You can search yourself in this year’s thread and last year’s for AMC.
The concerns seem to be about the location being not so exciting, the med school not being ranked by certain web site - not because something wrong with the school, they simply chose not to provide data to that ranking agency just like few other well known schools like Tulane and Uniformed services - and similar.
At med school level it is mostly what one makes out of it more than the brand name. Earlier I mentioned about a colleague’s C who went to RPI/AMC program and is in final year of the 7 year residency in neuro surgery and is chosen for a following fellowship in spine surgery. Couple of others also recalled such success stories of their acquaintances from that med school.
@rk2017, thank you. Seems like RPI and AMC are only 8 miles apart, so location arguments might be same for both. I personally never been to Albany area. I agree with you about rankings of medical schools. I have seen students matching into competitive residency programs from low ranked/unranked medical school also, so ranking might not be a good factor to consider.
Regarding your question on requirements for UPitt gap -
What BSMD are looking for changes every year. It also depends on the applicant pool itself.
Bottomline, you cannot write essays tailored for schools that will give you a sure shot at admission. Instead, You write essays citing your personal experience and hope a couple of programs like you and offer your interview/admission.
Regarding the college list:
There are a lot of BSMD programs. you can google for them. Here is my list that I posted previously and all of the below are very selective.
Rice/Baylor
University of Rochester REMS
Brown PLME
BU SMED 7 yrs
Case Western PPSP
UPitt/UPitt
Baylor/Baylor
Penn State/Jeff 7 yrs
GWU/GWU 7yrs
RPI/AMC 7 yrs
Stony Brook
SUNY Upstate & its feeders
UCincinatti
University of Alabama med school EMSAP
Rutgers medical school & it’s feeders 7 Yrs
VCU
Regarding Early assurance:
NOTE: Early assurance programs from T15 schools like Dartmouth/UChicago/Northwestern etc… are very hard to get into!
Try-
Georgetown
Tufts
Also, some liberal art colleges boast 80+% of acceptance to medical school (like Swarthmore).
@rk2017 - My S noticed only 25-30 classmates as a freshman in Penn State/Jefferson so not sure about the higher number of students quoted in this forum!
Quite possible, I believe in one of recent cycles the program had more matriculants than anticipated, with most of those selected choosing to enroll. Resulting in ~40 class size. Same thing happened to BU’s too with a class size of 30+.
So let’s revise Penn State/Jefferson’s to say 30 then?
RPI campus is spectacular. The surrounding Troy may not be great or may be even run down at places. But so is the case with JHU and the surrounding Baltimore. And I am sure there must be many more.
Albany is the capital of NY state and so obviously old, so is the med school. But one has to think for themselves, what is a priority if has to choose between stuff and fluff, when one can’t have both.
@symere you can add OU & Tulsa BS/MD to the list offered by @Vicky2019
Both AMC and RPI are grand old schools. AMC ranking not in the list should not be factor. But parents / students can decide about the location either prior to applying or during interview and decide later.
@Smilescreen - UPitt has rolling admission. So, Pitt GAP supplement will be sent based on when the student submitted their application. So, it could be different for each student!
after many cancellations and reschedules, ds was able to take sat and act, scored 1460 (superscore 1490) and ACT 32. have 2 more sat and act scheduled, hoping to get higher than it.
got more ACT test scores, and now it bumped upto ACT 33.
2 more ACT and SAT scores pending, hoping to get 34/1520 by then.
so with those scores in mind, following are the stats:
GPA: UW: 3.95 W: 4.55
SAT: 1460, Superscore: 1490, 2 more tests pending by nov
ACT: 33, 2 more scores pending.
