secured spot for med school?

MiamiDAP
Wed, 07 May 2014 12:57:07 +0000

“you have to maintain a GPA and often have to take the MCAT and get some minimum.
usually those admitted have such super-duper stats that the school is confident that he/she would survive undergrad weeding and do well on the MCAT either way.”

Well, I do not know requirements of every ba/md program out there. I know for the fact though, that NOT ALL of them require MCAT at all. With the exception of one program with absolutely ridiculously high requirements (WUSTL, I hope I abbreviated it correctly), programs’ requirements are much lower than Regular Route. In addition, there is NO requirement for the medical ECs at all, you want to participate, good for you, but if you do not particiate, you are still in. Specifically, in D’s bs/md program requirements were 3.45 / 27. You will NOT be accepted with this stats to Medical School applying regular route. Being in bs/.md was certainly a blesing for my D. Girls tend to be a bit more on emotional side and keeping yourself calm and at peace made my D. more successful in both UG and taking MCAT (by her own admission). Requirement of having MCAT=27 (very low, considering that her diagnostic test without any preparation and before she took college Physics and Genetics was 25) kept her calm during 4 hour MCAT exam and has helped her to acieve the score of 35. Imagine, that she also felt that way at every single exam during her 4 years in UG. That aslo has helped her to graduate with 3.98. She also mentioned that some bs/md participants who did not plan to apply out definitely did not feel as pushed as the rest of pre-meds.
My D’s experience being in the bs/md (while being in UG of her choice) was very positive and influnced her future in a right direction. I understand that everybody is different and not everybody will benefit as much. She also was in a program that allowed her to apply out while retaining her spot in a program, which I believe is extremely rare.