Accepted into MD schools, but MD/Phd a better fit

[Poptarts WildBerry]

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[snowonkey]

While your GPA and research experiences are good, you may struggle with MD/PhD applications given your MCAT. A 513 is already pretty low for MD/PhD and when you couple that to a 507 before that, you're going to be fighting an uphill battle as you saw a bit in your MD applications. While you received some mid tier MD acceptances, even MD/PhD at those same schools would be significantly tougher. This isn't to say that you can't apply, more to say that if you applied again you would definitely not be guaranteed a position anywhere.

You also have to consider what you would do with the extra year to strengthen your app-the NIH for another year would be good, but again your research credentials are already pretty good. I would probably say that your best option moving forward is to try to apply internally after finding out how favorable each schools' program is to that kind of thing. Some schools do it a lot, some hardly ever. It really boils down to the sure thing you already have vs. waiting another year for the potential of getting in nowhere.

 

[eteshoe]

The way I see it is you have two choices (most likely):

1. If you want to be a physician at all, your best course of action would be to take your acceptance and run. While your GPA is strong, your MCAT performance will not be looked at favorably at MD or MD/PhD programs if you choose to reapply and you will have an even harder time breaking in than you do now. If your ultimate goal is to be a physician scientist, take the MD and get involved in research. You have to be flexible on your research topic since your interests will change over time and not every institute will have people doing research in that area.

2. Now if you see yourself being mostly a scientist, then maybe the MD is not the way to go. In that case your GPA is well within the range to get into any of the strong PhD programs. You will have to wait another year though and you will have to crush the GRE. Many of the top tier schools will have applicants who scored on the 90th+ percentile on it and did well on the subject GRE (take the biology subject one of you choose this option, the biochem is too much of an uphill battle that you won't have time to prep for).

Hopefully this helps and good luck with your decision.

 

[shady_bb]

While your GPA and research experiences are good, you may struggle with MD/PhD applications given your MCAT. A 513 is already pretty low for MD/PhD and when you couple that to a 507 before that, you're going to be fighting an uphill battle as you saw a bit in your MD applications. While you received some mid tier MD acceptances, even MD/PhD at those same schools would be significantly tougher. This isn't to say that you can't apply, more to say that if you applied again you would definitely not be guaranteed a position anywhere.

You also have to consider what you would do with the extra year to strengthen your app-the NIH for another year would be good, but again your research credentials are already pretty good. I would probably say that your best option moving forward is to try to apply internally after finding out how favorable each schools' program is to that kind of thing. Some schools do it a lot, some hardly ever. It really boils down to the sure thing you already have vs. waiting another year for the potential of getting in nowhere.

Didn't get a chance to fully read either post, but I want to quickly comment that you're MCAT isn't necessarily too low for these schools. Out of the few people I've met that are current students in one of your programs, at least a couple have MCATs lower than 32. Not sure whether they took multiple times.

But you said you're not interested in the PhD programs at these schools? If you like chemical biology and drug design, maybe you could find some structural biologists doing drug design work that you would like.

Anyway, from what I understand it is really frowned upon to turn down an MD acceptance and reapply the next year. Surely that applies to MD PhD as well. If you are really set on seeing patients then I expect most advice will tell you to take the MD offer and apply for MD PhD internally or get your research training in residency/fellowship after fitting in as much research as possible during med school.

You are really well off in a lot of ways with an MD acceptance. It seems unreasonable to turn that down and endure another application cycle. If you were to apply to grad school you would have to study and pay to take the GRE. And I think grad school admissions is actually more competitive than a lot of us med school applicants like to think. It's just not worth it IMO when you could likely get involved with chemical biology in some capacity as an MD doing research.

 

[starfun21]

I'm so sorry you're in this situation!! I'm sure you've gone back and forth a lot and that it's a pretty agonizing time of uncertainty :/ Congratulations though on the medical school acceptances!

