If you have passion effort does not feel like grind
HS school is tender age and exposure counts Again these kids have to find the passion and I assume that are showing in interviews and I assume they really mean it
Medicine is long journey than CS and earnings come late they have to be patient.
Agreed. MD is long journey and patience is rewarding.
We are talking same thing, but amount of studying in medicine and hours that needs to be spent for some of the specialties are not comparable to other fields, except may be for music and law.
I agree lot of studying and sacrifices
This is where medicine differs from computer science or engineering or law or management consulting.
Your specialty more or less define your earning power in medicine.
A family medicine physician from Harvard will typically earn less than a neurosurgeon from any medical college.
And 8th grader kids who had GME jackpots are already millionaires while many in debt for rest of life!!
So are we talking $$$ only in MD or there is human passion unlike other fields.
It is very difficult question to answer about how USMLE step 1 becoming pass and fail, and the consequence of that on our kids to match well from a BSMD program.
The short answer is I donât know since we donât have any data from the change.
However, I think step 2 will become much much more important factor, and thus creating more anxiety right before the match season.
Folks, I have stated before, we need our kids to decide for themselves in selecting their paths.
They might even want to change their career paths during college, after college or even during medical school. People even change their specialties as well.
One example of this scenario was a RPI/Albany student, who transferred to Yale. He is currently a law student at UC Berkeley after getting his MS from Oxford and working as an inventor at IBM. He has 24 patent disclosures, mostly in health-tech. This was possible because he followed his passion. With our son, we also let him follow his passion although it caused two major surgeries during his medical school. He has once told us that he could be in top 10 % of his class if he would study more, but he wanted to pursue his new sport. Ironically, he has incorporated his sport into his personal statement for his residency. During the time he was applying for colleges and BSMD programs, we let him choose the programs to apply and the final decision on the program to attend. He didnât even get out of our car when we reached a certain college. Even though I was furious, I respected his decision. Who knows how he would have enjoyed his journey at Cornell, Vanderbilt, Northwestern or Wash U? We donât know.
I will give another opposing real situations from the same high school.
One student chose to attend Brooklyn/SUNY Downstate program by forgoing an ivy acceptance. He is now a neurosurgeon in a community hospital and works as an assistant professor and researcher at Lenox Hill Hospital. Another student from same high school, chose MIT over Brooklyn/SUNY Downstate BSMD program. She is attending Harvard medical school after completing her Fulbright Scholarship in Germany. From these examples, they both chose ârightâ program.
One word of caution is that many students from regular high schools struggle in high tier undergraduate programs unless they were superstars at those schools. This is purely my observation from my patientsâ kids. Most kids from magnet high schools do well, albeit there are few failures. To sum it up, give your advise, but let them follow their passion. If your kids belong to @srk2017 kidâs stratosphere, they will succeed in any program, but if they are regular bright students, it might be more prudent for them to attend such schools as Case Western, U Pitt or U Maryland, where they could be one of top students to shine. Also, most likely they will also get merit scholarship.
This post should be part of every BSMD thread going forward!
I feel still the smart ones from any school will find the way. Getting selected in Harvard does mean my kid is smart in sciences than others which got in lower than T10 schools.
I think we should expose and let kids decide as they have to be accountable for the Journey.
For rankings of medical the only point that I see is self selection in top residency programs from their own medical school increasing still this should not discourage others as end of the day it depends what you bring to the table.
Thanks for your kind words about my kid. I never claim him to be in stratosphere but a kid who is focused and have clear goals. He went to a competitive HS which won nationally in various science competitions and he worked hard to get into those teams and performed. Same work ethic continued to Vandy and shows in the results. I mention him and few other kids from his HS to encourage other kids to not read too much into failure stories with no details an aim high.
I believe that an SAT or ACT was required and I submitted my ACT which was higher in comparison.
The question, I believe, was about the earning potential by going to âbrandâ name colleges.
My comment was addressed to that question.
Without passion, I believe, you cannot succeed in any profession.
I do not know if anyone can answer this but which would be a better choice: GW/GW or VCU GMED?
Big picture, both medical schools are mid-tier and similar in reputation so not a huge difference there in terms of opportunities after graduating if you ended up staying in the program. VCU is nice given flexibility to to apply out which I think makes it a little more compelling. Regarding the undergraduate experience and location, you probably have a better handle on what you prefer.
I think we as parent definitely thinks BSMD is a path and they will be doctor, no stress applying to med schools and no gap year and if they do not go to this path, the traditional path can change their mind to pursue something else or even pursue doctor with may be one or more gap years, but it is just our fear that what if they do not become doctor? and BSMD we know that they are set becoming a doctor. We had same situation for our son last year, but he picked UPenn out of BSMD that he was selected to as he followed his heart. And if we pushed him to go to BSMD and if something goes wrong it will come to us. So is better if they decided to go to that path is their own decision. Yes ofcourse the traditional path is going to hard and challenging. But either way you have to just take risks in life and see what happens.
If they chose not to become doctor for whatever reasons should we consider that as a failure? I know for ORMs Medicine and Engineering are considered success.
I thought about the career paths before high school when deciding what industry to pursue:
CS is not direct to consumer and relies on you being at the mercy of a tech company. That is, unless you do a start-up although the chance of success is very slim. Most software engineers make around 300K max. Very few breach this level of income unless you are exceptionally talented. Also, if you leave your current tech firm for another one, your income will revert back to base/entry level (150K).
Investment Bankers make a lot of money out of college but you work around 100 hours a week for the rest of your life. Residency is like this only for a short period of time (3-7 years). After that, the lifestyle of a doctor is around 50-60 hours per week. Only like the top 1% of bankers make 1-5 million. As an investment banker, you will have no time to pursue business opportunities outside your day job since the work hours are so burdensome.
Medicine is direct to consumer if you choose to go private practice (which I intend to do). Salary ranges from 200K-1.3M. Also, medicine is recession proof since demand for healthcare does not decrease. In 2008, many investment bankers were laid off and same for engineers. You will have time to pursue many business opportunities outside the clinic. My parents know many doctors who make 800K in private practice and have millions invested in real-estate and stocks.
Just for accuracy responding (and not trying to be critical of your post) since I understand you are not from TX state. UTSW never had any BS/MD programs for OOS. The only program they had for TX IS with UT Dallas which they stopped.
The program you are referring for your elder D is UT Houston (UG) had a program with UT Houston (Medicine) and UTMB (Galveston) BS/MD 5 seats each from any states which ended in the year 2017 (your elder applied).
UT Houston and UT SW for medical colleges are 2 distinct colleges.
Thank you, you are indeed right. I just checked emails and she was admitted to UT McGovern Medical School, not UTSW. She didnât feel at home in the UH BSMD program, so we didnât research it much but had assumed all along (till now actually) that it was UTSW and still turned it down. Goes to show ranking didnât matter to her cos she thought she was turning down a medical school ranked 24th when it seems to be unranked or ranked 52nd depending on where you look. I learnt something today 
How much do you guys think prestige of undergrad matters? Like mid-level âtopâ schools other than HYPS (think T50 or T100)? If HYPS and other T10/T25 schools are not an option, is it better to just go the state school route?