APs: 10 by senior
Recommendations Letters:
Bio 2. Physics 3. Director of Cancer Research (University) - very strong
ECs:
Cancer Research at Top University
UC Berkeley Neuroscience Class, along with other college students, scored A (could be added to transcript)
VEX Robotics - World Championship qualifications, awards
Mini-Medical School as student and teacher assistant (mentoring)
Community, Senior Citizen center
Are we competitive enough for BSMD or pre-med is the only option. Our preference is:
Northwestern Regular (HPME cancelled due to COVID)
Brown PLME
Rice BSMD
Case Western
UIC GPPA
Pre-Med:
Northwestern
Brown
Rice
Johns Hopkins
UMich
Uchicago
Emory
Tufts
Duke
Columbia, Penn
What are our chances, please provide some feedback. thanks in advance.
Fyi… NU has added MSTP (MD/PhD) application for its UG students through NUPSP EAP program. To my knowledge this is first year they are allowing it to apply to MSTP through NUPSP.
@myHouse1 - I noticed that Your child has low SAT test scores and you didn’t mention subject tests as well. Also, looks like your child is only interested in T20 schools. These are very selective even for UG even without considering the BSMD part.
Another observation, You have not included any match or safety colleges in your list, only reaches and far reaches. This is not a good strategy. Any student who is given admission in these T20-25 colleges will have a profile similar or better than your child. So, what if your child doesn’t get admitted to any of these college (BSMD or UG)!!! We want to avoid that situation.
My recommendation -
=>Skip BSMD except for UIC GPPA BSMD
=>Don’t submit your test scores for test optional schools
=>No need for 15 colleges. Make it 10 and focus on essays and improve quality
=>Add public universities. Add match/safety colleges as well.
=>Choose from private universities, only Northwestern and UChicago (since you are from Chicago)? In these schools, your admission chances are better if you applied ED.
=>So, apply ED1 to Northwestern. EA to UChicago . If Northwestern/UChicago defers, apply ED2 cycle to UChicago. For rest, public universities - Apply EA
Apply UIC GPPA BSMD (open only to Illinois residents)
Pre-Med/Undergrad-
Northwestern ED1
UChicago EA1, ED2
UMich EA
Georgetown early assurance (Apply Early action) instead of Tufts (only has ED/RD)
UNC Chapel Hill
UFlorida
7.University of Illinois at Urbana Champagne
8.University of Wisconsin Madison
You can try your luck with RPI/AMC as refered to earlier in the day, considering strong research and gpa.
But they also expect subject test scores I believe., in the absence of which may look closely at AP test scores in BCPM subjects.
@myhouse1 - In your post # 1474, you choose only extremely selective (3-4) BSMDs -
Brown PLME, Rice/Baylor, CWRU PPSP and additionally, UIC GPPA (in-state for illinois residents)
Going by the past few cycles students have taken two approaches.
Applying to a handful of BS/BA/MD programs of their choice, typically not more than 4-6. And then few traditional undergrad applications like up to 10 or so.
Go all out for the direct med programs (10-12) and 6-8 UG
By Choosing option#2 above, you can add a lot more BSMDs and apply widely
Since it looked like you/your child is interested in Top colleges (T10), I put together the best way of obtaining that IMO.
@rk1235rk mentioned in his post#1468 in this same page, the below-
2020 Penn State Stats - 917 applications, 45 offered admission, average ACT 36, average SAT 1569, average GPA 3.95. Average enrolled students - 25-30.
In your opinion, do you think Rice/Baylor or Brown PLME or CWRU PPSP will accept students with lower stats than above?
Other BSMDs also have very high standards as well. So, it is recommended that you apply widely (10-12) if interested in BSMD (these won’t limit to BSMDs with T20 UG colleges) in addition apply to 6-8 UGs as well. I would give the same advise if your SAT score was 34-36 as well instead of 33.
BSMDs also look at SAT subject test scores… (Math level 2 and Chemistry or Biology)
@Vicky2019 With a bsmd batch of 25-30 at PSU/SKMC(Thomas Jefferson), only 16 ( 55-65% of the bsmd batch) seem to matriculate to medical school. The MCAT threshold is around 505 (correct if wrong). Is this because PSU a party school ?
SMKC(Thomas Jefferson) 268 16 13 5.97% see post #1434