I will kind of chime in with my own 2 cents and experience, and I'll say that from what I've heard, your MCAT shouldn't be a completely devastating problem for MD/PhD, if that's the route you want (as I see my buddy shady_bb has chimed in as I type this!). My score is actually a lot lower than your current score and while I'm definitely an underdog and it hasn't been easy, I'm hanging in there as an applicant this cycle. 4 interviews from 18 applications, with one of them (an MSTP) that should turn into an acceptance in the next couple of weeks based on my spot on the waitlist. I can't speak for everyone, but I'm very fortunate that this has been my situation.

However, I will add that I think the greater problem in terms of re-applying (MD or MD/PhD, I imagine) is that you've already been accepted to MD programs. I don't want to speak as any kind of authority here, but I wanted to suggest looking into how much of an issue this will be. It's possible that declining an acceptance and then trying again next cycle (if that's one of your options) might set you at a huge disadvantage. From what I understand, at some point in the summer, data become available about everyone on AMCAS, so schools could see that you were accepted to medical school this cycle but then declined. I've heard that declining an MD acceptance and then applying MD again the next cycle shows poor judgment, but I'm not sure if declining an MD acceptance and then going MD/PhD would be the same??? I would just check in on this. You would also be a reapplicant everywhere you applied this cycle, so I'd keep that in mind, too.

Re-reading your original post, I see that you are thinking of applying to PhD programs. I think that would be unaffected by anything this cycle, so you shouldn't have any issues on that end! It would be a lot of work to take the GRE and re-apply though, so I'd definitely encourage you to keep soul searching and see if that's really what you want. Have you also considered taking the MD and seeing if you can somehow incorporate an extra year in them to do research? Maybe there are affiliated institutions, even if there's not an actual department/PhD in what you want to do? Maybe they'll allow you to spend some time working at the NIH, and then you can get a post-doc after med school? Not sure of all of your options here, but I think it's worth exploring!

Sorry I can't give you much concrete help, but I really am wishing you the very best of luck!

 

[downthedrain]

I had a very similar concern when I was applying, except my MCAT was good, but my GPA was so-so. In the end, I went the opposite way you did and only applied MD/PhD. My take on your situation is that #1) If you want to be a physician at all, I don't think it would be a good idea to not go to med school and try to reapply to an MSTP. It would just seem incredibly odd, and speaking to people on my schools adcom, it makes you seem uncertain of what you want to do when there are tons of other students who are already 100% committed. #2) If you REALLY want to do research and are only doing the MD part for some sense of security/thinking it will add extra fulfillment to your career, I would definitely take a moment to think about it. I went to medicine for a similar reason and while I'm happy I had the experience of caring for patients, I think I could have been as happy if not more happy just doing research. I'm just not a clinical person, and even now for residency, I applied to Research Track programs so that I could get through the clinical parts faster and get back to research. #3) While it's nice that most MD/PhD programs give you a stipend, the net monetary gains eventually balance. I'm not saying that having an additional 250K of debt doesn't affect a person's decisions or that its not a large chunk of cash, but in the long run, a regular physician will begin earning a high paying salary sooner than any MD/PhD (especially if you factor in the residency/fellowship/post-research training you'll need to run a lab). The money should not be a major factor in your decision to do an MD/PhD, it's just not worth it! #4) If you are really serious about research, there are lots of research programs available for medical students now. Additionally, you'll realize that an MD/PhD is not an end all/be all for entering research. Regardless of whether you do the PhD or just straight MD, if you want a lab, you'll most definitely have to do a post-doc with a really good scientist to mentor you.

Long story short, I'd say take the MD, go to whichever school is the cheapest/offers you some money, maybe do a NIH/HHMI/Doris Duke/Sarnoff if you really want a formal research experience, do a short residency, do a post-doc with a Nobel Laureate and get back into research, but that's just what I would've done if I could go back.

 

[Poptarts WildBerry]

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