@mscrystal, so I’m guessing applicants will know closer to the 29th and 30th of this month? Wow, I’m actually very surprised, they’re really culling thru those applications. I would have thought they would let people know at least before Christmas.
@mscrystal @Roentgen Hopefully we know before Christmas!
Hi @NervousDad01, so I think it’s great that you’re asking these questions on behalf of your son. I imagine you will be heavily involved in some way with respect to finances, whether that is paying with cash on hand, student loans, etc. That being said, I think your questions are also important for in-state students as well, as even $176 K just for tuition alone, is nothing to sneeze at. There are a LOT more Bachelor/MD programs available these days that run the entire spectrum, so it really helps to do your research on these programs and know their strengths/weaknesses and what you are compromising on (some programs you aren’t compromising much, others you’re compromising quite a bit).
I will try to answer your questions, and give my take. As a relatively new father myself (my son was born this year), and someone who was also out-of-state, I understand how you feel, so feel free to ask any further questions you might have about the program, so that everyone can benefit. I really suggest reading @blugrn6’s responses carefully again, regarding the real compromises you make by attending this program. It’s very much on point. I’ll answer your last question first since it’s slightly more complicated.
@NervousDad01, so let me answer your last question first:
So you are correct, we don’t know exactly how physicians will be affected since the entire law has not taken affect yet and there are some regulations that have to be interpreted, but there are overall arching themes some of which have already taken effect. It gets quite complicated so I’ll limit it to several basic points. Obamacare (the ACA) is the biggest overhaul of medicine since the invention of Medicare in 1965, so it’s definitely a law that will impact every practicing physician, so to say that nothing will really change for physicians is not true at all.
Here are the overall goals of Obamacare:[ol]
[]First, have most if not everyone insured, whether public or private, with no one left out: Public - Medicare (people over 65), Medicaid (the poor which is defined differently state by state), SCHIP (children in low-income families); Private - the usual private health insurance companies you read about Humana, Aetna, Cigna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, etc.; Also, unlike the way insurance usually works, you can’t be denied a plan because of pre-existing conditions (much different than say home insurance or car insurance, you can’t buy home insurance when your house is currently on fire, you can’t buy car insurance at the same time you just got in an accident). Problem is this all costs more money, whether it’s people paying higher monthly premiums or raising taxes overall (both of which have happened). Even then it still does not cover 100% of the public.
[]Bring total healthcare costs for the country down since it is starting to crowd out the rest of the federal budget - Education, Energy, etc. (this usually means paying hospitals, doctors, etc. LESS for their services for patients). This has happened with Medicare (65 and older only) in which their care overall is relatively expensive and the govt. decreases how much it pays for services. This is why it is difficult for Medicare patients to find a new physician: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/02/business/retirementspecial/02health.html
[]Pay providers differently than currently and make them more responsible for healthcare costs and keeping the population healthy – again this really goes with #2 for the overall goal of bringing healthcare costs down.
[]Have more of patient’s issues dealt with primary care initially, rather than having them wait to the point to where it has gotten so severe they have no choice but to need a specialist or subspecialist, again goes with #2. As a general rule, specialist care is more expensive than generalist care.
[li]Overall, no longer paying for care that is deemed relatively futile (who decides what is futile here is tricky) — end of life ICU care, chemotherapy for a terminal cancer that won’t add that much onto life (if you’re a big policy wonk, you can look up something called the IPAB (Independent Payment Advisory Board), which would decide what to pay hospitals/doctors for certain types of care, when health care costs exceed a certain target growth rate. Now, if you want to pay out of pocket, that’s a whole different thing, but this is referring to a third party payer (an insurance company whether that’s public or private).[/ol][/li]So how does this affect physicians? Depends on specialty, but overall it would decrease physician salaries. Which would just increase the number of patients that doctors would have to see in a day. That’s why your visits these days with your primary care doctors tend to be very short at 15 minute intervals even if you have an actual problem and it’s not just a followup visit, and he/she is zipping out of rooms. He/she doesn’t really have a choice, if he/she is on hospital contract to see x number of patients a day, or in private practice where he/she has to see a certain number of patients to keep the lights on.
