Masters in Psychiatry following undergrad

[t0bes]

I'm graduating from McGill undergrad with a BA in English and a minor in physiology in December 2015. My chances of admission to med school right now are on the lower end. McGill is extremely inexpensive relative to American programs for residents of Quebec ($3900 tuition for the year for grad school) so i want to potentially continue there. (I'm a dual citizen of Canada and the US.) At McGill, they offer a research-based Masters of science in psychiatry, a graduate degree culminating in a thesis, and I have a very good chance of being admitted to the program.

I would try to complete grad school in 1.5 years, applying for med school next summer after one semester of the program. I feel that the half semester of psychiatry grad school would definitely be a boost to my med school application. Is this accurate? They also offer masters in nutrition which I might pursue: I'm applying to these somewhat less sciency programs because the grad schools of physiology and biochemistry etc. require a BSc or extensive advanced classes, but I have a BA. Why is it that almost universally people choose the SMPs instead of a short masters degree for GPA/resume boosting? I can't rationlize entering $50,000 of debt to study at an American SMP, without any guarantee of admission to medical school.. Anyway my main question is: is grad school a good plan?

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[FindMeOnTheLinks]

People do SMP's because usually those programs have you taking the same courses as the medical students, allowing you to prove your ability to handle a rigorous curriculum. Masters programs tend to not be so rigorous and thus the GPA boost isn't as impressive. If you're really interested in the subject of the masters degree and you don't have anything else to do (job/volunteer?) then go ahead and do it. Prevailing wisdom is that a masters won't necessarily help you for medical school admissions but won't hurt either - just takes time and money.