This is a general question. I have seen in previous posting that few kids have awards for Piano and also won some competitions. My younger daughter who is an incoming freshman plays piano since preschool. I was wondering if she can take part in any of the regular competitions. I am not looking for the highly competitive ones. Can anyone please some information?
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My friendās daughter was very active in the dance clubs and such during the under grad portion of the program. Hers was not an accelerated program, I feel having that 4 full years for UG gave her the option to pursue her hobbies as well. Donāt know if that will be the case if one in an accelerated 7 year program.
If you avail of any paid college consultantās service for bsmd, it may not decrease your time commitment needed to submit applications. It may even increase it by significant amount since you have to follow their terms of service and turn around time for editing of essays etc. Of course, they will not do any work for you which is required to complete a collegeās application. They can not improve your stats either. It may be too late for any new ECs to start and have a significant impact on the final outcome. This whole bsmd process is very unpredictable so just apply and hope for the best. If you donāt get an offer for bsmd(bsmds fill only 5% of all medical school seats), there is regular route MD which fills approximately 95% of medical school seats.
Your daughter has time to improve her GPA since she is a sophomore now (according to another post in CC). The whole bsmd process is a crapshoot and only fills nearly 5% of medical school seats. Do not worry too much about getting into NU HPME as a sophomore. A 4.0 GPA and perfect scores may not be a sufficient condition to guarantee anything.
Do you need to send AP scores to schools for admissions into BSMD? I see students posting in results threads that they took X number of APs and got all 5s. I assume AP courses they took show up on their transcripts but how do schools know if they got 3/4/5? Should a student send AP scores to schools to get competitive advantage? Would schools even look at them to compare students?
Though it is not mandatory, it is in your best interest to request College Board to send the AP scores. Certainly if you have taken X number of AP and did well with 5, it helps them to evaluate your academic preparedness.
Besides admission, where AP scores plays a role is getting credit for a particular college course where ever you join. Even if you some schools does not waive and expect you to do course, it will still help to get priority to register your courses if your status is different due to number of credits completed per record starting from second semester.
No need to spend money and send AP scores unless asked for by the programs. When in doubt, send an email to get clarified. The whole application process is bound with implicit trust and honor based system and if discrepancies found later the offers can be rescinded. So donāt think any one will risk reporting wrong scores.
If finances are not a concern, it does help - but no guarantees for end results - to have an experienced professional review the application essays, help decide where to apply and prepare you for interviews. Definitely will help polish your preparedness.
But go with such plans only if you are very sure about going to BS/MD route and donāt care for going to branded names regular route. You need to spend significant time with the consultant and may be meaningful to spend that extra money only if you donāt spread yourself thin in other directions.
IMO, APs score should be entered in Common App and mentioned on resume. There is no need to send official copy to every bsmd school. The subject SAT II scores and SAT I/ACT score should be sent to all bsmd programs. Not all applicants have the same access to AP courses in their school districts, so it may not give any significant advantage at all. After you choose to enroll in a school, official AP scores should be sent to that school.
It seems that WUSTL-UPSM bsmd is being discontinued. Search yourself on google for bsmd program at WUSTL. It seems more and more bsmd programs are deemed unnecessary by the schools and are being closed.
Hardly matters! Was even wondering why they even had the program up and running all these years, with an intake of what, like 4 per year. And absurd requirements in a tough environment.
Barely makes a dent in the BS/MD space, like a drop in the bucket.
Very glad that reputed med schools like UpState are coming in and expanding their foot prints in this space year over year.
Also the pioneers in this area, NU HPME, BU SMED, Penn State/ Jeff and RPI/AMC, the oldest such programs, are still going strong and will continue to do so for a long time to come.
@rk2017 in the result thread you particularly asked @frito2020 about his ACT writing score - is this something hpme always put on more weight in its review? I noticed on their website the average score is 12, which I initially thought was a typo 
Yes, I feel HPME (not necessarily NU as a whole) has preferential treatment towards applicants with SAT scores and against those with ACT.