Right now, for the most part, physicians overall are paid on a fee-for-service basis, kind of like your dentist. So for everything your doctor does, your doctor is paid a certain amount that is negotiated in advance by the insurance company and your doctor (if in private practice), or the insurance company and your hospital (if you work for a hospital). So physicians that are more procedural in nature (Derm, Ophtho, Ortho, Anesthesia, ENT, etc.) tend to do better than mainly non-procedural specialties (Family Med, Internal Med w/no fellowship, Peds w/no fellowship, Psychiatry for the most part). This will definitely change by the time your son practices medicine as a physician, where fee-for-service will mostly disappear, if not be completely gone. It would be done more a payment as “bundled payments” (http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/advocacy/state-advocacy-arc/state-advocacy-campaigns/private-payer-reform/state-based-payment-reform/evaluating-payment-options/bundled-payments.page), or “capitation”: (http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/advocacy/state-advocacy-arc/state-advocacy-campaigns/private-payer-reform/state-based-payment-reform/evaluating-payment-options/capitation.page), if you’re interested in finding out more.
So to summarize, in terms of financially how Obamacare, as it is colloquially known as, will affect physicians, it will impact them in a more negative way overall. This is much different than Medicare, when it first started, where overall Medicine as a profession did very well, since the govt. then initially absorbed all the costs for healthcare for 65+ year olds, who tend to need more care overall, and get more specialized care, before the govt. then started cutting back on reimbursements which then affect different specialties.
@NervousDad01,
So I can only speak for when I attended the program, but I don’t think there were a huge number of students whose family vehemently forced them to either come to this program or else, without at least some level of genuine interest in either science or medicine, at least in the beginning, on the part of the student. Was it highly encouraged? Sure. Medicine is considered to be a very learned profession (not the only one, by far). Many students’ families come from countries where there is still a high prestige factor for medicine, a high reverence for physicians and their medical advice to the patient public, etc. (although the reality is really quite different here in the United States). There also may be a huge cultural influence at play or due to inherent individual self-esteem/pipe dream factors (i.e. “my life will be so much better than what it is now, if I just do this program and become a doctor”).
It’s so very easy for even the brightest high school students, with very limited life experience, to get so wrapped up in these inherently biased or flawed perceptions. I tend to compare it to the feelings of the main character in the movie, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, when Charlie finally finds that last “golden ticket” in a chocolate Wonka bar. It isn’t too far off of a comparison when it comes to how high school seniors feel when they find out that they got an acceptance to this program.
For an outsider (and their families), in looking at the UMKC BA/MD program, it seems very “rational” in terms of the purported “positives”: it’s a straight shot - 6 years total after high school, graduate at 23/24 with your Bachelor’s and MD w/2 years saved up, and head straight to residency, finish residency, become an attending physician, and live happily ever after. The type of students that are attracted by this program are very Type A in nature, so for these type of students at 18 years old, having a pathway already set for you, and taking out what feels like a major hoop at the time (premed), is very enticing.
In terms of misconceptions coming in, I think @blugrn6 hits a lot of the major ones, and a lot of that has to do with what your expectations are of what you think medicine is and what you think it will do for you.
Other misconceptions that I think people in my class had that I remember:[ol]
[]the hardest part of the pathway in becoming a full-fledged practicing physician is getting into medical school (not true at all - esp. if you’re interested in going for certain specialties)
[]the traditional pathway is a “waste” of time (many reasons why this is just not true, and there are certain learning moments which are very applicable and frequent later in medical school – i.e. standardized test taking, how to study better, etc.) or that the MCAT is just SO very difficult when it comes to getting into med school (I can’t imagine how one would feel about the USMLE, a much harder exam in med school, if the MCAT is thought to be very difficult if not impossible).
