Out of curiosity, how are cuts determined? Based on GPA and/or MCAT score?
My impression was that med school admission was guaranteed for all BS/DO students as long as they met some MCAT threshold.
I have no idea how they determine who is allowed to advance and who isnât. The program reserves the right to revoke your admission to the med school at any time without giving you a reason.
Thatâs the thing about a âguaranteedâ admission programâtheyâre never really guaranteed.
Nova has issuesâlow pass rate on the COMLEX (this is a biggie), no cadaver lab, limited opportunities for volunteering and research, a dearth of high quality clinical rotation sites.
6 Likes
Kindly please advice how does Canadian gifted program considered in US universities and do unis boost the GPA ?
As far as I know, being part of a gifted program has zero influence on college and BA/MD/DO admissions.
Admission officers will consider the rigor and content of classes, but simply being part of a program for gifted children has no influence on admissions.
For admission purposes, a studentâs GPA will be recalculated to remove any weighting (extra GPA points) a school has placed on more difficult or advanced classes. Admission only considers the unweighted GPA. This is also true for med school admissions.
1 Like
Agree that generally a student in a gifted HS program wonât have any per se advantage in college admissions. One added thoughtâŠIME, gifted program grads who are young (say 16 or younger) can be at a disadvantage in college admissions, at least at some schools. Not sure about BS MD/DO, but I wouldnât be surprised there either. I donât know if OPâs kid is young though.
For OP, I feel like we are still missing a lot of academic infoâŠ
-what will be your studentâs senior year schedule?
-Will they graduate HS with four years of classes in each of the five core areas (Eng, Math, Soc Studies, Science, foreign lang)?
-Will they have taken bio, chem, and physics?
-What AP scores does the student have so far? What is their class rank (guesstimate if the school doesnât report.)
Are you looking for non-BS MD/DO school suggestions in the US? Do you have any cost constraints?
3 Likes
Younger-than-typical students are generally at a disadvantage when it comes to BA/MD/DO and regular med school admissions because of questions regarding their maturity and the role of undue parental influence on their career choice. The burden is on the student to demonstrate they have the maturity to handle medicine and many intimate and uncomfortable patient encounters that medicine requires.
4 Likes
He are some more details :
- She is 2026 senior batch
- yes she has Eng, Math, History, Sciences, French as foreigh lang
- Yes She has taken all 3 sciences and first tracked grade 12 bio
- She has taken 2 CS AP and AP Bio and AP Chem all self studies ..Class rank is not applicable in her school.
- She is interested first track BSMD/DO as first pref but some suggestion for non-BS MD/DO is help ful .
Most colleges prefer to see both an AP class grade and the test scoreâŠnot just a test score from self study.
If she intends to use her AP scores for any required courses for medical school applicants, just be advised that in college, she will be expected to take higher level courses in those disciplines. @WayOutWestMom
1 Like
Self-study AP scores can be problematic for BS/MD programs because the programs really, really want to see a class grade (as well as the course curriculum) because there are knowledge gaps present in the AP exam test material.
An AP CS score (no matter how good it is) is not really something that will impress a BS/MD program.
Also, be aware that not all med schools will accept AP/IB scores in lieu of an actual college level course. Those that do accept AP/IB will expect the student to take additional upper level classes in the subject to demonstrate mastery.
(IOW, med schools feel AP classes/scores offer a weaker preparation compared to an actual college level course in the subject and want the student to demonstrate mastery of the material through additional coursework.
Also med schools dislike using AP scores as a sub for an actual college class because an AP score doesnât create a grade. A score of 5 is NOT equivalent to an A. Itâs more like a P in a P/F class since an AP score doesnât contribute to a studentâs GPA.)
2 Likes
I see nothing listed under cost constraints. Does this mean that you are okay spending potentially at least US$800,000 and possibly a bit more by the time that your daughter gets her doctorate? Can you handle this without taking on any debt? This is of course well over C$1,000,000 if you convert to Canadian dollars.
It is of course possible to get an MD for a lot less if you have either Canadian citizenship or permanent residence and if you attend university in Canada. It is also possible to get an MD in Canada and then do your residency in the US. This is exactly what my former oncologist did (his oncology residency was done in the US after getting an MD in Canada).
Premed classes will be very challenging regardless of whether you get your bachelorâs degree in the US or in Canada. Both daughters had undergraduate majors that overlapped a lot with premed classes (and had many premed friends), but one got her bachelorâs in the US and one got her bachelorâs in Canada. Both have told me similar stories about challenging premed classes full of strong students, and tough exams. Both did however get into very good and appropriate graduate programs in the US.
