<p>Hi, sorry to barge into the topic, but I’m a also a high school student that is thinking of going into med school and I would like to know what is an EC? Does that mean extra credit? haha I feel really dumb asking it but I just wasn’t sure what that meant. Also, I have a similar question. I can’t decide whether I should go to schools on the east coast or stay in california. I applied to the usual cal states and applied to 2 in new york (Adelphi U. and Ithaca College) and 2 in philly (Albright College and Wash & Jeff College). I am not sure what I want to do, but I declared my self interested in psychology, biology, and pre-med as my majors to all the schools I applied to and so far I have been accepted into Cal State LA and Hawaii Pacific University.</p>
<p>ECs are extra-curriculars</p>
<p>Thanks all for the insight. I am indeed in the middle class with three boys in the family. My oldest son is a high school Junior. I am pretty sure that when he reaches medical school age, the expense would be around 80K/year at an elite medical school. He is good; but, not good enough to get a 2300 in the SAT. If he manages to get in an elite pre-med + elite medical school as a non-specialist, he would have $500K of debt waiting for him the 1st day he gets his paycheck as a doctor. I don’t know when he would be able to pay off the loan. Also, I sill have to worry about his 50% chance of not being admitted into any medical school. If that happens, the loan for a elite pre-med school would be $250K for a college fresh-out with a mediocre income. That’s even worse. </p>
<p>The sad truth is that quite a few elite college students will have to be lucky in the top 25% not to drag out the loan payment for a long time after the residency. For those high school students with SAT over 2300, it is a good bet. The pre-med in a state school would be a safe choice for my boy who is ranked 9th in his class of 900 students, is on the varsity tennis team as one of the captains, and is a member of the only school quartet. I will worry about this again when he decides to apply for medical school.</p>
<p>I have a few thoughts on some of the above posts. The selection of specialty in medicine should be based primarily on what one likes to do. Most students do not decide on their direction until they get through most of their 3rd year clinical rotations. Finances, ability to get a residency and life style of practice will factor into the decision. You should primarily follow your interests as you will be spending the next 30 to 40 years practicing your specialty.
The best medical schools will help you get into the more competitive residencies. Sometimes however, medical schools without the upper end reputation will have fabulous departments in your future specialty. LOR’s and telephone calls from known members of your faculty can have a very positive effect on your status of your application.<br>
You can get a sense of the competition for specialty spots by looking at the average number of applications that students file for the match. The students competing for some specialty spots apply to as many as 40 to 50 residencies. This is a reflection of applications being online. No one in my era could possibly apply to more than 20 to 25 residencies with paper and a IBM typewriter. Be also aware that there is also a self selection process here. If you are not in the top part of your class one generally does not apply for the most selective residencies. In the end class rank, research publications, LOR’s, Board scores, grades, medical school and interviews will all play a role in the application process. Most American medical school graduates will get into the specialty of their choice. Location might not be what you want but most people do match. There are only a few specialties where there is a fair chance of not matching.</p>
<p>mjscal…one consideration that may be different in future years than was the case when you and my husband went through match. The demographic shift of our population and an emerging interest in the necessity of the family practitioner in delivering quality care at a low cost. It may become MORE necessary for someone to focus on the “quality” of their medical school resume if they want choice and specialization. Just a projection. Not something I can validate.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, I just wanted to add a little more information to what I’ll characterize as the “avoid engineering as an undergraduate if you’re planning on going to medical school” comments.</p>
<p>I’m certain that the experienced folks who made these comments were very well intentioned. Grades are very important for med school admissions and there is little doubt on virtually any given campus that engineers work much harder than the average student and, somewhat ironically, have lower raw GPA’s at any given percentile rank than their peers in the other divisions of their universities. Believing that BME was the field he wanted to pursue on his way to med school (with an outside chance he would go the BME PhD route instead), the issue of a BME’s GPA on med school chances was on my son’s mind as he considered college admissions six years ago (after graduating in BME, he’s now in his second year of medical school). We are fortunate to have two physician relatives who have had a great deal of experience in admissions at their respective medical schools (one is perennially a top-15 med school; the other probably a top-50; my son goes to neither). Both said essentially the same thing – given today’s technology, med schools love BME and other engineering majors; they bluntly said, major in a rigorous engineering field AND get that high GPA. Needless to say, THAT is much either said than done. (Both added by the way that some med schools will directly factor in the engineering “GPA hit” into their admissions practices, but many others won’t).</p>