[]that you can only be realistically monetarily successful in life if you become a physician (not even close to being true, in fact there are studies and calculations that show that on average, taking into account - the amount of med school debt that you have to pay off, extra years of opportunity cost after college of being a student while most people are working, etc. on average (of all specialties), becoming a physician gives you AT MOST a relatively moderate upper middle class lifestyle, but not the “in-your-wildest dreams” riches that many tend to think – yes, there are exceptions. There will always be “hit by lightning” exceptions. But most of us end up following the rule rather than the exception here. This is not even taking into account the separate issue of the high number of work hours that physicians tend to work in general, compared to people in other professions who also tend to do quite well.
[]That somehow the combined 6 year program in Missouri is “easier” compared to a traditional 4 year medical school program.[/ol]
I think it’s also common for high achieving students who enter the program to concentrate on the class lectures, bookwork, and taking exams part, and not pay as much attention to the very real, daily clinical medicine part – Year 5 graded clerkships, internship, residency, fellowship, etc. as well as the affect this will all have on you and your family while you’re a student and in residency/fellowship training, your personal life, your work-life balance etc. Too often I’ve seen students in the program, who thought that somehow because they were good at studying, memorizing, and taking exams, that it meant they were destined to become physicians, and that this would translate immediately into their clinical clerkship rotation performance. While they have some similarities, the abilities to excel in both areas is quite different.
I do think students enter the program genuinely believing that the medicine pathway (specifically becoming a fully board-certified practicing physician, vs. say becoming an NP or a PA) is the only pathway for them initially based on their very limited experience that they have. After all, they’re good at math and science (as demonstrated by their grades in math/science usually AP/Honors level courses), so why not shoot for the stars right? That’s usually not the whole picture though and I think often this results in problems later, since they make matriculation decisions based on that limited picture. See section A of @blugrn6’s post, but again this has to do with very little day-to-day exposure of the daily life of a physician – seeing patients, working in an academic hospital, being on call, etc. It’s hard to appreciate that if you’re a student who shadows coming in at 9 am and going home at 5 pm.
As @blugrn6 mentioned, I do think there is a HUGE disillusionment factor, especially in the Year 5 clinical clerkship year, when students figure out that being a physician, wasn’t the bed of roses, that they initially made it out to be, and that it’s lost a lot of its shine. And as @blugrn6 points out, it’s VERY difficult to then leave at the end of like Year 5, when you’ve already accumulated so much debt. It’s just so much easier to leave by the end of Year 2, just because it’s a lot shallower hole to climb out of. So as @blugrn6, mentioned, if you decide later than that, often students feel trapped since they’ve already made it so far. What I said just now doesn’t apply if your family is financially affluent and/or has money to burn. But this program will have a different financial risk profile for every single person, depending on their current finances as it is now.
This combined program, just based on how the curriculum is structured, is not for people who aren’t sure whether 150% committing to becoming a physician is the right pathway, or have serious doubts (we all have doubts at sometime, it just depends what those doubts are). The assumption already made is that you’ve ruled out every other possible profession for yourself, which is a Catch-22 problem, as most 18 year olds just don’t have those life experiences at such a young age, so you can’t really make an informed decision on something you haven’t experienced.
@NervousDad01, Congrats on making it thru this entire, now 323 pages, thread. That’s a very huge feat in itself, lol. I don’t recommend reading it all in one sitting ever – high risk of charley horses, leg blood clots, etc. lol. I’ll answer several (5) of the questions you have posed in this particular question.
In general, if you were to look at UMKC’s mean (average) board scores over several years, not just 1 or 2 years (as you would then likely have giant fluctuations which isn’t accurate), they have tended to be lower than what the national mean is, especially on USMLE Step 1. There may be very exceptional years to where that particular Year 4 class is scoring at the national mean or is a little bit above the national mean, but this isn’t a consistent characteristic or trend and is more indicative of that particular class. Contrast this with Mizzou’s board scores: http://medicine.missouri.edu/docs/StepScoreGraphs.pdf, where their USMLE board score averages tend to consistently run above, if not way above, the national average.