Getting accepted directly to BS/MD programs in the US is a high reach for US citizens. It is going to be much more difficult as an international student. I think that it is also risky to get your bachelorâs degree in the US expecting to get into a US medical school as an international student. With straight Aâs throughout high school, a lot of high Aâs / A+'s, and 1550 SAT, and good ECs, you will get accepted to some very good universities in the US. They might not include Harvard or Stanford or any BS/MD program, but this is sufficient to get many acceptances. Gaining acceptance to very good universities for a bachelorâs degree will be the easy part. Then getting accepted to an MD or DO program as an international student can be tough.
My understanding is that students who start off in a BS/MD program have to maintain a sufficiently high GPA in the tough premed classes (or be kicked out of the MD part). Do not underestimate how tough these classes will be.
Regarding stories from daughters about premed classes, I recall one story about a friend who in high school had either a high A or an A+ in AP biology, and was bragging that this would make her better prepared to do well in âfreshman year biology for biology majorsâ compared for example with my daughter who attended a high school which did not have AP classes. This bragging stopped abruptly after the first mid-term exam. The class was full of premed students who had been strong students in high school, and the class average on the first exam was in the mid 40âs. I took this as the professor doing a favor to students who thought they were premed but who were going to need to up their game considerably if they wanted to ever have any chance to attend medical school. Professors can make exams almost arbitrarily difficult if they want to do so. I do not think that schools that have a BS/MD program are going to have easier exams in their premed classes.
My recollection from back when I was a high school student in Canada is that a domestic Canadian student, with either Canadian citizenship or permanent residency, and with a 97% average across high school (or even the last 2 years of high school), plus 1550 SAT, could pretty much attend any university that they wanted to attend in Canada, get a very strong education, and pay a great deal less than what university costs in the US. I certainly knew students with somewhat lower high school GPAs who considered McGill to be a safety in-province (and they, or more precisely we, did get in), and same is true for some other people I know but swapping UBC for McGill.
I do not think that there is any safe path here that reliably leads to a doctorate. I think that strong students who are interested in medicine need to have some faith, pick an undergraduate university that is a good fit for them, plan to work very, very hard, and keep open the option of a plan B (which might or might not have anything to do with medicine). Also, anyone embarking on a path that involves 7 or 8 years of university needs to budget for 7 or 8 years of university.
2 Likes
Here gifted program is Enhance learning program which is honors program. Why its will be a disadvantage for admission. It holds same weightage as AP/IB or Honors program. Can you please elaborate.
Cost is not the constraint here. Can you please advise which top 20 she should be applying for premed undergrad stream ?
I did not say it would be a disadvantage. I said it would have zero effect on admission decisions. Just like IB or AP have zero effect on admissions. AP and IB show rigor, but rigor is only one part of admission decisions and is never be a deciding factor.
And since itâs a Canadian program, US adcomms are not likely to be familiar with it.
Pre-med is an intention and not a major. There is no such thing as a âpremed undergrad streamâ.
With the exception of art and musics conservatories, every US and Canadian college offer the necessary coursework required for a med school admission.
It is incumbent on the student to not only earn high grades in the necessary classes, but also to find their own physician shadowing opportunities, clinical volunteering positions, community service site and programs, leadership positions, health advocacy positions and research lab positions. A university wonât do that for them.
There is nothing magical about attending a Top 20 university. Students at Harvard or Johns Hopkins donât have any special advantage when it comes to gaining a med school acceptance. Med schools are pretty much agnostic when it comes to the name of the undergrad on an applicantâs diploma. Once a student meets certain level of competency, med schools are much more interested in seeing if this individual is good fit with their program and its mission.
Med schools in Canada are much more MCAT scores & GPA focused than med schools in the US. Med schools in the US use a holistic review on applicants where MCAT/GPA is only part of the larger picture.
Also, please be aware there are only about 40 US med schools that will even consider admitting an international students (Canadians are international students). The majority of those 40 only admit 1-2 students/year.
5 Likes
Assuming that you avoid arts academies, music conservatories, and naval academies, mostly anything in the top 100 or probably top 200 would be fine. I did attempt to provide a bit more detail below.
Just about four years ago I got to listen in (on-line) to the welcome reception for incoming DVM students at a highly ranked program. They said where each incoming student got their bachelorâs degree. It was rare to hear the same school mentioned twice. I do recall one single school being mentioned twice, but it was only twice, and it was NOT a âtop 100â ranked university.
One daughter is getting a PhD in a biomedical field. I can see where every student in their PhD program got their bachelorâs degree. There are a couple of universities nearby that happen to have two students in the same program. However, once again the students come from a huge range of colleges and universities. In this case the schools where the students got their bachelorâs include Harvard, Bowdoin, U.Mass Lowell, I think there was someone from U.Mass Dartmouth, and there are students from at least two different colleges and one university that I had never heard of. Students come from highly ranked programs and from lower ranked programs. I am pretty sure that the ones that came from lower ranked programs did very well in those programs, but being near the top of the class is probably easier at U.Mass Lowell than it is at Harvard.
