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<p>honors doesn’t matter. This is complete bullcrap.</p>
<p>Is it possible that for the state medical school to pay more attention to the “honors status” to their own state UG students?</p>
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<p>I believe that “honor status” makes a difference only with everything else being equal. A 4.0 Honors Program probably trumps a 4.0 because of the more rigorous courses.</p>
<p>ace: perhaps a tad but not enough to convert a 3.7 into a 4.0 equivalent.</p>
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<p>96% graduate. Not everyone gets to be a dermatologist or orthosurg. There are always more spots than applicants for internal and family med. and psych residencies.</p>
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<p>Actually, given that you are sure that you want to become a physician, then I would take those statistics regarding Harvard’s premed acceptance rate to be precisely a key reason to instead choose a BA/MD program, even an inferior one. </p>
<p>After all, a 90%+ premed acceptance rate, which let’s say is really 95%, by definition implies a 5% risk that you will entirely fail to be admitted to any med-school that you apply to. A 5% risk is gigantic. Put another way, if you told me that if I ran a 5% risk of having a car accident every time that I drove, then given that I drive 2 times every weekday to go to and from work, to say nothing of extra ‘leisure’ drives or running errands, a 5% chance of an accident would mean that I would be expected to have an accident at least once every two weeks. Given such high risk, I would immediately sell my car, move next to a public transit station, and never drive again. </p>
<p>And of course that 95% figure applies only to Harvard premeds who actually apply to med-school. Even at Harvard, some premeds perform poorly in their premed coursework and/or their MCAT and therefore never even apply. The true success rate for all Harvard premeds, including those who never apply, is probably no more than 75-85%. I would have to be certifiably insane to ever drive again if I knew that I had only a 75-85% chance of safely reaching my destination. </p>
<p>Of course that all presumes that you’re sure that you want to be a physician, and I agree that the main reason to choose Harvard over an inferior BA/MD program is if you’re unsure of your career path and want to use the Harvard brand-name and recruiting office to explore other opportunities (e.g. consulting/banking). </p>
<p>But, given that you are sure that you want to be a physician, Harvard’s premed admit rates are not a reason to choose Harvard over a BA/MD program, but rather are ironically a reason for the opposite.</p>
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<p>Carefully consider Myth #4:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.questscholars.org/oldstuff/activities/professional/pre-med_letter/premed-letter-2001-2-pdf.pdf[/url]”>http://www.questscholars.org/oldstuff/activities/professional/pre-med_letter/premed-letter-2001-2-pdf.pdf</a></p>
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<p>I agree: consider the discussion of the ‘non-infinite forgiveness factor’ of Myth #11. </p>
<p>…Getting a 4.0 in your pre-med requirements at a
junior college will certainly make you a stronger applicant
than a 3.5 in your pre-med requirements at Stanford…</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.questscholars.org/oldstuff/activities/professional/pre-med_letter/premed-letter-2001-2-pdf.pdf[/url]”>http://www.questscholars.org/oldstuff/activities/professional/pre-med_letter/premed-letter-2001-2-pdf.pdf</a></p>
<p>I suspect that the same logic would apply to honors vs. non-honors courses: a 4.0 in nonhonors courses will make you a stronger applicant than a 3.5 (or perhaps even a 3.7) in honors courses.</p>
<p>Although some of the points of the author in this article may have some points, I started to believe one of the foolwing factors may play some role in this author’s experiences when he wrote in Myth #3: “I was still accepted to every med school I applied to.”</p>
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<li>His data/experience was somewhat outdated. (10 or 15 years ago, the hottest career may be on wall street so the competition to get into a med school is not that fierce.)</li>
<li>He might have a hook (considering the fact that he was a Quest Scholar, which meant a tuition-free education at Stanford because of his achievement as a URM despite of his hardship in growing up environment – hopefully he was really from the poor inner city for gemerations, rather than a child from a new immigrant familty which belongs to an upper-middle, very educated class from their original country – many top colleges, esp. top LAC, tend to recruit this kind of URMs instead of “true” URMs. I have no problem with the “true” URMs who have had the short-end of education since birth, but really have a problem with the other kind of URMs.)</li>