Our board score averages also will be lower when you compare them to better medical schools in the country (and I’m not even talking about the top-tier and/or Ivy League medical schools that you see in USWNR rankings). The average USMLE Step 1 score nationally for 2012 was 227. The average USMLE Step 2 CK score nationally for 2012 was 237: https://www.med-ed.virginia.edu/handbook/academics/licensure.cfm. You can look at the 2012 USMLE Step 1 averages for different schools here: http://www.best-medical-schools.com/Missouri.html. The average USMLE score data from that website, I believe are from its survey in 2013 (so scores are actually from 2012: https://anastomosed.■■■■■■■■■■■■■/2014/03/15/step-1-scores-at-top-schools-2012/), and most likely come from US World News and Report, if you were to pay for a Compass account subscription. Just FYI, UMKC continues to refuse to participate in the US World News and Report medical school rankings and thus does not submit any of its data. I honestly don’t know the real reason behind this decision - and the excuse of “Well, we’re a 6 year medical program” doesn’t really hold water here, since all medical schools in the country are evaluated in the same way on different aspects, since all of us in medical school take standardized boards, the same required clerkships for the most part, apply for residency in the same system, etc.
So this is what has changed in the UMKC med curriculum starting just this year, in Year 3: https://www.umkc.edu/majormaps/maps/2015-2016/SOM_BLA_MD_2015_2016.pdf
Pathology is now stretched out over a full year (Path I takes place in Fall, Path II in Spring), Med Neuro stayed in the Fall, Med Micro moved to the Spring, and the Clinical Skills course is now moved to the Spring so it matches up with the organ-system pathologies you’d be learning about in Path II (or at least that is how it is us supposed to work in theory). Other than that, everything else has stayed the same in the curriculum: Biochem has always been Fall Year 2 (although the course director who has taught for decades has finally retired and a new course director has been hired and taken over), Human Structure Function I-IV is still the same time period and sequence, Pharmacology is still taught June/July or Oct/Nov depending on which course you are placed in, which is only 2 months in duration.
As @blugrn6 mentioned, the school does try to change things in the curriculum, sometimes has a lot, some, little, or no impact. Do I think it really changes things for BA/MD students in terms of their resulting Step 1 score? No. I’ll give my honest opinion on why this is – The truth of the matter is that scores aren’t as good as they could be since a) the curriculum doesn’t allow BA/MD students to have a very strong science foundation to begin with, to help before taking more advanced courses later on and b) the overall educational/teaching quality of the basic science faculty and course exams given (if you averaged all courses), when it comes to actually preparing BA/MD students for their boards (outside of independent study which every student does anyways), isn’t that great. The one glaring exception is Med Micro but that course director has also written actual board questions for the organization that writes our licensing exams: http://med.umkc.edu/docs/omc/panoramapdfs/panorama-winter_2008b.pdf (Page 4) so he actually knows what he is doing. Basic science education has always been an issue for UMKC’s med school, so this isn’t really anything new.
Overall, on average, I don’t think that UMKC BA/MD students are “stupid” in terms of actual raw intelligence (I’ll leave out varying definitions as to what constitutes “intelligence”, but for this discussion let’s just define it as having the ability to process, think, and analyze information and facts). There definitely are other issues that are probably more a problem in the BA/MD population at UMKC, than if you had went to a traditional 4 year medical school, but intelligence and drive are not one of them. A good argument could be made that students coming thru the program now, are actually smarter than ever before, as you’re recruiting more students outside of Missouri (with regional now added to the mix), as well as getting more valedictorians/salutorians, National Merit Scholars, etc. who are very attracted to UMKC by the 6 year aspect.
It’s also very difficult to make huge changes in the curriculum just because you have to fit in the Bachelor degree requirements in there and you have to have a fair promotion policy as you progess thru the program. if say certain students don’t pass a particular segment and have to repeat it. A huge curriculum upheaval doesn’t happen like you would think, as the medical school has to work within the constraints of having enough hours to justify the university giving a Bachelor degree, as well as meeting the requirements for the MD degree, AND they have to do this while effectively taking out a full 2 years of coursework.
