UMKC 6-year BS/MD Program

Pre-Med & Medical School Multiple Degree Programs
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Dear @Roentgen -Many thanks again for a detailed and a very balanced view on this program (there are some strident voices for- but also many against UMKC- which distract from the issues!). A couple more questions for you:

i) You note that $300-$400K debt (or even if it is saved cash on hand) for med school is enormous. Sure. But my computation is that if you get into a private school for undergrad (which most BS/MD accepts can) the total cost for 4 years attendance is $200K (assuming limited financial aid, given income brackets). Plus, say, if one does an MBA/ Masters from a reasonable school, it is another 100-120K for 2 years at least, I would think. If you add up, that still is 6 years spent in school @ cost of approx. 300K. The BS-MD cost seems to me in a similar ballpark ; and the “minimum assured salary” I understand is probably a bit higher for doctors (even in less competitive branches) than for MBAs/ Masters in Engg. etc (where variability can be quite large, between a struggling mid-level engineer vs. a guy who rises to become senior VP/ CEO in 10 years). For instance, the salary of Duke MBAs with 5-9 years of work ex is about $125-130K as per Payscle.com (there could be other stock options etc, which I am not sure about, and of course, the highest salaries are almost double of this- but let us compare “average” candidates across professions). So, from EXCLUSIVELY an ROI standpoint, it seems to me the expected value of a BS-MD investments is somewhat better than other alternative career investments. Does that sound right? Or am I misinterpreting salary numbers majorly here?

ii) Do most UMKC BS MD students manage to get a loan waiver in their eventual jobs? What if you expect to be in top 1/3rd of the batch? How likely is loan waiver from employers then?

iii) I understand that research for competitive specialties is a weakness of UMKC; so some students do research elsewhere. How do they land these research opportunities? Does the school enable or are there hidden sources of differential endowments (e.g., parents who are doctors or at NIH, who then arrange for their kids to research with colleagues at clinics etc)? Or does UMKC help with research gigs? Or are your GPA/ other scores in the program the relevant factors.
Having parents who arrange these would seem to be a BIG problem for someone who cannot arrange these opportunities for their wards; that deprecates the value of this program for such students.

Thanks @Roentgen !

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@naive101,

i) So first off, it’s not at all necessary to go to a private undergraduate/Ivy League undergraduate if the eventual goal is to get into medical school. There are tons of great, reputable public state flagship schools which many premeds go to for undergrad, finish an undergraduate degree in the major of their choice, and head on to medical school. Even with other professions that you mention, w/respect to MBAs & Masters degrees, it’s common where people go to state undergrads and then go to very prestigious MBAs/Masters programs so people allocate debt in the higher degree and try to keep debt low from the undergrad portion. Keep in mind that it’s not just the 300/400K but there is also added interest onto that principal amount which accrues. And because subsidized Stafford graduate student loans were effectively phased out during the Obama administration as part of his budget, your loans during medical school will accrue interest as in school. Keep in mind with the physician pathway, you’re not likely going to be able to pay off your loans or even make an appreciable dent as a resident. So your calculations are off by quite a bit on that front. For every profession there is a cost w/respect to time involved in terms of years of education, monetary cost in terms of tuition & that’s w/o even looking at the actual job itself in terms of daily timings/time committment, etc.

In terms of the eventual ROI (& make no mistake it takes quite a bit of time), I would say the average that a person as a physician can expect is a relatively slightly upper middle class life (not the usual glam life that a lot of students think the physician life). You’ll have a lot of loans not just from student loan debt but if you get married, have kids, etc. Those are expenses a lot of students don’t think about so early on, as most people don’t put their entire life on hold for student loan debt payoff first.

Like anything there will be extreme outliers in terms of ROI, but we’re talking about the average. Medicine also has a HUGE delayed gratification component that is much higher than similar professions that you listed. It’s a sacrifice not only by the student, but can also be of families and significant others, etc. I’d say with respect to investment and ROI, it helps to not only look at it from the monetary view, but also educational time invested as well as delayed gratification in terms of life milestones (and that’s before even getting to the actual career itself which can have its own stresses).

ii) There are some places that do have some type of loan repayment program but that is after residency (& some will do fellowship to complete a subspecialty) and it depends on the job. It has nothing to do with class rank but more the contract you sign for that particular job. Here’s a good start: https://studentloanhero.com/featured/ultimate-student-loan-repayment-guide-for-doctors/

iii) So UMKC has improved its research offerings slowly over the years and installed an Office of Student Research to centralize everything which you can find out how the process starts here: http://med.umkc.edu/research/. Is it still up to par with more reputable/ranked medical schools that have been doing this for a while? No. A good comparison is UMKC with peer schools like University of Kansas School of Medicine (KU Med) or Mizzou’s med school.

