@sandtime4, so healthcare exposure on the application is looked at closely to see that you have enough exposure to medicine and know what you’re getting into at such an early age. That’s why UMKC looks at it. The 6 year track is a one way track and can be difficult to get off later, which is why it’s more important to UMKC than even at some other places. Now, not all healthcare exposure is alike in terms of whether medicine is actually the career for you (but that’s a whole another topic which I’ve discussed previously in this thread).
At UMKC, it is esp. very important as they emphasize holistic review of the application, as their main goal is to pump out clinicians who practice clinically and see patients a majority of the time. They don’t emphasize academic prowess or research experience as much as stronger, and thus more competitive, medical schools with BS/MD programs will do — UAB, Pitt, Jefferson, Wash U in St. Louis, Baylor College of Medicine, Northwestern, etc.
Both experiences would be treated relatively the same. They realize that a high schooler isn’t going to necessarily have the CV of a senior undergrad premed student. So they’re not going to say oh he got to do this on this EC while this other candidate did this on this EC and compare them directly to each other. It gets way too nit picky at that point.
I only know about BA/MD and BS/MD programs, but I would not apply to BS/DO programs. You are compromising WAY TOO EARLY in the process for that. It’s one thing if you don’t have the GPA and MCAT to get an allopathic acceptance in the traditional process and only have DO acceptances (since on average, DO schools have much lower matriculating GPAs and MCATs), but do not relegate yourself to a DO school already, only being a high schooler. The DO degree and MD degree are not treated exactly the same in the residency match process, and your ability to get certain competitive specialties as well as competitive programs in non-competitive specialties is highly diminished by doing a DO degree: https://ppa.byu.edu/sites/ppa.byu.edu/files/New%20PPA%20Website%20Content/Prehealth/Handouts/Premedical%20Handouts/MD%20vs.%20DO.pdf; http://myheart.net/articles/md-vs-do/ (there are other comparison links as well).
@Watang, oh yes, I wasn’t saying you were wrong or lying about what you heard (thank you very much for telling us and making us all aware of this new development). It just makes me wonder what else they could possibly be looking at on the application since they are no longer looking at class rank, which is at least somewhat objective in nature. High schoolers have very few objective/numerical metrics to help medical school admissions officers filter thru applications, since they don’t have an undergraduate cumulative GPA and BCPM GPA from 4 years of university coursework, as well as MCAT scores from a standardized exam, to look and see who is likely to be successful at least in the first 2 years in medical school.
I guess they could always look much harder at SAT or ACT scores, but UMKC Med has never been the type of school to be so very obsessed with those scores the way other programs can be (some of which even demand 3 SAT Subject Exam scores). When I say UMKC is holistic, the way they describe it on their BA/MD website, that is actually very much true and has been for a while. Much different than say the Penn State/Jefferson’s BS/MD program where just to even qualify to apply, you have to have at least a 2100 on the SAT or a 32 on the ACT, and even after all that, they really don’t take that many total – since they join a “regular” traditional med school class at Jefferson.
@Pras2016, I almost forgot, here are the rest some of which rang a bell for me when I saw the names of scholarship search engines: http://college.usatoday.com/2012/01/30/the-10-best-sites-to-look-for-scholarships/. The key is to go on a scholarship search engine that has you fill out a profile, including your GPA, ACT/SAT, majors, etc. (I can’t believe I forgot the SuperCollege website, #10, that was such an awesome website back in the day - god I’m old, lol).
But your best resource will also be your “Graduation Center” or “Senior Center” at your son’s high school, which do a really good job of sending out weekly or monthly bulletins with scholarships listed either as a hardcopy or a softcopy on their high school website that they think their students will be eligible for.
I (along with my family’s help) pretty much filled out and applied to as many as I could, like a fiend, esp. once senioritis started kicking in. They really start coming in like crazy to be given out in the spring to graduating seniors, so take advantage, regardless whether your son does a BS/MD program or a 4+4.
@Roentgen, @Blugrn6 - Thank you for your helpful advice. I would be even more lost without you both.
Are regional applicants and out-of-state applicants treated the same in terms of expected stats like GPA and ACT? Or is it in-state’s expected to be the lowest, then regional, and then out-of-state the highest? Looking at the COA charts that were posted it looks like tuition is halfway in-between in-state and out-of-state, so I didn’t know whether stats matched that.