I mean I don’t think UMKC should suddenly change and make everyone take Organic Chem I & II + labs both semesters (that would be utterly useless with no added value), but I do think students would greatly benefit in taking more undergraduate science courses to lay a better foundation, whether that’s General Bio and General Physics (like every other med student has taken) or alternatively, like an undergraduate-level biochemistry or histology course, or an undergraduate human physiology course on campus, before then hitting the hard med school material that is a lot more detailed. It would be an easier transition just based on familiarity of the material alone.
But again, it’s very hard to fit all this in a 6 year program (in which the total length has stayed mainly due to tradition since 1971, when so many other combined programs have increased to 7 years, if not the full 8 years) which is already packed to capacity. Overall, the curriculum of the 6 year program at UMKC, doesn’t lend itself to a very well-rounded, vibrant undergraduate education – that’s one of the compromises you’re making by coming here.
@Roentgen Just a quick question. My September ACT score was a 26, but my December ACT score jumped to a 32 (with 35 in math and 36 in science). Will that help my admission at all (or should I mention that during interview (if I get one))?
You should contact the school and send them a supplemental score report. Just say that you recently got your new score report that was not available at the time of application and request that it be added to your file.
26 to 32 is a huge jump. And if I remember correctly 32 is now in the 99th percentile for ACT, which is the test UMKC prefers to use compared to SAT, so I think it will most definitely help your case.
@duravative, yes, I 100% agree with Blugrn6. See the website: http://med.umkc.edu/bamd/admission-requirements-eligibility/
Call admissions NOW (816-235-1870) and email them NOW as well (medicine@umkc.edu), since tomorrow is Christmas Eve. Let them know that you took the ACT in December and received your score back of 32 vs. before of 26, so your app should be considered in this new light. I agree with @blugrn6, a jump from 26 to 32 is HUGE. Fax them the score report you have now (816-235-6579), as well as call the test company and have them one-day fax/mail an official score report to UMKC School of Medicine. They say the latest test score accepted for initial app review is October, but you have too big a jump in this case, to not have this count as to whether you receive an interview or not, especially since you said you are a regional student.
Thank you both @blugrn6 and @Roentgen, for your great, deep answers and for going out of way to helping applicants and their nervous parents. @Roentgen, additional congratulations and blessings to your newborn son as well. More than anything I just want my son to be happy and give him what I didn’t have in life, and I’m willing to do anything that I humanly can to do so. I hope you both understand. But it’s really difficult for me to give him unbiased advice on what exactly to do.
If you have an idea how to approach the financial aspect of paying for the program that would be great. Do most people just take loans for the full cost of attendance or receive scholarships of some kind? I know there are some programs out there that offer to pay for tuition as well. If he decides to go, we’ll hire a financial analyst like you said to see how it would work out exactly, but just trying to get an idea.
@Blugrn6 @Roentgen Thank you for your answers. I justed called the admission, score is updated, and everything is good! 
@duravative, Wonderful! Glad they updated your ACT score in your file so quickly. Just make sure though you also have sent an updated official ACT score report so that they have this in your file as a hardcopy for anyone who is going thru your application.
That’s great news! Glad it worked out for you because I think it will definitely make a huge change to your application.
@NervousDad01
“More than anything I just want my son to be happy and give him what I didn’t have in life, and I’m willing to do anything that I humanly can to do so. I hope you both understand. But it’s really difficult for me to give him unbiased advice on what exactly to do”
Even though I don’t have any kids of my own I totally understand what you mean. I know that my parents live by that motto and they go above and beyond to make sure that I have the stuff that they only dreamed of having as kids and that I’m happy.
I think the biggest thing that applicants don’t understand and I certainly didn’t either when I applied either is the “scare” factor. That somehow, if you think you want to do medicine, you are giving up some worldly opportunity to get in on the ground floor for a great deal that no one knows about. That’s far from the truth.
