In my opinion the R/B MSP is the best BA/MD program (arguable exception of WASH U) based on the quality of Rice’s undergraduate education, experience, and merit F/A and based on BCM’s Top 20 ranking and lowest tuition, especially instate for Texas residents. Student’s in the R/B classes get together socially as a whole quarterly with a R/B representative and can correspond with them about classes that fulfill BCM pre-requisite requirements. There is comradarie among R/B in each class and somewhat less between classes. Rice students are assigned a “college” or dorm that they stay with for all 4 years. R/B’s within a college also tend to get guidance from upper classmen R/Bs. Being an R/B gives you cred with some faculty, researchers, and some administrators at Rice, BCM, and other institutions in the Texas Medical Center across the street. This indirectly opens opportunities for research positions, but opportunities are not pushed to R/Bs. Instead you have to seek them out. The current GPA requirement (3.5 science and overall EVERY semester) is not a cake walk. Rice does not have grade inflation like many Ivies and other schools. Science classes are hard and other students are very bright. Since the R/B requirement was raised to 3.5, some R/B with those requirements have gotten 1 or 2 strikes in a 3 strike system. The added requirement for the last two classes of matching the incoming BCM class MCAT score (currently at 38) makes the R/B program the second toughest to get through behind WASHU.
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