At one point one daughter (the one who is getting a PhD in a biomedical field) thought briefly about getting an MD instead. I happened to be talking to two different doctors at the time and chatted about where other students in their MD program got their bachelorâs. I got the same story. One said âall over the placeâ. The other said essentially the same thing but I do not recall his exact words.
The point is that students in very good MD programs get their bachelorâs degrees at a very, very wide range of universities.
Personally if I were premed, or if I had a child who was premed (and I did have a child who was pre-vet, and another who briefly though of being premed) I would most likely recommend avoiding Caltech, MIT, McGill, and Toronto due to the perception that they tend towards grade deflation. Otherwise I would look for a good fit. For one daughter this might mean a relatively small school (such as in the US we would call a liberal arts college, or in Canada we would call a small primarily undergraduate university). For the other daughter this might mean a mid-sized university near mountains and in an attractive small city. I would probably be a bit nervous about anything ranked lower than about 200 in the US news ranking, although apparently this does not keep students out of highly ranked DVM or biomedical PhD programs and it probably would not keep a student out of very good MD programs.
I understand that Harvard and Princeton get a higher percentage of their undergraduate students into MD programs compared to U.Mass Lowell and Seton Hall. However, a LOT of this is due to the consistent high quality and high academic skills of the students who start off at Harvard and Princeton in the first place. Someone coming out of high school with an unweighted 4.0 GPA and a 1550 SAT might be average as a freshman at Harvard or MIT or Stanford, or might be in the top 10% of incoming students at U.Mass Lowell. Their chances of getting into a good MD program probably will not differ much compared to whether they attend Harvard as an average student or U.Mass Lowell as a top 10% student. Premed classes will be challenging at either school. The student is going to matter a lot more than the school.
On the other hand, getting a doctorate is a very long and difficult and challenging path. This will wear on students to some extent. I saw this a bit a couple of months ago when I attended the graduation ceremony of a highly ranked DVM program. The students were thrilled to have gotten their doctorates. Some of them were also clearly tired and had been under stress that was just released. I think that it will help if students can take the first four years of this path at a college or university where they feel comfortable.
Which means that looking for a good fit is very important.
Just out of curiosity I just took at look at the US News top 20 schools, with a thought regarding where I might have recommended that a daughter go if she were premed and cost was no option.
Harvard and Princeton are high reaches for essentially all students. Personally I like Harvard Square as a place to spend four years, and four years in suburban NJ seems likely to be pleasant also. I used to know two people who got a bachelorâs at MIT and a graduate degree at Harvard, and both said that Harvard was a bit easier than MIT (and presumably a bit easier to maintain a medical-school-worthy GPA compared to MIT). Either would seem fine, but are high reaches.
MIT is where I actually got my bachelorâs degree. It is high stress. I do not think that I would personally recommend this much stress for someone starting on a tough 8 year path unless a student really, really wants to do it. The desire to do it needs to come from inside the student. You should do it because you want to do it and to prove to yourself that you can. I think of Caltech as being a lot like MIT but a bit smaller and with better weather.
Stanford I personally loved (I got a masterâs there). It is also a lot of work. It is on the quarter system which means that the end of the quarter and final exams comes up faster than you expected. You better be ready. I happened to be there during a drought which meant that the weather was always nice. However, this did mean that when (not if) you spend 6 hours on a Saturday doing one homework problem then you just missed a sunny Saturday inside doing homework (which at the time was fine for me â I wanted to do it).
Yale I do not know much about but I doubt that it is much different from Harvard and Princeton. Ditto for Duke, Johns Hopkins, and Northwestern and U.Penn. I would look closely at the location in each case. There are some cases where large US cities are not as safe compared to large Canadian cities. I did know someone who got mugged at MIT. I knew someone else at MIT who had a black belt in two different martial arts, was jumped by two large men, and left them both semi-concious and walked back to his dorm unharmed.
Cornell is in a beautiful location. It and Chicago will both be academically very challenging. One daughter had a good friend in high school who was academically one of the very smartest people we knew (both parents are MDs) and who went to U.Chicago. He came back for Christmas vacation looking exhausted and saying that âChicago is where fun goes to dieâ. Again not necessarily where I personally would start an 8 year marathon.
I have heard good things about Brown, including that it has a flexible curriculum. Universities in the US seem to have more general requirements compared to universities in Canada. I personally would rather avoiding having to take a large number of courses in areas where I personally have neither talent nor interest. I think that for me Brown might have an edge here (as would schools in Canada).