BA/MD programs are the exception of doing medicine, not the norm. You are not giving up anything by going the traditional route and so many of us when we apply don’t realize that. We only see the short term goal of having some resolution from the mental agony of not knowing whether or not we will get into medical school.
The reason I started to post on this thread is to make sure that students that are applying understand that if you are doubtful about your choice in career, its ok to take your time to figure it out. Two years is nothing compared to the rest of your life, and that would be my biggest advice to your son as well.
"If you have an idea how to approach the financial aspect of paying for the program that would be great. Do most people just take loans for the full cost of attendance or receive scholarships of some kind? "
A lot of students at UMKC do come from affluent families, especially students that are out of state or regional. Most of the friends that I have, their parents footed the entire bill of their cost for all six years out of pocket including their room and board and daily expenses.
There are a fair number of us that are not in that boat, including myself, and we do take out loans. For me personally, my parents tried to pay for the tuition for the first year and a half or so with whatever savings they had to keep the overall debt ratio down, and in addition they covered all of my rent, food, car, etc expenses other than tuition for the entire time that I was here at UMKC. I think after its all said and done, after I graduate I will be walking away with a debt of 200K for all six years of my education. Unfortunately for regional and out of state students, we usually don’t qualify for any scholarships so its hard to keep that cost of tuition down.
@Blugrn6 @Roentgen
Wow, now I’m worried about the tuition….
Is there any financial aid or scholarship available for this program?
Is there a different tuition rate for the regional applicant?
@sss0296
I don’t think there is any “HUGE” scholarship available for this program…(but I might be wrong)
http://med.umkc.edu/bamd/finance/ according to this website, regional tuition is basically 1.5* instate tuition, and outstate tuition is almost 2* instate tuition…
Thank you for your blessings. My wife and I need any good vibes and help we can get! lol. Let me address something as well, regarding wanting your son to be happy.
There was a study out there from Princeton University in the media that showed that after a salary of $75,000, your level of happiness day-to-day maxes out: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/17/map-happiness-benchmark_n_5592194.html. Meaning in terms of your daily happiness, someone at like 80 K won’t be any happier day-to-day than someone making like 200 K. Another great article that went viral (you can see the stats - it had like million likes on FB, was shared on FB and retweeted like crazy in the 6 figures) on happiness for millenials: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/wait-but-why/generation-y-unhappy_b_3930620.html. I bring this up, as you mentioned that you want your son to be happy, and that as a parent you would do anything for your son that is within your power. I feel the same way about my son. The problem is even though you may feel 100% positive at age 18 that something makes you happy, that might not be true later.
What your son will realize later is that what makes him happy at age 18 will be very different than what makes him happy in his 20s/30s, and again in his 40/50s, etc. That’s just life experience at work. It’s not something you gain out of a textbook. I say that as someone who did very well in high school who felt for sure that going to medical school and becoming a physician was that last remaining missing puzzle piece I needed to be happy and/or have a successful life. My parents would have had a lot of trouble convincing me otherwise at age 18. Just FYI, my parents are also are the “reach for your dreams w/hard work and dedication” types as well, and neither of them are physicians either, nor are the rest of my family.
However, decisions in real life aren’t that black vs. white, either all good or all bad. I think your son is also at that age to where he defines himself by his personal accomplishments more and he cares what other people think about him – his immediate family, maybe close family friends, etc. He’s at that age to where you don’t want to “embarass” your family, you want to make your family proud, maybe give back to your family in some way monetarily or otherwise, etc. You said that you are of Asian (Indian) descent, who based on sociological data are on average tend to have very strong family structures in place at baseline: http://mfas.ucr.edu/publications/ParentingofAsians.pdf. So just understand at this age, it’s very difficult for you to tweak out what truly makes your son happy for himself, as that is affected by so many interdependent factors.
