When I’m talking about shortcuts, I’m not talking about the watering down of courses (1 sem. Organic Chem vs. 2 sem. Organic Chem). I’m referring to leaving out of certain courses. 2 semesters of of General Physics or 2 semesters of General Biology. Now one can argue whether these courses are necessary, but most medical schools have deemed it necessary to understand and master concepts taught in these courses, before proceeding to more complex basic science coursework.
By “handicapping”, I mean non-transferable. Step 1 is certainly not asking you about Sn1 and Sn2 reactions.
@IMGDAD your sentiments are correct - if a kid goes there, he/she better realize that the options outside that degree program get more limited the longer the stay.
Interesting about the PSU/Jefferson program. So, where do the students get their hours for their BS/BA degrees? Do they get the credits from the preclinical science courses (dual credits) or do they have very heavy medical school schedule in which they have to combine the usual medical courses with the rest of the courses needed to get their BS/BA degrees? If it is the former, the notion of a well-rounded UG experience will be out of the window. If it is the latter, the final four years of the 6-year program will be very heavy.
You’re looking at 80 credits done in the first 2 years with the summers, probably another +25-30 from AP credit. I think the Miami prog let people walk at UG graduation with slightly less than 120 credits (probably granted the final needed credits from 1st yr of med school)
@Roentgen, I already have Calc 1, 2, General Bio 1, 2, General Physics 1, 2, Sociology, Psychology, Physiology, Medical Terminology, Human Biology, etc.
@Johnny H, at UMKC you can choose from a variety of majors. Including biology and chemistry. As well as minors if you have time for them. I am still trying to decide on my minor. The new core undergraduate curriculum at UMKC is pretty cool because it focuses on a lot of interdisciplinary topics. This was introduced into the curriculum last year and every major has to take these courses.
The curriculum is greatly condensed, regardless of whether you bring in credit or not. The program runs year around for 6 years, with no break in coursework. That by definition is condensed, when the 4+4 traditional route has summers in undergrad, in which you do no official coursework. More highly-regarded Bachelor/MD programs (not just for those who want to do lab research - which is almost no one besides those doing MD/PhDs) are longer for a reason. They’re not stupid to do this. I never said the MD part “skips” something. All US MD medical schools in the U.S. have to meet the minimum requirements to be accredited. That doesn’t mean they all approach those requirements well or in the same way, or the quality of those courses/rotations is equivalent, or whether courses run in a good timeframe. Being accredited means you checked off the right boxes. Schools also highly differ greatly in the opportunities and resources that are available to students. Also, why you think Biology students are required to take Botany or Horticulture when there are TONS of other Biology electives that are helpful for med school is beyond me.
I’m glad we agree, General Biology is a deficiency (as is General Physics, which you conveniently left out - unless you believe that class is worthless - which you’ll learn in Physiology it is not). As I said, medical schools, which have experience in these things, believe these courses are good foundations to have before beginning basic science coursework. I tend to believe them. Why you believe I was referring specifically to your personalized case is beyond me.
Like I said, I got the specialty I specifically was going for. That doesn’t make my arguments any more or any less valid. I know it’s quite easy for you to just slap on the label of being “discontented”, so you can try to easily dismiss my arguments by throwing ad hominems. Whether you wish to believe it now or not, undergraduate education is more than just an obstruction to pass through to make it to medical school and it’s a lot more than just checking off boxes on completed coursework. If that was the case, med schools would just have you finish the premed requirements and just hop on over into medical school. There’s a reason that medical schools want students with a well-rounded college education, not just premed drones. Those type of people make for much better doctors and tend to be more mature (something you’re greatly lacking, I must say). The profession of Medicine isn’t just science on a human body. It’s a LOT more than that.
You seem to feel a great obligation to defend your family members as they graduated from UMKC’s program, that you feel you have to defend the program at all costs, which you seem to take grave personal offense to. For most people, they aren’t as lucky as you are to have physician alumni parents who are able to fork over a lot of tuition money just for the chance to get to whimsically “evaluate these things on your own”. This isn’t a test drive of a car.
If you have to say, “imagine that you are skipping your first two years of college and you have to hope that what you accomplished in high school (and the summer before the program) are enough to make up for those lost two years,” as some sort of enticement, I don’t know what to tell you, as most people don’t want ride their entire bets on a “hope” esp. with tuition as high as it is. Even with AP coursework for introductory level courses and transfer courses, there is no way you can reproduce the first 2 years of the UMKC BA/MD program. High school even with the most rigorous curriculum won’t be able to reproduce a 4 year college degree. I don’t remember where I said transferable credit is limited at UMKC. If you could point this out, let me know.
@IMGDAD, what do you mean where do they get their hours for their degrees? They complete 2 years of full-time undergraduate classes only coursework and receive their B.S. degree after the 1st year of med school. UMKC also does the same thing in which certain medical school courses count towards the requirements of the Liberal Arts degree which you don’t get until Year 6.