<p>Based on my son’s experiences (together with some of his friends experiences and some other contacts over the years), rather than saying to “avoid” BME and engineering undergraduate paths, I’d say to know yourself and what you want out of college. College should be about pursuing something that truly interests you. These people are always ahead in any game. If it’s engineering, you know going in that you are going to work harder than almost all of your friends. Consider whether you’re willing to do that. If you believe that medical school is your likely path, consider the additional stress that you’re going to be under to achieve the kind of very high GPA’s that you’re going to want to present as part of your med school application package (it’s not easy for any pre-med, but 3.75 - 3.80 and above GPAs are plentiful amongst the top non-engineering applicants, while 3.75 - 3.80 GPAs are pretty much superstar status for engineers). Still, many engineering students are able to achieve those GPA’s, and still others with somewhat lesser GPA’s (3.4’s to 3.6’s) do manage to find their way to medical school (often via very strong MCAT scores – engineers typically do very well on the MCATs).</p>
<p>Most BME departments estimate that 1/3 of their BME graduates wind-up applying to medical school. As I mentioned, it can be a struggle for some to find acceptances because of the hit they take in their GPAs. Conversely, those who go through rigorous BME programs and still manage very high GPAs are usually rewarded with multiple acceptances at some of the nation’s top medical schools. It’s certainly not the right path for every pre-med, but it can be a very good path (yes, with some risks, but with some corresponding rewards too) for other students. So, I wouldn’t say “avoid,” but instead would say “proceed with your eyes open.”</p>
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<p>As a side-note, I’d add that it seems many engineering to medical school students report a similar experience once at medical school. Engineering (BME included) generally consists of coupling a very high level of theoretical science understanding with continual work in the application of that science. Engineers spend an inordinate amount of their college time with “problem sets” and other exercises in applied science. Engineers are strong science students. One would think this would be a very big advantage. Not so fast, Eugene. The first two years of medical school comes as a bit of a shock to many of them. The beginnings of medical school is a LOT of theoretical science, but generally at a fairly basic level. However, given the nature of medicine, there is a lot of memorization of facts, and, at least at the beginning, little in the way of applying those facts. Generally, engineers have spent very little time as undergraduates memorizing. So, typically, engineers report needing to learn an entirely different way to study and approach school. They pick it up, some faster than others, but it is a wrinkle unique to the engineers of the world. As they proceed through medical school, most will find that the “applied science” nature of their educational background (and personalities) will start being more and more involved. Engineers typically do well at the med school level, and often proportionately better in the third (clinical rotations) year.</p>
<p>So sorry about the length of that previous post – paraphrasing a famous quote, "if I had more time, it would have been shorter.</p>
<p>The gist of what I wanted to contribute is really this: For some, engineering (BME and otherwise) can present additional difficulties when applying to medical school, but for some high performing engineering students, an undergraduate engineering background can become a boost. Many of my son’s engineering friends did very well with medical school admissions.</p>
<p>DudeDilligence: Good post. But you are right…as an engineering recruiter, let me reaffirm how infrequent 3.7+ gpas are among engineers…although I do think some accommodation (minimal) is given for an engineering curriculum by medical school admissions staff. This is more true in private med schools. Public med schools are scrutinized a little more and “stats” tend to be used more strictly because they are so dependent on public money.</p>
<p>Very good discussion. I do think that a engineering student (inherently good at math, physics, and chemistry) who is also fond of biology, would be suitable of taking on the medical school. However, due to the heavy course load in engineering and the need of prepareing for MCAT subjects, the student may miss some opportunities of REU related to medical sciences during the school year. Therefore, if a student can’t decide if he wants be a doctor or a engineer, he can get in the science program. If he decides to pursue engineering, he can get a master degree. Today’s top engineers need to have advanced degree or the skill/aptitude for a manager, a salesman, and a lawyer. If not, the job may be outsourced.</p>
