Worth it to get a combined Masters in the 4 years?

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
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Wondering what you all think. Do you think overloading a tiny bit and graduating with a combined engineering BS and MS in 4 years would help with Med School admissions? There would be a gap year after graduation to continue working in clinical job. My guess is that it won’t make any difference, but I wondered what you all thought. Thanks.

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Med school applicants need high gpas first and foremost. Engineering is a very tough major to get a high gpa under normal circumstances, let alone trying to cram in a masters in the same time period. At my D’s school there would be no way to get a BS/MS in 4 years. 5 years yes, 4 years no.

IMO that plan is a recipe for gpa disaster.

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I don’t understand why you would be thinking about doing that. What are your reasons? (Agree on primacy of GPA and also keeping stress down).

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Thanks. Agree with you all. To answer questions, student is in last year and could get a masters with one extra class. I voted not worth it and glad to see you all agree.

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If your child is a rising college senior and only needs one more class, then I don’t think it’s as black and white. (I incorrectly assumed that you had a younger student).

At that age, I’d let the student make the decision if they think they could handle it. Maybe a good fall back if they don’t get into med school during the first try.

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Thanks.

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I’d let the student decide, esp if it’s just one more class. If they enjoy it and have the grades, there’s no reason not to. If it’s added stress and stops them from enjoying themselves or other med school ECs, then there’s no reason to do it.

My guy graduated with 2 majors and 2 minors, not because he felt it would give him a better app, he just liked the fields and wanted to take as much as he could, plus was in a school that had next to no core requirements so he could. He called asking me whether he should add a Chem minor since he was just one course away. I gave him the same two options above. He decided that one just didn’t fit in well at the end, so dropped it. I’d have been fine either way and none of it would have affected his med school app.

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I just want to mention another option: MD/MS programs.

These are primarily for engineering type kids who want to combine their engineering background with medicine to work in translational medical research and medical device development and research.

(My older D applied to a few as a physics major interested in doing BME or medical physics applications.)

Some of the schools that offer MD/MS programs: Drexel, Case Western/CCLCM, Stanford, Mayo, Columbia, Minnesota, Duke, Central Florida, Maryland, Michigan, Dartmouth… and others.

IIRC, the MS is fully funded. Can’t remember if the MD is funded, but I suspect not.

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@WayOutWestMom
Most MD/PhD are fully funded but MD/MS may not be funded e.g. Temple Univ does not fund MS (Biomedical Sciences) as per their website even with MD being not funded. One may have to pay tuition for both MD and MS credits.

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@ViolaMom12 One extra class to get a MS(Engineering) with BS should be a no brainer at this stage. One class may not change much both sGPA or cGPA as calculated by AMCAS. Most MS(Engineering) may require some kind of research or a project as an additional requirement.