one can see a high range need for MCAT Scores and GPAs for ORM Applicants and Matriculants to U.S. MD-Granting Medical Schools by Race/Ethnicity, 2021-2022.
https://www.aamc.org/media/6066/download?attachment

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Rice and Baylor have bad blood and so it was only a matter of time. I have been expecting it ever since Rice board rejected Baylor’s offer to merge. I suspect Baylor scrapped it more because Rice wanted out.

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I dont believe the average is 515 MD-PhD unless you are referring to a single program. The numbers will vary by program and there is no universal average.

There was a general perception that it has lower thresholds (a prof at Baylor told me 10 years ago it is easier to get into MD-PhD with lower numbers but better publications). It is getting lot tougher now. ORMs will have same obstacles as they for MDs.

Most BSMDs going forward will be non-accelerated programs where students should have regular undergrad experience. Going forward, very few programs such as PMM/NJMS (7) and UMKC/Howard (6) are accelerated. Each one is different in terms of requirement.

For example - PMM program is pretty easy in terms of graduating requirements - UG with PMM major (3.5 GPA) and MCAT of 508. No summer course requirements. No ECs or interview for graduation. However, most students pursue ECs while doing their UG course work such as volunteering & research. Many students are able to finish their UG course (with AP credits) in 2 or 2.5 years to save money and pursue jobs, paid research, etc during 3rd year.

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On this forum I often hear (read) that being ORM or URM plays a role in combined programs admission. I recently looked at LECOM EAP application and they do not even ask for your ethnicity - just stats (GPA and SAT/ACT). They also do not get access to Common App. Does that mean that the issue is disregarded by this program? I doubt they face screen the applicants during the interview (or are they?).

Don’t they interview in person or over zoom or is it a phone interview? Perhaps a phone interview for the initial screening at the undergrad program, but the med school would definitely want to have a face-to-face interview, regardless if it’s in person or over Zoom. The undergrad program does the initial screening and only sends a subset of the applications to the med school.

The needing higher stats for ORMs is not clear in BS/DO admissions although it will become more evident as more programs come online. Not hard to figure out race by name unless all Asians change their names to Christian names.

By and large, most people applying to combined programs are ORMs. So they need to still pick a certain number out of the applicants and the result has been that most BS/MD programs are predominantly ORM and MD programs are trying to balance it out by cutting the seats and eventually deciding to cancel. BS/DO programs are far and few and they are trying to capitalize on this open opportunity. BS/DO programs are not known for large scholarships and/or financial aid that does not have be paid back and they are mostly private charging 40 to 65k in tuition and somewhere in the range of 55k on average. They are also mostly independent schools, not having to balance out their undergrad and/or other graduate programs, having to compete for resources internally and thus have to toe the overall university policies since they dictate the policy by themselves. My view is that most of them dont care if the class is 50% ORM.

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@2018Summer2018
There is an independent site datausa.io that reported race and ethnicity stats for LECOM. IMO, race and ethnicity info is captured in the AACOMAS application form for DO. It’s like AMCAS application for MD. In addition, the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine (AACOM) reported Applicants & Matriculants by Race and Ethnicity data, in which you can see race and ethnicity stats.
https://www.aacom.org/docs/default-source/data-and-trends/applicants-matriculants-by-race-and-ethnicity.xlsx?sfvrsn=1f60697_24
Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine | Data USA

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Unless these programs are old, current aacomas stats may not reflect the impact of admitting larger numbers via BS/DO and their impact on race. So you have to evaluate based on the age and size of BS/DO program related to the school to see if there is an impact already that is built in.

There are more people outside of the Asian ORM population getting interested in BS-MD now than ever since more become aware of the competition of getting admitted to med school. At the same time, more programs get scrapped. I suspect that more ORMs will consider the BS-DO path and will apply to more BS-DO programs. DO program sure will capitalize on the vacated space left by the scrapped BS-MD programs. DOs are now matched to residency through the same system as MDs and are trained as practicing physicians the same way.

I know DOs have their own STEP-equivalent licensing exams. Is that for also specialization? I would assume that at some point, the board exams would be the same for both MDs and DOs, correct? Does the AMA regulate them both?

The residency is combined since 2020. However, each system has continued with their own tests - step 1, 2, 3 vs COMLEX 1, 2 and 3. I helped someone with all applications across both MD and DO during 2021 -2022 and they secured about 14 or 15 DO admissions while interviewing at 3 and receiving one MD (brand new). So it was interesting to see a prestigious 100+ year Chicago DO program that was sending residents to places like Cleveland clinic even before the merger compete against a brand new MD school.

The merger of residency programs has put a lot more burden on DO students. This kid and parents visited both schools and came back with the following conclusion - current DO students have it lot harder because they are trying to prep for both sets of exams which makes their life difficult. MD has reduced the burden a lot by taking away step 2 CS, making step 1 pass/fail and step 3 comes later during residency which means they only have one exam, step 2 CK with a score. I dont know how DO exams work but i dont think they have pass/fail.

So they chose the new MD school.

@texaspg
MSAR equivalent for DO called “ChooseDo” didn’t list any such BS/DO demographics stats for NSU and Rowan, and didn’t check other BS/DO programs. The bigger Asian crown (36.1%) in Rowan could be coming from BSDO route or from DO traditional path route.


It is video interview (self-recorded, face-to-screen).

This is interesting… Thank you for sharing… So, there are 3 times more White than Asian students. I wonder how the pool of applicants looks like. Does it have the same proportion (3:1)? I doubt this is reported anywhere…

So they have a set of questions that you have to respond to in the self-recorded video? Is that submitted to the undergrad feeder for the initial screening or to the med school after the undergrad feeder already selected you to be forwarded to the med school? If get selected as a finalist, the candidate would have a face-to-face interview with the med schoo?

@cheer2021 I dont believe anyone lists any such statistics. The process I am suggesting is working it out for ourselves.

For example Boston University lists stats by race in MD. We have to go backwards, look at BS/MD students over a 4 year period to see how many ORMs there are and compare that overall MD stats to see if they admitted a lot more ORMs outside of BS/MD students or limiting the new ones due to large existing group and find that this is a limiting factor for MD admissions. I dont know these numbers but here is how I would figure it out with random numbers.

BS/MD - 25 20 ORMs
Someother programs - 20 - 15 ORMs
MD admissions - 100

145 total - ORMs 45. This tells me they deliberately suppressed ORMs during MD admissions since they already had 35 ORMs and admitted only 10 out of 100.

This is just to make a point and I have no idea about the real numbers.

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LECOM candidates during COVID have been interviewed over the LOOM video. It is asynchronous.
They can infer the ethnicity of the candidate.

ORMs require higher stats than URMs.

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Applications to LECOM and to UG are separate. Self-recorded video goes directly to LECOM.

You mean they could face screen the applicants during self-recorded interviews?