@ad2019…120-125 invites for interview sent and 20 are offered admission with few in wait-list at NU-HPME.
We are also waiting for an interview… the interviews are done in batches till end of Feb.
@NoviceDad can shed more light his DS is in the program.
Honestly, given the difficulty of getting into ANY US MD program, I find it hard to believe that any of these programs is subpar or that the quality of physicians will suffer at any of them. We are looking at significantly below 10% acceptances at every US medical school. Do you really think a student graduating with an MD from AMC will be at a large disadvantage? If a student wants to be a doctor more than anything in the world, I wouldn’t look down on an acceptance to any US school. On the other hand, if you are aiming for prestige, thats another matter.
@RedMan108 Please do your own due diligence and make your own decision. There is no validity in the ratio mentioned in the post by @NoviceDad even if you include Family Practice + Internal Medicine. It is a very subjective view of a residency matching data set. Everyone has a bias and sees things from their own perspective. All US medical schools ( accredited by LCME) are equally good. Here is the list of all US accredited medical school.
Does anyone know when NJMS will send out their final interview notifications? I know they’re sending them in batches…
@themedgirl1 You can call NJMS directly and inquire. That is your best bet…
This become a clear example of supply and demand. BS/MD seats relatively remain static w.r.t number of applicants that is keep increasing yoy. Just based on last year experience, we were shocked to realize that acceptance rate in prestige schools dropped 05~2% from year before, does that mean their education quality improve from previous year? certainly not.
If i compare this to engineering colleges, they are coming with innovative programs and using same infrastructure and few additional academic resources, able to expand/stretch a particular discipline (look at how many CS+X programs are introduced across country in just last few years). That is hard to be seen in medical field (sure it has its own reasons).
I am curious if anyone has complied simple statistics of BS/MD (non-traditional only, i am seeing about ~20 colleges on this thread) programs that includes number of applicants, interview invites, admission offered, enrolled into program. It will prove one point clearly, there isn’t much overall seats available to begin with, hence only 5% of MDs are coming from BS/MD route. If the BS/MD capacity increases, certain that acceptance rate would go up. However trend is opposite, more and more BS/MD programs are either shutting down or increasing tenure and makes less lucrative.
@PPofEngrDr There are board certifications after residency and specialization. One has to keep their certification current by taking re-certification examination periodically. These certifications are not formalities or cake walk.
Thank you @grtd2010 and @gallentjill
I am the last person to be intimidated by the prestige and subjective rankings, but I had to voice my opinion as I am tired of reading how good the BU/NU is, and how bad AMC and other programs are…
I am not a senior member like most of you but if asked for advice on choosing a college, I would say, visit the school, feel the vibe, look at the location, talk to current students, professors, consider the safety, finances and as a family discuss and make a decision on what makes sense…Period.
Try to help the seniors and parents if possible, don’t confuse…
Forget about ranking …it’s just ego booster.
@RedMan108 touché
@NoviceDad and others,
All these probing into ranking methodologies and proxies etc, finally piqued my interest and I calculated for the two med schools @NoviceDad mentioned, NU and BU. Sorry don’t have patience to do others.
At the outset, this is the first time I bothered to look at these match lists. Never bothered earlier, nor going to ask D to go after this specialization or that for any reason. Even if I do, I am pretty sure she will go with what she wants :-). As I mentioned earlier I wanted her to get into this top program in Quantitative Finance for undergrad with significant merit scholarship, instead of the BS/MD, but she wouldn’t listen.
@NoviceDad, correct me if I am wrong,
Primary Care umbrella = Internal Medicine + Family Med + Pediatrics + Obg/Gyn. I think you didn’t include Obg/Gyn in your calculation. I calculated the percentages by match lists for 2018 both with the 4 and 3 combinations (excluding Obg/Gyn).
As you rightly said, both BU and NU have similar distributions from 2018 Match list. By the way NU/Feinberg was a pain to go through, since they listed numbers separately by each specialization, I had to manually do all the work.
NU/Feinberg - Primary Care (with 4) → 61/159 ~ 38%; (With 3 i.e. removing 11 from Obg/Gyn) → 50/159 ~31%
BU SOM - Primary Care (with 4) → ~35%; (With 3) → 30% (Thank God they tabulated cleanly by specialty %ages)
It is just an exercise prompted by the discussions, not inferring anything by any means. I believe it all depends on the student how well he/she uses the opportunities around and where their heart takes them that decide who become great physicians of the future.