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<p>Today, even a person with such a hook is not likely to be accepted to every med school he applies to. (I vaguely remember that this author may be of one of the two most favorite ethnic grpups (which some CCers claimed it would likely be worth almost 10 points on MCAT.) If you do not have that, you probably need to read some of his recommendations with a grain of salt, IMO. The success rate of a student like him, with an above averge stats and that hook, of course would be quite high. He was definitely a standout among the group of applicants he needs to compete againt and many med schools may bend forward and backward to recruit him. (For example, he could have a break in taking some prereq classes in community college, but this may not apply to you! You may need to get a good GPA at a school that is more competitive than a community college. I happen to know a student with 3.95/40 from a competitive college applied to almost 20 schools and got into a single one in the end. Could you tell him to take classes at a community colleges and he would still accepted to every med school he had applied to?! I think he would hardly believe it.)</p>
<p>Of course, this is just my very subjective opinion.</p>
<p>supersnakes, the flaw in your logic is the assumption that BA/MD programs have 100% rates into medical school (this isn’t true even if you factor out people who change there mind).</p>
<p>Every BA/MD program requires a certain level of achievement to continue on to the MD program and many even require a satisfactory score on MCATs. Sure there are kids who become academic disappointments at Harvard who won’t get into medical school but there is an academic attrition rate at combined programs. I have no doubt that the average prestige of schools Harvard pre-med students attend is way higher than the average prestige of the combined programs. I would have no problem counseling a student and saying if you are good enough to get into a top 20 college you are good enough to get into a better medical school than these combined programs. The reason why a medical school is willing to provisionally commit to a high school student is that they can get better medical students that way. Even at a prestigious medical school like Northwestern, I was told at my own interviews that the accelerated students performed at the top of their classes.</p>
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<p>Some residencies can’t even fill with U.S. medical school graduates. It makes no difference where you went to school if you can graduate and get a license. Not so with some of the “hot specialties” where top graduates with AOA can’t get a spot without publications and mentoring from national leaders. Medical school prestige does matter in obtaining those residencies and if hoping to pursue a career in academic medicine at a premier medical center.</p>
<p>Sakky,</p>
<p>“But, given that you are sure that you want to be a physician, Harvard’s premed admit rates are not a reason to choose Harvard over a BA/MD program, but rather are ironically a reason for the opposite.”</p>
<p>Your statement is probably true for those premeds (top school hopeful) with SAT scores below the school average per BDM’s criterion. For average state schools, a premed may want to make the selection so that his/her ability is > 75% of the students.</p>
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<p>Sure, but the crucial difference is that you if attain that level of achievement (usually GPA+MCAT), your spot in medical school is guaranteed. In stark contrast, as evidenced by the below graph (for white students), of even those applicants with stellar 3.8+/39+ statistics, 6% were rejected from every single med-school that they applied to.</p>
<p><a href=“https://www.aamc.org/download/157958/data/table25-mcatgpa-grid-white-0911.pdf[/url]”>https://www.aamc.org/download/157958/data/table25-mcatgpa-grid-white-0911.pdf</a></p>
<p>Now, granted, I can agree that perhaps some of that 6% of rejectees performed poorly on interviews or essays, had simply applied to only the most selective med-schools (and were rejected from all), or had some other understandable reason for not being admitted. But how many could they be? Let’s face it, the group of applicants - including the rejectees - with 3.8+/39+ qualifications are clearly are, on average, a highly responsible and studious population of students. {Let’s face it, if you’re not responsible and studious, you’ll likely not obtain a 3.8+/39+.) I rather doubt that more than half of those rejectees could be explained by the reasons stated above. What that means is that 3% of those applicants with such top qualifications are nevertheless rejected from every med-school they applied to for entirely mysterious reasons. </p>
<p>Put another way, there’s a giant difference between a 0% chance of being rejected provided that you meet certain qualifications, vs. a 3% chance of being rejected. The latter scenario dictates that you can do everything well, garner top qualifications, and still be rejected anyway. Indeed, the entire rationale for insurance markets is to offer the option of shifting risks, even if small, away from those who do not wish to bear them. {For example, while the chance that my house will burn down is surely miniscule - certainly far smaller than the 6% risk of highly qualified premeds from being rejected from med-school - I may willingly purchase fire insurance anyway to fully compensate me from that disaster. BA/MD programs effectively act as ‘rejection insurance’.} </p>
