<p>@Shoumik95. Yes, there are many factors one has to take into consideration. Honestly, if one wants a challenging UG program in a challenging environment, I think probably there are only very few BS/MD programs that will provide that. Most of the programs, except for a few, are provided by schools that students of your academic caliber would not have gone to if it was not for the MD part of the program. You would be much better off going to one of the top schools or ivies for your UG, and then apply to a medical school later on. In this case, you also have the choice to do a good UG degree that, if you later change your mind about medicine, you can still pursue a good career out of the UG education. Most BS/MD program will only lead to a very general UG degree if you change your mind about continuing with pursuing medicine.</p>
<p>To all of you who have been accepted into a program, staying on in the program should not be a problem, unless you really decide, when doing the UG, that you want to be kicked out. This applies to MCAT too.</p>
<p>Yes, best clinical skills and experience are usually obtained from a program that serves a large population with clinicians who are more interested in teaching medical students clinical skills and providing good healthcare to the patients, then those who are more pre-occupied with presenting or giving a talk at national meetings and how to publish the next paper in Science or Nature. There is nothing wrong with the latter since each contributes to medicine in different ways. The question is which type of physician do you aspire to be?</p>
<p>@Vizio16, if you wants to be a physician scientist, i.e. doing both clinical practice (probably only one to two months a year and spend the rest of the time doing research), then the RPI/AMC program is definitely much better. Even though you can still do research with the Wasu program, the RPI/AMC program will arrange the research for you and you are more likely to do it well because you are just EXPECTED to do in order to graduate with an MD with Distinction in Research. But if research and academic medicine is probably not your cup of tea, do not waste the 8-12 months of time doing research. I heard that some people in the program are just not really interested in research and end up hating the experience and dreading the time that they have to do research.</p>
<p>@Vizio16 I don’t even think that is a choice, go with RPI/AMC. WashU’s requirements are good enough to get into ANY med school (3.8 and 36) and to have to work that hard to stay in the program is absurd. RPI/AMC doesn’t even require the MCAT. If you are looking for a good challenge to prep for the USMLE Step 1, take the MCAT anyway at RPI, but to be forced to maintain that level of achievement or risk getting kicked out is absurd.</p>
<p>@IMGDAD I think that Stony Brook BE/MD provides the best of both worlds: an ABET accredited Bachelor’s of Engineering degree, a pretty good, very inexpensive medical school, and access to a large variety of patients in Long Island and NYC (Queens). With Stony Brook’s program, you aren’t getting a general bachelor’s degree at all if you do choose to not do medicine/can’t meet the requirements (3.2 and 38 on new MCAT), so, in those regards, it seems like a very good program. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>@thebombingrange, yes I agree because if you decide after a year or two that medicine is not for you or for some unforeseen reasons you cannot go on to medicine, you still have a degree in medicine to fall back to.</p>
<p>OK, Stonybrook BE MD is approved by the experts :)! I also think it provides the best of both world. I also have an appreciation for public education and I really believe if one has what it takes to rise to the top, he/she will find his/her way from anywhere. And the fact that any of us will exhaust all the resources that a public university has to offer that also educate students for Masters, PhD, and medicine in just our UG years simply does not make sense. At the end of the day, it’s all about what we will make of the school and the resources available to us.</p>
<p>@ TheBombingRange, I got the pm. Thanks!</p>
<p>@ IMGDAD, all RPI does is arrange a research project prior to entry to med school. It’s not an MD/PhD program by any means but just provide a structured exposure in medical research. Similarly, Union ask students take a few extra courses while doing their UG and may be a few more courses during their 1st year med school to get an extra degree in business administration. Healthcare has so many aspects including economic, public policy, hospital admin, research, and clinical practice. Everthing has to work together to make the system work as a whole. I don’t see anything wrong for some people become specialized in some of these aspects. Being also a physician they can look into these issues in a much better way than folks outside of medical field.</p>
<p>Shoumik95, you hit the nail on the head when you said “At the end of the day, it’s all about what we will make of the school and the resources available to us”.</p>
<p>Yes, the RPI program is NOT an MD/PhD program but it prepares you for it by giving you an allocated period of structured research, but in the other programs such as the one at WUStL, you can still do research but you have to find the time to do it. As someone who used to run a research laboratory, I would certainly be more enthusiastic to train a student knowing that the student will definitely be in my laboratory of eight to 12 months, whether the student likes it or not, but will definitely not be as enthusiastic if the student can turn up only when he/she is free. It would be extremely unlikely for me to give the student a project of his or her own to do.</p>
<p>You are also correct to point out that healthcare has so many aspects. However, I believe that the business, hospital administration, and public policy parts are best left to the experts. After all most of the hospital CEO are business graduates with special training in healthcare administration.</p>