But the school has increased what it is able to offer on-site. The school also seems to be much more organized when it comes to letting students know what opportunities are available outside of the school if a student has to take a year off and a lot more resources in place to help students to apply for that. I do think a lot of this stems from student demand (more of the class is outside the state of Missouri now, you have even more affluent students now, etc.). While having parents who “know people” is one possibility, it’s not at all a prerequisite to participating in research and meeting mentors for those who don’t have a family member in medicine. It’s nothing that being proactive won’t help with. Although in life, this happens all the time, people know people who know people, blah blah blah, parental arrangement of research is not an overriding theme that someone who doesn’t have that resource, can’t overcome.

It looks like this year the med school has gotten much more involved administratively w/regards to Year 1 and 2 students participating in research, which you can see here: http://med.umkc.edu/student-research/getting-started/ (Click on “Year 1 and Year 2 Information”). According to their new Year 1 & 2 Research policy: “A maximum of ten students per class per year will be selected”. I don’t understand the rationale behind that policy but you can see the full policy here:
http://med.umkc.edu/docs/research/MSI_MSII_Research_Policy.pdf.

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dc was also accepted to UMKC!!!

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Thanks again @Roentgen- this is so helpful! The only argument I would have against your point #1 (about doing undergrad from state school) is that hard-working kids who get into BS-MD programs are likely to also get into private schools, and then, likely to want to go there to be around a “smarter” pool of students vs. state schools.

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congrats @Rainiertx. Is she decided to attend then?

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@Roentgen - what do you make of the RPI-Albany med 7 year program? The total cost for 7 years is almost $600k!! (about $180-200K for RPI + $400K plus for Albany). Even from such schools, I would think about 30-50% of the class will match into primary care areas (right?)- if so, how can they pay off this debt???

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@Roentgen , @Blugrn6 : Does UMKC BS-MD allow/offer national merit scholarship programs (to reduce tuition for national merit scholars)? I realize you might not be aware of such details, but thanks in advance!

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@naive101 Yes, NMF can get up to $10k per year but I was told it might have to be shared depending upon how many are from NMF pool that chose UMKC as the first school choice. But this is also limited to first 2 years only as from 3rd year one is considered as professional student. Call the financial aid office and find out.

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@naive101,

I think it’s crazy to pay 600K (regardless of what specialty you go into) for a medical school that’s unranked (vs. ranked medical schools in the NYC area). And all for what? To save one year? You can see match lists for Albany here:
http://www.amc.edu/academic/undergraduate/MatchResults.cfm.

I’ll let @WGSK88’s answer speak for itself, since I don’t know the intricacies with regards to financial aid when it comes to National Merit. That’s something I would definitely either call the UMKC Med School Office of Admissions or the UMKC Financial Aid office: http://finaid.umkc.edu, to get answers as students are going through acceptances this upcoming month and trying to make informed decisions before deciding. @WGSK88, is correct, in terms of the program, for financial aid purposes, you’re considered an undergraduate in the first 2 years, and a professional/graduate student in the last 4 years.

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@WGSK88 , @Roentgen : My understating now is that the national merit is no longer available at UMKC. The state/ school are in a bad financial shape. Not having any scholarships will make the UMKC program even less attractive for prospects- esp. there could be self selection out of it for those who have other choices.

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they do have a new ‘heartland’ rate for students in BS, but i doubt that will be offered to the BA/ MD students

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Indeed 600k is crazy- by the time you start earning, that principal invested properly could be over a $1 MN- which at 4-5% annual rate is a nice $50K stream of income each year. So, should adjust for that in one’s earning prospects.

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So @Roentgen : How would you compare the RPI-AMC program to UMKC one? Are both Albany medical college and UMKC similar schools in stature and prospects? Looking at Albany’s match list, I see that 50% are matching into primary care. I assume the % is same or similar at most middle of the pack schools- including very middling programs such as the one at UMKC. So, what is there to choose between these from a “future prospects” standpoint? Perhaps the “quality” of institutions where one would match - keeping the specialty same - is superior at Albany than at RPI? What is your thought?

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Another nice summary from the class of 2019 student about the UMKC BA/MD program:
https://info.umkc.edu/news/six-year-med-school/

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@WGSK88, keep in mind that those are more media PR promos for applicants to UMKC: https://info.umkc.edu/news/tag/umkcgoingplaces/. It won’t necessarily be every BA/MD student’s experience (they’re obviously only going to seek out students that fit what they’re trying to promote for the university to applicants). The student in that link is an in-state student.

@naive101,

You are correct. The school is very much dependent on financing from student tuition (due to not so great state funding, but that’s been like that for some time), and not surprisingly they get much of that from the graduate programs, with the 6 year program being one of them. It’s why at Year 1 & 2, BA/MD students are not charged an undergraduate tuition rate but a School of Medicine (SOM) tuition rate per credit hour for the same undergraduate classes (although that rate is lower than the SOM rate at Years 3-6).