There are other Bachelor degrees available: Chem, Bio, Psych, Socio, Communication Studies, etc. which require even more incoming credit in order for you to have that option. Even then, these undergraduate degree requirements are watered down for 6 year med students so it can fit within the 6 semesters that you have to do undergrad work: Fall/Winter/Summer, Fall/Winter, and then one more semester in Year 4. Essentially, specific university depts. make exceptions for the School of Medicine to not have to fulfill certain requirements so it can be crammed into the BA/MD program.
@Johnny H, you’re right the “Elementary” Organic course at transfers nowhere, and definitely won’t fulfill premed requirements. I think it was done bc it was difficult to try to cram in Organic before starting Biochem, but yes, it does effectively “lock” you into the program. Same for Biochem - since it’s not an undergraduate taught course (it’s a Biochem course specifically for UMKC med students), if you transfer, it is completely up to the institution to grant you degree credit if at all (most likely not).
Most do the Liberal Arts (BLA) degree not bc they want to, but because it’s just the easiest way to fill the Med school’s requirement of getting an undergrad degree, since most people there are for the MD degree, with such limited time in which you are allowed to take undergrad classes, it’s just the easiest way to finish it in the time allotted, without extending.
For the undergrad years, the TOTAL credit hrs. you’re taking per semester are inflated, bc the “med school” pass/fail courses make up anywhere from 5-7 hrs. They aren’t necessarily blowoffs, as they do take away time from your studying for graded classes. The number of credit hours is usually based on the number of contact hours you meet during the week. So for example LBMS and Med Term meet about 1 hr. a week so they’re 1 credit hr. Fundamentals of Medicine meets about 5 hrs. a week total, so it’s 5 credit hrs. The hours for HSF essentially counts towards the science hours of the Liberal Arts degree. The individual credit hours of classes is not inflated.
@IMGDAD, the undergraduate degree major at Penn State is actually Premedicine (which is usually different from most universities as premed is a course of study, not a degree plan). That being said, at UMKC, Liberal Arts is an empty major that fits in to the BA/MD program and not a “real” major. If it tells you anything, the Liberal Arts degree at UMKC can be done completely online. Hardly taxing.
Out of those, only UMKC, NEOUCOM, and Penn State-Jefferson still have 6 yr programs most likely due to long standing tradition. The rest have either increased the number of years to 7/8 or have cancelled the program altogether.
@Roentgen, I do not believe that anyone would disagree with you that ALL accelerated programs (6 or 7 years) will have deficiencies of some kinds, compared to the traditional 4+4 or a 4+4 combined program. You do not get something for nothing. The question is whether the deficiencies are significant or not in terms of the ability to be an “all rounded” physician and the ability to complete the medical degree. The other question is whether the “deficiencies” are real “deficiencies” and the 4 years of UG taken by the other students are just “overkill”. Everyone knows that doing courses in the summer sessions is also not exactly the same as doing the courses in the Fall or Spring semesters. So, it is difficult to be sure if the UMKC program is deficient or not, except that a student doing the UG courses at UMKC BA/MD program may find it difficult to transfer the credits to the traditional 4+4 programs.
I also note that you mentioned that “the Liberal Arts degree at UMKC an be done completely online. Hardly taxing”. I wonder if you have any idea why then is the attrition rate so high?
@IMGDAD, like I said, undergraduate coursework, esp. premed requirements serve as a foundation for basic science coursework. When you skip or water down those, it’s difficult to assess whether that student will be able to handle and master much harder basic science classes.
I thought it was clear but apparently not: That 20% attrition rate is for people who leave the combined program without getting an MD at UMKC. So out of a class of 100 students that enter, at least 20 students will leave the program without graduating with an MD.
The liberal arts coursework isn’t tough for anyone. The high attrition results more from running year long with no real “break” from coursework from age 18 to 24, the cramming of requirements in a very short period of time, and the taking of shortcuts in which students hop into more advanced coursework without getting to lay down a strong foundation with lower-level coursework.
For example: Taking Genetics without taking Biology I and II with labs. For all other undegrad students, they can not enroll in Genetics, without taking and passing Bio I and II. Yes, one can take AP Biology in high school, but #1 - not everyone has that available in their high school, and #2 - high school AP Bio classes are usually not as rigorous as the college Introductory Bio courses (which is why most med schools don’t accept AP Bio for credit, or if they do, they require you to take an upper level Bio course with a grade). If it tells you anything, even UMKC doesn’t accept the AP Biology exam even if you get a ‘5’.
@IMGDAD, I agree that summer semesters are shorter than Fall/Winter, but when it’s done consistently, where coursework that’s important is done in a summer such as Cell Biology or Pharmacology, ends up being a class in which you don’t get enough time to study, allow your brain to process, and store the information over the long term. You just end up memorizing it for the test and then dumping it the next day.