Columbia is in the middle of New York City, which is not where I personally would want to be. Dartmouth has the opposite problem, being in a very small town.
Getting into any medical school in the US as an international student is a HUGE, HUGE reach. It is definitely possible to get a bachelorâs in the US with a high GPA and good medical experience and not get into any medical school in the US, and this is more likely for an international student (such as a Canadian). I am dubious regarding whether getting a bachelorâs degree in the US, even at Harvard or Princeton or Stanford, would help a student get into medical school in Canada. To me it seems that if a Canadian who is NOT also a US citizen wants to get into medical school, their best bet is to get their bachelorâs degree at one of the very good schools in Canada.
And with straight Aâs in high school and a 1550 SAT, I think that a Canadian can pretty much just pick whatever university in Canada they want to attend, send in an application, and plan to be there in September. Then they should expect premed classes to be challenging.
One other thing to think about is that most students who start university thinking âpremedâ end up doing something else. Some are unable to maintain a medical school worthy GPA. Many just decide that they want to do something else. However we are only talking about schools which are very good for a wide range of something else.
And at least the students I knew who ended up in any sort of medical related graduate program all had a lot of very good related experience, and associated very good references. I think that this helped them quite a bit. In some cases this experience, plus references, plus a strong determination to succeed, seemed to matter more than the difference between an academically very good student versus an exceptional student.
2 Likes
If you look at AMCAS FACTS Tables A-3 and A-4, you will see that over 1250 international students applied to attend a US medical school in 2024-25 (the cycle that just ended) and only 120 International students matriculated into all US medical schools combined. This numbers includes any students who were admitted thru BS/MD programs.
The odds are stacked heavily against your daughter getting a US MD or DO acceptance. Frankly her chances are probably better in Canada.
Does she have an alternate career path planned?
(And please do NOT say a PhD in a biomedical science field because of the huge funding cuts to NSF, NIH, DOE and other federal agencies, that path is becoming untenable with many, many academic research labs closing down.)
What is that alternate career and how would attending a US college fit into that future career?
2 Likes
Iâm not sure where you go matters for getting into med school. You mentioned top 20.
Vanderbilt is a top university hospital. Look where their residents went.
Neurological Surgery - Miss State, Rutgers, Ok State, Quinnipiac, Pitt, Penn State, Florida A&M, Miami
Radiation - UTK, Santa Clara, College of Saint Benedict, Sewanee, Ole Miss, UMASS
Yes, some come from top 20s to like Rice and Vandy.
How about find the best place to excel for four years so the experience is great - which translates into strong grades and hopefully a top MCAT.
Personally I donât see where, at this top hospital, that school name is making a difference.
If you want top 20, itâs up to you. But it doesnât appear the magic pool of entry has much to do with school name or rank.
1 Like
@BSMDMom2 where does your student plan to practice medicine?
This was posted above by @WayOutWestMom
One thing that WILL impact your daughterâs chances for matching to general surgery will be her international status. Most residency programs do not sponsor visas. Those that do generally only sponsor J-1 visas.
If your student plans to practices medicine in Canada, it might be better for them to consider Canadian colleges and medical schools.
If they think becoming a doctor is a path to citizenship in the U.S., they need to rethink this strategy.
IMHO, BS/MD programs (all of them) will be high reaches, and BS/DO programs will be reaches. Thatâs the way it is even for U.S. citizens.
And if they get to the point where they do get an interview, it would be wise not to mention that they want to become a surgeon. Medical schools have students do rotations in a bunch of required areasâŠand the expectation is that students will be open minded and figure out what specialty they want during these rotations.
Also, becoming a surgeonâŠif they do get that farâŠwill require many years of residency, and perhaps a fellowship if they want to specialize in a surgical areaâŠall at not very high incomes.
1 Like
Thumper1 is correct about the long road to becoming a surgeon. Tomorrow is my daughters last day of her surgery fellowship, and that was after 7 years of Surgical Residency, at ridiculously low pay for the COL in her NE city. So you figure 4 years in UG, 4 years in Med School (my D did 5, an extra research year) 7 years in Residency and 1 year of Fellowship. So in total 17 years since graduating from HS. I do agree that it is WAY too early to be thinking about a specialty. 3rd year rotations will give your child an idea of their specialty interests. For my D, she âknewâ that surgery was for her because she wanted to talk about her day every night during that rotation.
3 Likes
And just FYI. Itâs not exactly a short road for those in other specialties. 4 years of undergrad, 5 of medical school (did an additional research/teaching/mentor year), 3 years residency and two years fellowship. You can message me for the details.
2 Likes