@NervousDad01 I don’t know the answer to your question, but 3 of my friends were accepted from regional with ACT scores of 32, 32, and 35. Also had a regional friend get rejected with a 33
@NervousDad01, I think regional and non-resident (out-of-state) matriculants are probably pretty similar in terms of numerical, objective stats like GPA and ACT/SAT from high school. At least in looking at this paper application from the 2008-2009 application cycle (so they just graduated from the med program in 2015), they put regional and out-of-state in the same category in terms of expected stats (Page 5): https://www.umkc.edu/admissions/docs/2009MedApplication.pdf.
The only difference now is that people specifically from Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Arkansas or Illinois don’t have to pay the full non-resident tuition (which is double the in-state tuition) like they had to do previously. This started in 2007 when the regional category was first introduced and approved by the state higher education board: http://www.umkc.edu/news/news-release.asp?id=551, and you’re correct, the regional tuition is 1.5 times the in-state tuition (or halfway in-between in-state and out-of-state tuition). When it was only in-state and out-of-state before that, the only exception made was for Kansans who could pay in-state tuition ONLY IF they or their parents paid Missouri income tax, as it is very common for people who live on the Kansas side to drive to work on the Missouri side, like people who live in Overland Park, Shawnee, Lenexa, etc.
Looking at the pie chart at the bottom of the UMKC SOM webpage: http://med.umkc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/pie_chart.png, it looks like what they did is they brought down the total number of Missouri students from 90% to 58% of the class and distributed the difference to regional and out-of-state spots. So instead of 90:10 like it always has been, it’s now 58:29:13, so it brings in more revenue overall to the school than if they had just continued the way it was before.
@NervousDad01 I am current student now and you have probably read my previous posts, no worries I was also nervous too going through the application process. From what I have noted, I want to say that overall in state students are smart and competitive but in a different comparison to regional/out of staters. Observing my class, out of staters came in with the most national merit finalists and perfect 36 act scores with regional students as well. In state also includes students who came from small high schools and underprivileged areas where regional/out of state had students who went to private school, top prep schools, and state math and science schools. Take my opinions with a grain of salt because this is just what I noticed and of course everyone is different.
@watang, I wonder if the person who told @mscrystal’s friend that emails will go out by the end of the week, means by this Friday, January 1st (yes, I know it’s then technically January, but it’s also still the end of December). The office won’t be open then that day, but I’m sure whenever they want, they can just click a button to send it all by email en masse. Just reading in between the possibilities, while everyone is patiently waiting.
It’s really interesting now in 2015 to see how much the UMKC medical school has hugely benefitted in such a very short period of time without really having to change anything, just from the high school applicant pool inherently getting more competitive who clearly (for some odd reason) have a unusually huge mix of doubt and insecurity (I include myself in the latter as well, but this was in a time before College Confidential even existed) from regional and out-of-staters, who are so scared by the traditional medical school admissions process. Don’t get me wrong, but UMKC’s BA/MD program has never been the type of program to be able to recruit in huge numbers National Merit Scholars and 36 ACT scorers, unlike the much more competitive programs. It’s just so funny because overall when you look at the board score averages and match lists at the end, they still tend to run by previous trends overall.
So it depends what year you’re in, but I would first go to the Career Advising Office and see what is available at your year level: http://med.umkc.edu/docs/sa/4_Career_Advising_Activities_by_Year_Level_of_Students.pdf. It was created in September 2010: http://med.umkc.edu/sa/residency_match/, I believe in response to med alumni telling UMKC that they did a poor job when it came to advising BA/MD students when it came to choosing a medical specialty, throughout their time there. I happen to agree with that assessment wholeheartedly. Now I don’t know if that has dramatically changed in terms of results, but I would start there first. You can see here what they say they are doing at each year level: http://med.umkc.edu/docs/sa/4_Career_Advising_Activities_by_Year_Level_of_Students.pdf (hopefully they are actually doing that). According to that they teach you about building a CV from Year 1, so that would be helpful.
I would also go to the Medical Student Research Interest Group, to get your feet wet and learn about different types of research (esp. if you’ve never done research), different opportunities that are available at UMKC as well as at other places, meet others who have done research and can guide you in some way as to when is the best time to start a project, in what specialty areas research is available: http://med.umkc.edu/sa/student-organizations/. If you have a real interest in a particular specialty, go to those particular interest group meetings as you might be able to meet with other older students. As a Year 1, it’s definitely more informational, so no need to be gung-ho about it at this stage, and there is always free pizza (and I never turn down free pizza, lol). There are some things that they do like teaching basic physical clinical skills, just to get you more comfortable and I think that is valuable as well. I saw on the Facebook page that Family Medicine Interest Group did that one. As a Year 1, I would have gone to that, because getting comfortable with that stuff, when you still have quite a bit of time (for the most part), is good.
Thanks for coming back and helping future applicants!!