@Roentgen, your insights are very interesting. I would like to make the following points:
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Actually thinking about it, I do not think an attrition rate of 20% at UMKC is that high. I remember when I took my daughter for her interview at RPI/AMC BS/MD program a couple of years ago, we were told by the student at RPI told us that for her year, they started with 15 students and after just one year, they were left with only 11 students, nearly a 30% attrition rate. It would be interesting to find out what the attrition rates in the other programs are. They are obviously going to be higher than the 4+4 traditional program since many doing UG in Pre-Med will drop out and hence not counted and those in med schools represent a pre-selected group of students who have already survived the UG challenges and still not be put off.
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Most of those who dropped out of the UMKC program did so in the first two years, hence during their “UG” years. You have, maybe correctly, blamed it on the need to do summer courses and hence without any break. However, students at the PSU program also have to do summer courses and my daughter at the BU program will also be needed to do summer courses.
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I think it would be wrong to say that the UMKC program is better than the other accelerated programs, especially the other 6-year programs. Equally it would be unfair to say that the program is below par. All we can say is that, a medical school that preferentially takes in-state students are generally at risk for taking students who are less familiar with the competition in the real world and tend to accept that staying in-state is good enough. As a result, they tend to stay in-state even after completing their medical degree since their friends and families are all in-state. Nothing wrong with that and they certainly should not be viewed as being inferior.
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Don’t forget that students leaving the program are not always due to grades. Sometimes it’s the student changing their mind about their future, student not liking the school, and sometimes unfortunately it’s finances. A school’s matriculation rates in any one year are not indicative of another year either. Each batch varies by the students. Only one person from my D’s group at RPI has left and supposedly it was because he wanted a different undergrad experience closer to home but who knows right? One out of 13 is not bad.
Nevertheless, these numbers are something to consider. 20% may not be high but it’s still significant but without knowing the reasons it’s not that useful.
So how many does UMKC accept?
I would like to know in recommending future students from our schoo.
For my year, I think a decent number left and probably 30-40% extended. Plenty stayed in-state because they simply couldn’t make it out. I was most surprised at the extreme ends of performance - a few people were consistent studs and others stumbled within the first semester. For some reason, I came in thinking that 80-90% were going to be solid throughout the 6.
According to the article, attrition in the first 2 years is 20.6%. Attrition in the last 4 years is 4.8% (this was from 2007). So that means in an original class of 100 –> 79 –> 75 people from the original class graduate. Unlike other programs, UMKC’s entire school is built around being a Bachelor/MD school. UMKC 4+4 students only come in to fill in the holes left from attriution. It’s not like other programs where the Bachelor/MD kids join the regular 4+4 kids to form the final class.
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<li>You are incorrect about this. In the UMKC program, there is no concrete separation between the undergraduate part and the medical school part. Your GPA runs from Year 1 to Year 6. By the end of Year 2, students have completed Biochem, Gross Anatomy, Histology, Embryology, and Physiology. These are all medical school basic science courses, not undergrad classes. So students aren’t leaving during the “undergraduate part” only at UMKC. They’re leaving during the medical school part as well.</li>
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At PSU, if you do the 6 year program you get 1 summer off before starting med school. If you do the 7 yr program at PSU, you get all your summers off before starting medical school. At UMKC, if you extend to 7 yrs, you still have to continue to go to school year around, you can’t get your summer off.
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<li>Out of all the 6 year programs available, Penn State/Jefferson Medical College is superior. UMKC is definitely not as good as the 2 other med schools in Missouri: WashU (private) and Mizzou (state flagship). It’s also an unranked medical school nationally both in research and in primary care.</li>
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My understanding is at UMKC out of a 100 that are taken - only 60 are in-state and 40 are regional/out-of-state. Even then, the specialties and the institutions that UMKC students match at aren’t really that great considering the caliber of student they’re recruiting.
If you look at Internal Medicine (IM) which is UMKC’s forte since they emphasize it a lot with required IM clinics and IM Docent Rotation in Yrs. 3-6, even in that non-competitive specialty, the institutions aren’t that top notch. There will be exceptions of course, i.e. the ones that are AOA. However, if you look at other med schools, with similar pools like UMKC, you’ll see that they match students in a lot more competitive specialties and a lot more high caliber institutions even in non-competitive specialties (and not just those who are AOA) and the match lists bear this out.
@Midhelper, according to the article, the attrition statistic is from 1970 through 2005. It’s not just from one year. According to their website their incoming class this year is 109 students: <a href=“http://med.umkc.edu/bamd/faqs/”>http://med.umkc.edu/bamd/faqs/</a>. It’s usually around a 100 students a year, give or take.
I don’t know anyone who leaves the school due only to finances as most people have already budgeted and decided how they will pay for it: whether it’s cash from parents, loans, military scholarship obligation, etc. long before they decide to accept. Those circumstances based on finances are quite rare, once one has made the decision to come.