Looks like you haven’t been following the proceedings here for a while. I am the one who stressed AMC is a good well established program and not to be dissuaded by the faulty usnews rankings which excluded it from their rankings. You also seem to be repeating the same ideas that I wrote a couple of days ago, go check them out.
Still we have difference in Drs quality. I am sure that as parents we come across Drs that we deemed ‘not good’. I am not trying to minimize importance of board certification and recertification process, however to suggest that at end of that process, all Primary Care Drs are equal quality and so does all Drs within a specialty are equal quality, this is not car/cellphone manufacturing that every car/cellphone at end of mfg process meets quality standards of that manufacturer, hence product are equal quality and value.
@rk2017…@PPofEngrDr…@NoviceDad…@RedMan108…@grtd2010…so if you get into NU with no scholarship and in BU with 20K+ scholarship which one would you pick???
@sajju If finance is NOT an issue, go with your home town Chicago, NU- HPME. I would like kids to be near home.
You have to ask your kid about that :-). I would recommend visiting both the campuses and think over which place is more attractive to spend the next 7 years in, provided finances are not an issue. Both programs are great. I think NU only gives need based and not merit based.
Personally I think nothing can match Boston location though :-). As some one said you can walk over to Harvard medical school and be part of the activity there (right or wrong and not sure how many are doing that though). Go to the NIH link I shared few days back (courtesy @NoviceDad) and see how many institutions are involved in medical and life sciences research there. That is just NIH funding we are talking about, there may be a lot more funding from venture capital, other departments of the government and private funding. Sky is the limit in Boston.
@sajju786 finally we are talking next level of decision criteria besides this whole ranking hoopla. NU will cost you ~75K/year, don’t follow religiously east cost programs so no clue about BU costing, sure that its finance numbers are discussed numerous times b4.
Lol mine is a Y2K bug too…
Since I know you know the answer already, I will respond to this in a lighter note…
If my DS/D is in BU, I would say go to BU
If my DS/D is in NU, I would say go to NU
Since I am not a parent with kids in BSMD, If you ask me…I would say, talk to your son and ask where he wants to go and why, see if $20K matter to you as a family, look at cost/benefit/risk and decide as a family 
There is no right or wrong answer and you cannot go wrong with any decision.
Re: Rankings
Any ranking set by nature reflects the bias of the person/ entity putting it.
What criteria determines why a stock is included in the Dow Jones Industrial Index or how “good” a medical school is?
Quality of a medical school education is relatively more opaque than say engineering schools as @PPofEngrDr mentioned.
When someone asks - “how good is this medical school?”, I interpret this as a question on “relative” quality of that school.
So, if one wants to understand how is AMC relative to Rochester or relative to BU, one has to compare.
However, if one does NOT have a choice, comparison do not matter. If you are admitted to one medical school, you choice boils down to either accepting it or not. At that point, comparing to any other school is probably meaningless.
But if you have multiple acceptances and are trying to find out more about the quality of education, then you will have to compare (just as you would compare costs).
You can compare research dollars of the university, residency matches, number of students, student:faculty ratio, and a number of other things.
They say for example student faculty ratio is 13:1 and then you find 150 students in your chemistry class - so much for that ratio. “Star” researchers can skew the research data.
For me, the MOST OBJECTIVE information a medical school puts regarding its STUDENTS is the residency match list.
Other objective factors like financial costs and Subjective factors - like vibe of the school - are extremely important in the selection of a school.
But they do NOT give you a sense of quality.
If you want place emphasis on research dollars, be my guest.
If you want to make a call to your physician and then decide, be my guest.
If you want to rely on US News rankings, be my guest.
If you want to toss a coin and select, be my guest.
But if you ask me - “how is this medical school?” - I will point you to the residency match list.
Again - which college you choose is entirely your choice. How you choose it is also entirely your choice.
Please NOTE - this is an open forum with people expressing their OPINION of what they think is the best and what may have worked for them or their children or what they have observed.
@grtd2010 may have another viewpoint and may disagree with me which is fine - There may be something we can learn from that.
@rk2017 brings valid points on published rankings.
@PPofEngrDr brings a crucial perspective on opaqueness of Information from medical schools.
I am sharing perspectives based on my knowledge and understanding.
But no one here is trying to confuse anyone.
:-), No not Y2k bug, slightly missed it by few months (99 born)