<p>@thebombingrange, oops, my dad has just pointed out to me that I should have said if you decide after a year or two that medicine is not for you or for some unforeseen reasons you cannot go on to medicine, you still have a degree in ENGINEERING to fall back to" and not “MEDICINE” to fall back to.</p>
<p>@ IMGDAD I considered taking risk about going to a top 20 school (not a big fan of Ivy fanfare) and find a path to a “better” med school in regular route. The final equation became something like this: $280K + a guaranteed med school admission (Stony Brook BE/MD) vs. $560K + a 44% chance of getting into “a medical school” (the national avg) by private top 20 BS + private med school. My math skills suggests not to gamble with my future for no reason. Ranks and reputations are more perceived than real. So I will attend Stony Brook and join thebombingrange in the fall!</p>
<p>@Shoumik95, wise decision, unless your parents are willing to pay for all your education. Especially if all you want to do is to finish training and come out to practice in the community, you do not want to be burdened with a half a million dollar loan, especially at the start of your career, when it is very likely that you would be married and also wanting to buy a house and/or start a family. If you truly enjoy medicine, interacting with patients, and enjoy making a difference in the lives of ordinary people day in and day out, you will be very happy practicing medicine and be a compassionate physician, irrespective of where you graduate from.</p>
<p>@Shoumik95 “Final acceptance to the School of Medicine is guaranteed as long as you meet the aforementioned criteria, and remain a candidate for a Bachelor of Engineering degree from the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences”: gotta love those words, right?</p>
<p>@IMGDAD for curiosity, do any of your opinions about schools/programs/residencies change for a person (me) interested in surgery? I just want to see if there is any difference in what you are saying for different types of medicine…</p>
<p>@Thebombingrange, the answer is no. I strongly believe that all difficulties can be overcome as long as one is determined. If all you want is to practice as a surgeon with good surgical skills and be a surgeon in the community rather than be in an academic institution, it does not matter where you do your training. Obviously if one wants to be a superspecialized surgeon, e.g. Cardiothoracic surgeon, surgical oncologist, one might not have the choice but to stay in the academic institution for training.</p>
<p>If it is general surgery, you may see that even some foreign med school graduates (e.g. Ross and St George’s) matched into general surgery this year. The same with many DO graduates. You see, if you are in a lesser program, what you need to do is to do summer shadowing with the appropriate surgeons, study hard to get a very good USMLE scores, and prove your worth to the surgeons you shadow so that they can support your application when it comes to matching to their institution.</p>
<p>@Vizio16, I will disagree with conventional wisdom here. I think WashU prepares the best pre-med in the country and WashU med school is ranked 3rd nationally. Now their requirement is ridiculously high (3.8 GPA and 36 MCAT). But since they have accepted you, I am sure you are among the smartest in the country and WashU believes you can survive. They have a very good support system. I am sure they will hold your hands as needed and help you to succeed. Albany and Washu Med: there is NO comparison. Median GPA and Avg MCAT of AMC accepted students in regular route is 3.6 and 31. The same for Wash U is 3.9 and 37 (again these are median/average). If you are not URM, you will have to beat the avg/medians for GPA and MCAT to get into WashU in regular route. So they have cut you some slack in GPA and MCAT requirement :)! There is a reason for high requirement. Because that’s the standard of student body you will have to compete with in med school and they want to make sure you are up to the task. You can’t graduate from one of the best med school in the country without pushing your limit in UG! You can apply out to Harvard, Yale w/o losing your spot @ WashU. Not everyone allows it. Even if you fail to meet the requirement, even if you graduate with 3.6-3.7 from WashU and 34-36 in MCAT, you can easily get into med schools MUCH better than AMC. Med school seems adore WashU premeds. For someone as smart as you are, I don’t think the decision criteria is if you can meet the requirement in AMC or WashU or if you can get into med school at all later. If money is not an issue, I would go to WashU. Frankly, AMC as a private med school charges $80K/year but if you look at their stats of accepted students in regular route, all four SUNY med school admit students with higher GPA and equivalent MCAT (with the exception of Stony Brook whose student body has higher GPA and MCAT compared to other SUNYs and AMC). So WashU all the way!!</p>
<p>@vizio16, I agree with Shoumik95. WUStL is far better than RPI/AMC unless you are sure you like to do research and make a career as a physician scientist. AMC is not ranked because it is small with fewer faculty members. So, when ranking is based on NIH funding, of course it would rank lower than a university with members from all other departments also receiving NIH funding. If you want to be a physician scientist, it is very likely that the RPI/AMC program will result in at least one publication in a medical/scientific journal and the publication will overcome the lesser name when compared to WUStL. However, if you do not want to do research, WUStL is where you should go. I think financially there is not much difference between the two programs.</p>
<p>@texaspg Why should they give you money? You have just been admitted to one of best combined programs in the country? Just like I said for BU: you can get into the program or get a nice scholarship, but not both…</p>