BU MAMS vs. Tufts MBS

just directly reconfirmed, i stand by my post.

hdmill2 said:

A couple of things..

At Tufts, we are never graded against each other; we are graded against the medical school students. BUT, since the top 25% are guaranteed interviews, it is essentially as if you are being graded against each other.

On that note, since the program here is relatively new, there aren't any "hard" statistics regarding the % of interviews offered or % of students matriculating into medical school. However, the Dean of the medical school has said that they estimate they have invited more than 50% of MBS students for an interview. I have also noticed that almost all of our TAs were in the MBS program last year, which is a significant proportion of the M'14 class.

As for "getting in trouble" for attending the medical school lectures and the lectures not being med school equivalents, that's a crock of . First off, I went to maybe 3 lectures with the MBS students, and in the 50+ lectures I attended with the medical students, I have never heard anyone complain. The medical students were actually friendly and held conversations with me.

In terms of med school equivalents, the content in the MBS lectures are literally the same as in the medical school lectures. Here's where the difference arises:

1. As gujudoc said, Tufts' curriculum is systems-based. Therefore, the med students have their CV block, where they learn all the physiology/pathology/anatomy of the CV system, and the respiratory block, etc. Essentially, you can think of the med students as having a bunch of courses, each focusing on a body system. The MBS students, on the other hand, take physiology, pathology, and anatomy. Usually, the 3 courses attempt to cover the same body systems at the same time, but they don't always align. Thus, you can think of the MBS students as having a bunch of courses, each focusing on an aspect of the body (the physiology of the body, the pathology of the body) instead of covering everything about one body system.

2. The med curriculum goes WAY more in depth (which is expected since the CV block, for example, occurs in the 2nd year of med school and is all the students learn about for several weeks/months). But, if you took the first 5 physiology lectures of the CV block, the respiratory block, etc., and combined them all together, you would get the MBS physiology course.

3. The above ONLY applies to 2nd semester. 1st semester is literally identical to the medical students (with the exception of the last 3 weeks where MBS students have Intro to Clinical Medicine & pharmacology instead of pharmacology + beginning systems blocks).

I don't know anything about BU other than what I've read in this forum, so I am not drawing comparisons here...I am just trying to describe how the Tufts program works. It's ultimately up to each person to decide which aspects of whatever program they prefer, so they can determine which program is the better fit.

In that respect, I think other people in this forum need to do the same -- talk about what you know and not what you think your friends know.

Click to expand...

I was in the MBS program last year, 2009-2010. I was accepted to med school this application cycle, and found out pretty early on. The MBS program works. I know enough people in my class who have been accepted to Tufts or other MD programs to be assured that this dramatically improves chances of admission. I fall into the category of decent MCAT (31) but a crappy BCPM around a 3.0. Took years to get into med school. Never give up.

BU works too; it's reputation speaks for itself. I don't know much about it.

As for Tufts though, here's some words of wisdom coming at you-

Application process and Timeline what have you:

In my own opinion, I believe those who get into schools WHILE enrolled in an SMP program already have a good enough application without their grad school grades. That is, the "get into a school while in MBS or MAMS" has the faulty association that those grades are responsible for admission during that cycle. There could be exceptions with some schools seeing it as a tipping point for borderline applicants, but I do not believe it's the rule. I met with Tufts admissions after last year's cycle and they flat out told me they didn't really look at my updates throughout the year. They wanted to compare me to other applicants once I had completed the full program. I'm a year older now. Whatever..

If you need to take the MCAT again, you have time after the MBS program. It gets insane while juggling second semester courses, one exam after another after another. Some people who tried to balance definitely could have done better. Also since you get scores back quickly nowadays with computer based tests, do not feel pressured to think you have to choose the first summer MCAT date. Just give yourself enough time to have all secondaries processed by late August.

The program technically can be completed in a year if you have your act together for a library based thesis. Lab people drag it out over a year because of the time commitment required. For library based theses, most people don't factor in the human element. Once the deadlines are relaxed, people naturally push it back. I was burned out after second semester, then picked up a job working 50-60 hours a week, so I definitely did not meet the August deadline. If you are a summer MCAT person, just spend all waking hours studying MCAT. The thesis will still be there afterwards. Some people are living off loans (what?) or their parents during year two, so in that case you might have more time on your hands to finish the paper.

Curriculum:

Integrated is either loved or hated. I loved it. You get hit with information from every angle, entirely immersing yourself in the material. First semester is identical through Med Foundations I, ending in November. bleargh is right about two things.

1- at least in the fall of 2009, most med students did not care if we sat up in their lectures for immunology and genetics, which were video streamed downstairs for MBS students (review for everyone here- all other lectures are taught by the same profs but at different times for mbs lectures). However, there were a couple entitled feeling med students who thought we were invading their space. We had special meetings by profs telling us we couldn't attend their lectures. We still went anyway, hidden in the back. I don't like crocks of spams either. I don't like spam at all, virtual or technically edible. But, that did happen - just a few bad apples in the bunch.

2- When it comes to med foundations I and percentile ranking for committee letters, we are not compared to our cohorts. Second semester courses deviate from the medical school schedule because they begin med foundations II in November, whereas we resume a full load in January. Don't discount the courses - most have the same medical school syllabus as the tufts curriculum prior to their switch to integrated coursework. What is important to understand here is that the exams are different from the ones taken by med students that year- therefore we cannot be graded against them. Also courses are not graded on a standard scale; they are curved. That curve is based on everyone's scores. At this point it should be clear that students are graded against themselves for particular second semester courses, such as Anatomy, Physiology, and Pathology. There is one asterisk here for Physiology, where some questions were the same between med students and us and were used for percentiles in recommendations, but the grade in the course was based on the MBS class.

This should not be a big deal. It's your last chance at getting into med school. It's only one year out of your life. If you need to live life more (party tons, travel the world, ski the alps, etc), wait a year or two before diving in. Put all of your efforts into school. Don't check facebook in class. Don't visit home on weekends or get a part-time job. Don't go out on Halloween. Don't troll on SDN. Just study hard, and know that you did the best job you could. This makes the numbers such as the percentage of automatic interviews less important when comparing schools. If you have the potential and prove it, you will be rewarded.

This is the best thread I found so far comparing the two schools. Can anyone comment on if the info here is still relevant? I'm trying to decide between the two.