Here are SOM scholarship options: http://med.umkc.edu/sa/finance/som_scholarships/, but I’d talk w/current students with how realistic it is to get them esp. if you’re in the regional & out-of-state pools. In the past, more of those have gone to in-state students, but you’ll have to check. There’s a reason there can be so much shift on the waitlist for people and part of that reason is just the tuition cost in this program. As you’ve probably noticed, a lot of the class is quite affluent in parental income (and that aspect has increased even more since my time there)

I believe the Heartland rate is for undergraduate students. The School of Medicine version of that is Regional tuition for those who live in those particular states around Missouri.

So I’m not as familiar with the RPI-AMC program (as I obviously didn’t go thru it). One good aspect is that you do get full 3 years of undergrad before you hop into their medical school. I believe it used to also be a 6 year program but they extended it to 7. If you were to decide to go the traditional route, you could do so easily, esp. since RPI is a highly ranked undergraduate institution (https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rpi-2803). That is harder somewhat to do, w/backtracking out of the UMKC 6 year BA/MD framework w/o having to make up semesters/years. I would say in terms of reputation, Albany Med and UMKC Med are about equal if not Albany slightly higher, as they are both unranked medical schools.

Albany does have some extra residency training program specialties that UMKC does not have – Neurosurgery, Plastic Surgery, Urology, Vascular Surgery, PM&R, etc.: https://www.amc.edu/academic/gme/programs/. I don’t think paying an extra 200K for that alone is a good enough reason to go there though.

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thanks @Roentgen and @WGSK88

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Dear @Roentgen and @WGSK88 : One more question: So my child got into UPenn and are obviously excited for that. But how would you, as practicing doctors, compare that opportunity vs. a UMKC BA MD spot (which is available too to them)? I am thinking that a pre-med from Upenn will, all else equal, likely have a good shot at our state school for medical admissions (we are a regional state to Kansas). But also, it is not going to be a cake walk ranking well in class/ GPA with all the smart kids there, and my sense (as an outsider to the medical field) is that lots of pre-meds from top private schools do not make it eventually to any med school (what with MCAT, research, shadowing needed across the undergrad years etc etc). So how should I advice my child (who just wants to be a doctor in the end)? Does the traditional vs BA-MD route matter SIGNIFICANTLY in the end, in terms of your OUTCOMES as a doc? Any thoughts from practicing doctors who are aware of difficulties involved in the entry process the will be appreciated!

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Dear @Roentgen and @WGSK88 : I also noted that as per their website, upenn claims that about 78% of their premeds get into some allopathic school. But, then they also say that of those admitted to med schools from their premed class, only 35% were seniors; rest were alumni (i.e., took time off a year or two to prep). This suggests to me that:

  1. Not all premeds even from ivies will get into any med school esp right after an undergrad, even with hard work (and if you do not, what can you do with your premed degree even?)
  2. Cost wise, 4 years at a private school is at least $250K+ $200K for med school (IF you get it). That is $450K.
  3. Even if you get into a reasonable med school, almost half the batch will work in primary care. Compare the salaries there to $450K loan/ savings spent above.

Considering these, it seems to me that a UMKC BS-MD is not a bad choice after all? Would you kindly give your inputs?

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@naive101 Yes to get into Medical school is lot tougher. I have seen with very high GPA from very good Schools like Wash U with 99 percentile MCAT score one could not get into Med school. This I can only vouch with respect to Indian Americans where competition is very high.

Hence I was very keen for my daughter to get into UMKC where she can focus completely on Med school without worrying about MCAT, MD application process, etc.

Apparently only one Hospital doesn’t take UMKC graduates for residency but UMKC med school has not given up and applies every year to this Hospital!

Also I was told the current NIH director is a UMKC graduate and 2nd highest Med School teaching staff in Wash U are UMKC graduates after their own graduates.

With respect to clinical experience, I feel that UMKC is 2nd to none as they start clinical experience in the 1st year itself.

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@naive101 Congrats on Upenn admission. If I were you between Upenn PreMed and UMKC BA/MD, I will choose the UMKC BA/MD anytime! Yes, again your question depends up on your race to get into Medical School. Those statistics are overall but not based on race.

Regarding Tuition & Fees only (Never mind about Room and Board/books, etc it will be more or less same anywhere in the USA may be higher in East Coast and West coast). So, by tuition & fees only,
UMKC in-state Tuition & fees only is $177 K, Regional is $260 K and OOS is $343 K for 6 years. Unless you are regional and OOS and you can find a local in-state school more or less you are going to pay this or higher to get a MD degree.

Good luck with the decision making.