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<p>I’m sure that’s true, but like I said, that may be a fair tradeoff. Again, using the insurance markets as metaphor, only in exchange for profits are insurance firms are willing to insure people for various risks. But that’s a tradeoff that millions of people in the world are clearly willing to take, because they don’t want to bear the risk. The entire business model of the multi-trillion dollar worldwide insurance industry is predicated on risk-aversion.</p>
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<p>If what you are saying is true, then that makes the advice he provides to be even more salient. For example, if med-school admissions competition is even more heightened today than it was before (perhaps because of less competition from Wall Street), then that would imply that top grades are even more paramount. Similarly, if the author was admitted via a hook, then that implies that those applicants who lack a hook would similarly need top grades all the more desperately. </p>
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<p>I don’t actually believe that that’s what the author advised, and certainly not what I have ever advised. Obviously if you can obtain top grades in the standard university coursework at a top school, you should certainly do that. </p>
<p>But the operative question is, what if you can’t do that? Like McCullough said, not everybody will obtain top grades in their standard university coursework. To quote him: “…most of you wont get As in every class [in your standard university coursework]. And because of this, some of you certainly would have had higher GPAs elsewhere…For some of you, an A in high school could be achieved through hard work and determination. This is not necessarily true of the pre-med classes [in standard university coursework]. Everyone is trying hard. They are all smart. And the classes can be very difficult…”</p>
<p>In that situation, you might well be better off taking coursework at an easier community college where your grades will be higher. Therefore the recommendation is not, as you said, somebody with a 3.95/4 in premed coursework at a competitive college instead taking coursework at a community college, but rather somebody who would have earned, say, a 3.25/4 at that competitive college instead choosing to take coursework at a community college (where he would have presumably earned much higher grades). </p>
<p>Let’s face it, with a 3.25 in premed courses, you’ll likely won’t be admitted to many med-schools - indeed, probably zero. I would agree with McCullough that you would indeed be far better off having taking that coursework at an easier community college instead and earned higher grades. </p>
<p>The bottom line is that if you can obtain top premed grades at a competitive college, you should obviously do just that. But not everybody can do that. Indeed, only a small minority can. Those who can’t are well-advised to consider completing such coursework at an easier school. For the purposes of med-school admission, it is better to receive a top grade at a community college than to receive a terrible grade at a competitive college. And unfortunately, plenty of students at competitive colleges will receive terrible grades. Sad but true.</p>
<p>No doubt a combined program is a type of insurance and insurance, per se, is not only a reasonable thing to take but a responsible option as well. If your unexpected death or your home burning to the ground will leave your family destitute, then you need that protection. Aside from the lost money, your life experience is much the same. In contrast, there are intangible benefits of attending Harvard, useful connections made, and exposure to future movers and shakers in a variety of disciplines. The intense buzz at a place like that can’t be replicated by the middling BA/MD trade school program. For the 97% or so who should get into med school,this shunted experience strikes me as a cop out.</p>
<p>The financial differences of these options can be enormous. Having an additional 1-2 years of lifetime earnings as a physician and 1-2 years less of tuition can easily exceed a half million dollars. For those who can still feel like they can skip the insurance option, their experience can be much richer by completing four residential years with academic peers.</p>
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<p>I believe that the 3% figure which corresponds to your cited 97% figure has to do with those premed applicants with 3.8+/39+ statistics and yet are still rejected from every med-school that they apply to for understandable reasons, such as simply applying only to the most selective med-schools (and being rejected from all of them). </p>
<p>On the other hand, surely far more than 3% of incoming Harvard premeds won’t be admitted to med-school, not least because most of them won’t obtain 3.8+/39+ statistics, such statistics being highly exceptional even for Harvard students. Indeed, plenty of Harvard premeds will earn relatively poor grades (e.g. B’s and C’s) and therefore won’t even apply at all. I would therefore estimate that probably no more than 2/3 of all Harvard freshman premeds will eventually be admitted to med-school. That other 1/3 - if they wanted to be physicians - would have been better off having gone to a BA/MD program.</p>
<p>When to start taking classes?
So I am at UMBC taking some summer courses and one of my lab partners is a Stanford graduate who just finished her masters at Hopkins! She is just now taking chem 101 so anytime you want to take premed reqs is the right time.</p>