Some people who will say that they’ve always known they wanted to be doctors since they were like 5 years old. I was never really like that to be honest. I knew I wanted to do well in life (whatever that means at that age - but usually entails doing well financially, eventually having your own family, your own house w/picket fence yada yada) and becoming a physician seemed at the time to be the best pathway based on perceived risk and my academics (unbeknownst to me it was actually the hardest path one can take, mainly because of the level of debt, the work hours as a student and trainee, and the long years of delayed gratification you take on during med school and residency). I can’t speak for @blugrn6, but only NOW looking back for me, I’ll be honest, I think I could have been just as happy doing alternative professions - i.e. Dentistry, Optometry, PA, etc., not because I don’t like medicine, but because I realized (as does everyone else), that eventually medicine becomes just a job (just like every other profession). It can be a fulfilling job, no doubt, but it is just a job. It wasn’t the lock and key for my happiness with my life overall that I thought at 18. I’m someone that doesn’t’ like being a a drone or robot that is fixated on one thing in my life. I want to achieve some level of balance. I truly didn’t really explore other professions as I was already convinced that becoming a physician was the answer.
I also thought that the program was perfect for me (at that time I fixated on the no MCAT, 2 years saved part as well), since I figured that I would go into Internal Medicine (which is 3 years long), and probably subspecialize after that if I wanted. Needless to say, I am about as far from Internal Medicine as you can get. But this happens all the time for med students. Almost always, the specialty you think you’d like to do, changes competely by the time you graduate. Now I had a really great classmate from a rural area of Missouri who from the beginning always wanted to do Family Med and go back to his hometown, and that never waivered for him. He had really great personal experiences in HS, so for him, the program was perfect in terms of his specialty goals. Would he have achieved this same feat becoming a PA or NP? Maybe. Like me he also didn’t really explore those fields either.
So I think what @blugrn6 and I have said is that this medical school is clearly strong in certain specific areas, and if you’re going for those areas, and have absolutely no chance of changing, then you’ll actually be quite fine (monetary debt aside). I agree with @blugrn6, a lot of the primary care docs who have been at UMKC (many of them tend to do Docent), are excellent teachers, esp. for med students just starting. But if you decided like I did later, due to experiences, that maybe IM, Peds, and/or Family Med aren’t for you, and esp. if it’s in a residency specialty that’s not even offered at UMKC, then you will be at a very serious disadvantage coming from UMKC and you graduating in 6 years, doesn’t really change that.
I really can’t emphasize enough how true these statements are from @blugrn6’s posts above. I really recommend people read @blugrn6’s posts thoroughly. This program, as benign as it may seem on paper, sucks the life out of and enthusiasm from some people, and for other people they couldn’t see themselves doing it any other way. As blugrn6 mentioned, this isn’t a track that really allows you to truly explore all your interests to the fullest. It’s very much a narrow educational track. If it’s any indication, when I entered residency (I was the youngest of the bunch), we were talking about our paths in med school, and one of the questions I asked them was whether any of them would have done a 6 year track after high school. Not one of them said yes. That’s very telling when you think about it. There are a lot of lessons to be learned both in academics and in life from doing the traditional track.
My parents also paid my entire tuition & fees + room & board for the first 2 years of the program, mainly thru savings. I figured this was a similar scenario that would have happened if I had decided to do a traditional 4 year undergraduate education (although I probably would have gotten a lot more merit scholarship support, not to mention much cheaper tuition to begin with). I then took loans for the last 4 years, when you’re officially classified as a professional med student. What’s great about about a financial analyst, which I recommend, is they can take all these things into account in the tabulations to show you how much you’d be paying out monthly, and can also include financial scenarios like marriage, buying a house, having children, etc. It’s good to know these type of things beforehand.
Here are other options you might want to look at:
a) Private scholarships
These have no restrictions on them since they are given by private entities. Many of them require you to be a senior in high school when applying although there are some which you can apply during your junior year of high school as well as freshman year of college. I used scholarship websites like Fastweb and ■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■, etc. What’s great is that if you win these, you can also put them down as awards later for your residency application, since the 6 year program at UMKC is treated as 1 program.