If you read their website (and in between the lines), they donāt super score ACT but do for SAT. They donāt mention anything about SAT writing section but do expect an impossible score in ACT writing. And also have read the profiles of outstanding students in last couple of years who had submitted ACT and never got called for an interview by that program (if I remember correctly even one of them who got selected in a dozen other BS/MD programs)
I am glad it worked out for @frito2020.
With COVID how does shadowing work ? Was planning to do this summer because og age requirements but got cancelled /Are colleges looking for alternatives ?
@force1, with shadowing, its up to the student and the doctor. If the doctor office is allowing it and student/family feels comfortable going, it can be started. But I know around here, none of the doctors office is allowing shadowing students to come back yet.
@biomeds @grtd2010 @texaspg @rk2017
Further to my post #88 ā
Probabilities of acceptance to a medical school:
I think I have this worked out. We have to use Binomial probabilities.
Let us denote p as the acceptance rate at a university i.e. success.
For my example, I have assumed this to be constant and equal to 2.4% (that is approx. the average acceptance rate based on AAMC application data)
Thus, p = 0.024
Let us denote q as the failure rate.
Now,
q = 1- p
q = 1 - 0.024
q = 0.976
Probability of getting AT LEAST 1 acceptance = 1 - probability of getting ZERO acceptances
Binomial probability =
nCr * p^n * q^(1-n)
Assume you apply to 15 programs, n = 15
Probability of getting ZERO acceptance means r = 0
Probability of getting ZERO acceptance = P(r = 0)
P(r=0) = 15 C 0 * (0.024)^0 * (0.976)^15
P(r=0) = 0.69461997
Probability of getting AT LEAST 1 acceptance = P(r >=1) = 1 - P(r=0)
P(r>=1) = 1 - 0.69461997
P(r>=1) = 0.30538003 OR 30.54%
If you apply to 15 colleges, there is 30.54% chance you will get atleast 1 acceptance.
Here is the probability of getting AT LEAST 1 acceptance for various N (number of applications):
n P(r >=1)
5 11.4%
10 21.6%
15 30.5%
20 38.5%
25 45.5%
29 50.6%
30 51.8%
40 62.2%
50 70.3%
75 83.8%
100 91.2%
NOTE:
- you need to apply to 29 colleges for your probability to be greater than 50%.
- you need to apply to 21 colleges for your probability to be nearly 40%
NOTE: this is just based on mathematics - in actual practice, a lot of factors are in play!
Your comments are welcome.
That is ingenuous. Remember doing something like that during Cās application cycle. Except I used it based on not the number of applications turned in, but the number of interview calls. I started with a probability of acceptance of 1/2 in each of the programs invited to for the interview which I thought was a more tangible measure (but also tried different combinations like 1/3 also). So letās say if someone got 4 interviews, then the probability of getting at least 1 acceptance is 1 - [ probability of not getting any of them, 1/2 to the power 4 = 1/16] = 15/16 ~ 93%
With a probability of acceptance being 1/3 (= 2/3 of not getting in each), the probability of having at least one acceptance = 1 - 2/3 to the power 4, = 16/81 = 65/81 ~ 80%
Then I showed the calcs to the C (who had finished AP Calc BC and doing Stats that year) the response I got - that is silly, Thatās not how it works! 
Just to clarify, I may have used a wrong adjective for ingenuity (meaning clever, sophisticated etc) in reference to your calculations. The adjective seems to have different concoctions from the noun form, realized while checking for the spelling but then it was too late to edit. Hopefully you havenāt misunderstood.
No worries @rk2017
When I first started doing this as a mental exercise, I did something like you have indicated - only to realize that the approach only took q and not both p and q.
Probably your C was right!
Ideally, we should do conditional probability ā probability of getting accepted conditional on getting an interview.
Also, the probabilities may change based on GPA and MCAT scores and other factors.
I have no inclination at this stage to build a complicated model.
Hopefully, the above simple model highlights an approach and right conclusions.