Combined Bachelors and Med School admission

[Anonymous]

Rice's program only has four spots. These are long-shots. You can't count on your child getting into any of these programs. Most of the time there is an interview. It's possible to spend thousands of dollars on plane tickets to fly your child to look at these programs and not have your child get into any. YOur child will be competing with kids who have spent three or four summers doing independent science research at various NIH, NASA, etc. labs, kids with perfect SAT scores, kids who have actually been published in scientific journals. Is your kid in that category? Then give it a shot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rice's program only has four spots. These are long-shots. You can't count on your child getting into any of these programs. Most of the time there is an interview. It's possible to spend thousands of dollars on plane tickets to fly your child to look at these programs and not have your child get into any. YOur child will be competing with kids who have spent three or four summers doing independent science research at various NIH, NASA, etc. labs, kids with perfect SAT scores, kids who have actually been published in scientific journals. Is your kid in that category? Then give it a shot.

With the credentials above and a strong undergraduate performance, you would have a pretty good shot at a top caliber medical school taking the normal path. Everyone has a different risk tolerance. These programs take advantage of strong students who want to de-risk their future career paths (and by take advantage of I do not mean that the candidate loses in the relationship). The tradeoff is loss of optionality.

[Anonymous]

This all makes sense but I still don't quite understand what the medical school gets out of it if the undergraduate school is relatively weaker, as in the St. Bonaventure/GW Med School partnership. Is it just that the Med School knows they have locked in some good students early before they opt to go elsewhere?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Rice's program only has four spots. These are long-shots. You can't count on your child getting into any of these programs. Most of the time there is an interview. It's possible to spend thousands of dollars on plane tickets to fly your child to look at these programs and not have your child get into any. YOur child will be competing with kids who have spent three or four summers doing independent science research at various NIH, NASA, etc. labs, kids with perfect SAT scores, kids who have actually been published in scientific journals. Is your kid in that category? Then give it a shot.

With the credentials above and a strong undergraduate performance, you would have a pretty good shot at a top caliber medical school taking the normal path. Everyone has a different risk tolerance. These programs take advantage of strong students who want to de-risk their future career paths (and by take advantage of I do not mean that the candidate loses in the relationship). The tradeoff is loss of optionality.

A large majority of the people taht did the 'program' were indian and asian-american kids with a sprinkling of white kids but it is mostly AA's and IA's trying to de-risk their career path.

[Anonymous]

I would imagine it allows the undergraduate school a differentiated course offering (a supercharged premed program) and access to some very top-notch and focused undergrads, who might otherwise chose a different school. The college admissions/selection process is a big confusing mess. Why not do something unique to appeal to a segment of the population?