We also had like a graduation center in our high school, where it had tons of information, handbooks, etc. on different colleges. It also had an updated listing of all the scholarships at the local and national levels that they had filtered thru along with their deadlines, which you can see at your son’s high school. I used this book: http://www.amazon.com/Winning-Scholarships-College-Fourth-Insiders/dp/0805099476/, to organize myself and apply to as many scholarships as I could.
b) University-sponsored scholarships
At least when I went to UMKC, there were no university-sponsored scholarships available to 6 year Medicine students. In fact, many of the scholarships specifically said on there that if you were in the 6 year BA/MD program, you were ineligible. You can see more here as to what 6 year students are eligible for now from the University: http://www.sfa.umkc.edu/site2/health_professionals.cfm?info_pane=3
c) School of Medicine specific scholarships
They seem to have some more SOM sponsored scholarships now: http://med.umkc.edu/sa/finance/som_scholarships/. That being said, I remember almost all the scholarships required you to be an in-state resident (which is ridiculous since their tuition is already the lowest it can be already), so if you were out-of-state you were left out, but you can see what the exact requirements for each are now.
d) Military HPSP (Health Professions Scholarship Program) & FAP (Financial Assistance Program)
You can read more about this from Googling, but I knew some people who did the military route. It’s definitely not a good option for everybody though, depending on the specialty you’re going for, but they tend to pay your tuition & fees, books, etc. + monthly stipend. I would research the positives and negatives of this route. They will only pay for 4 years of med school (so you can’t apply for this now)
FAP, I believe is something that you go into after med school during your residency where you’re given money: http://medicineandthemilitary.com/joining-and-eligibility/medical-resident-program.
e) Federal programs which you can Google
IBR (Income Based Repayment)
PAYE (Pay As You Earn)
PSLF (Public Service Loan Forgiveness)
NHSC (National Health Services Corps)
Federal Stafford loans — these are now completely unsubsidized (there are no longer subsidized federal Stafford loans for graduate/med students, only for undergraduates, since July 1, 2012, so these accrue interest during medical school)
https://www.aamc.org/advocacy/meded/79048/student_loan_repayment.html
http://www.finaid.org/educators/20111219medicalschoolpslfloophole.pdf
https://www.ouhsc.edu/financialservices/SFA/documents/Medical_IBR.pdf
https://www.aamc.org/advocacy/meded/79232/federal_student_loans.html
f) State level scholarships
This will vary by state, but these were the ones I knew that Missouri residents could take part of
Missouri has something called PRIMO for those who are sure they want to do primary care: http://health.mo.gov/living/families/primarycare/primo/
Missouri also has something called Bright Flight for MO high school seniors:
http://dhe.mo.gov/ppc/grants/brightflight.php?/brightflight.shtml
http://www.sfa.umkc.edu/site2/health_professionals.cfm?info_pane=1
@duravative, the only “huge” scholarship, would probably be the Chancellor’s Historically Underrepresented Minority Award for out-of-state or regional students who are African American, Hispanic/Latino or Native American since the UMKC med school and medicine, in general, have such a hard time recruiting those groups to become physicians. They would just pay in-state level tuition.
All the other scholarships offered aren’t that huge – like 10K per year, but here’s one:
For those who are interested, the total COA (cost of attendance) calculations have now been updated for 2015-2016 on the main UMKC website, but are not on the UMKC SOM website yet, which are figures from last year. In case you don’t know the lingo just yet, COA is tuition PLUS room & board (a.k.a. living + food).
Resident (Missouri):
http://www.sfa.umkc.edu/site2/forms/coa/Resident-(BA-MD).pdf
Regional (Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska or Oklahoma) : http://www.sfa.umkc.edu/site2/forms/coa/Regional-(BA-MD).pdf
Non-Resident:
http://www.sfa.umkc.edu/site2/forms/coa/Non-Resident-(BA-MD).pdf
Sorry my definition is wrong (lol). COA is actually tuition and fees room and board, books and supplies, transportation, and personal expenses: http://www.collegedata.com/cs/content/content_payarticle_tmpl.jhtml?articleId=10065; https://fafsa.ed.gov/help/costatt.htm