<p>What I’m about to say might not be related towards admission to medical school, but it is somehow close to it. I took normal classes in high school and about one Advanced Placement class per year in my high school years. Some of my friends took about two to three Advanced Placement classes and some normal ones and got As, Bs, and Cs and got a normal GPA (about 3.0). I had a 4.17 GPA all the way to my senior year and now that I’m in my senior year, I got guaranteed admission to five of the Universities of California, which are prestigious schools. Those of my friends who took those hard classes are having trouble getting into a good school. So, as you can see, it is not much how good a class or school is, it is how well you perform in education. Maybe I’m wrong, who knows, but just to let all of you know the opportunities that were given to me with performing well in school.</p>
<p>do u mean UC’s or private colleges? do you mind if i ask u which ones? I also have around the same gpa less in the hundredths place…like .05 less than ur gpa. And yeah, i’m in a similar situation to you KIND OF. one of my best friends has around a 3.4 gpa and she cheated all the way through without actually learning the material. that doesn’t really fly unless u do it wisely. teachers give problems with answers in the back of the book for a reason. the smart people will use it wisely. she ended up not performing so well on SATs or ACTs and it’s pretty obvious. but anyway, yeah i have been admitted to two universities…and I got a scholarship to one to pay half of my tuition although I don’t think I’m going there unless i dont get into any of the 10 other schools that i applied to and i got rejected from my first choice. NYU. sadly. <em>sigh</em></p>
<p>i mean UC’s: they were UC Santa Barbara, Riverside, Merced, Irvine, and Davis.</p>
<p>Oh and by the way, in case you want to know, I want to go to medical school. I’ve been looking at this kind of topic ever since I decided to go to medical school. I’ve been thinking of going to CSU Fullerton on a nursing major (of course I’ll work on my premed) and then go to Loma Linda University and get an MD.</p>
<p>Don’t be a nursing major unless you intend to take time off to work as a nurse first. Want to know how many nursing majors are in my class? 0 Want to know how many nursing majors I met in my interviews? 0. Now obviously, this is just one example and obviously nursing majors aren’t going to get flat out rejected all of the time, but hopefully it will make you cautious about going down the route of a vocational major (especially when we are in a nursing crunch and we need those spots for people who actually want to be nurses 100%)</p>
<p>“Those of my friends who took those hard classes are having trouble getting into a good school.”</p>
<p>What makes you say that? It is too early to know UC results. I know most upper tier UC’s value “rigor” like AP’s, and SAT 2 scores, which I think are related to class rigor. My D had a 4.0 + UC GPA ( and 2000+ SAT, good EC’s, yadda yaddda yadda) but not much rigor, did NOT get into UCLA, and I think that’s why.</p>
<p>What I meant by saying that is that those of my friends who took those AP classes (and performed well, but not terrific) is that they are having trouble getting accepted to UC schools because they didn’t perform very well on their courses. They are having trouble getting accepted to some schools OF THEIR CHOICE. That’s what I really meant to say.</p>
<p>I like the way you think mmmcdowe. My medical terminology teacher has been telling me that loads of times. BUT, I don’t want to waste 4 years of studies studying some major that I do not want to study (such as sciences or humanities). Yes, you are right, I might fall into the vocational route who knows. I am going to major on this because I like it, because it is the closest thing to a doctor, and in case in four years from now I decide to stop the MD career goal I will already have an insured job. I must also tell that I come from a low income family, my family might not be able to pay medical school and I’ll probably have to work to pay for school. So, I have loads of reasons for choosing a nursing major.</p>
<p>No one works during medical school really, but you could definitely build up some income before hand. Chances are though if you are low income you will have a large amount of financial aid, so I would focus more on having money to support your family while you are not making income during medical school rather than attempting to build enough up to pay for it up front.</p>
<p>Also, nursing really isn’t close to being a doctor. You’d have to continue on as a nurse practitioner to really get a taste of it, which isn’t really a bad deal because then you don’t have to worry about as much debt or picking a major you don’t like.</p>
<p>People like you (mmmcdowe) and my teacher make me think a lot. I don’t want to major for my undergrad on something that I do not like, my teacher has been telling me that over and over and I’m just trying to keep my mind set for nursing then on the road to MD. And yes, I know nursing is not really close to a doctor but I just see myself working as a doctor or at least working with doctors. Are you an MD instructor? Because I can see that you really know about this stuff.</p>
<p>No, I’m a medical student who spent too much time on topics like these back when I applied. Like I said, keep nurse practitioning open. I think its a great option for your circumstances.</p>