Mr.Patel said:
I got into the Penn State/Jefferson BS/MD program, but decided not to go. I applied because it was appealing to me that it was a shorter path and took a lot of the worry out the admissions process. I ended up choosing not to do the program because the advice I got from several doctors was that there was no rush and that I should use college to build a solid base of knowledge and to mature and gain life experience. My interviewer at Jefferson even said the program was looked down upon because a lot of kids were pushed into it by their parents and that taking a shortcut through the process could only be detrimental (this is only one person though). Something about it just didn't feel right, so I turned down the offer. That said, maybe it's right for you. If you're interested there are definitely a few things you need to think about though. 1) Your course schedule will be pretty regimented (basically gen ed and med school prereqs), and you might have only 2 electives in college; 2) It will most likely involve summer school (at PSU, both the summer before you would normally begin college and the summer b/w years one and two); 3) there is always minimum MCAT and college GPA required to actually matriculate to med school, and often they are high enough to get you into med school anyway (i.e. it's not a true guarantee, you'll still have to meet certain criteria); 4) You'll be 2 years younger than everyone else when you start medical school; and 5) You'll be missing out on 2 years of college life, and I think the importance of this should not be understated. Also, you should really think about how equipped you are, as a senior in high school applying to these programs, to make a career decision. I'm not saying that to discourage you, only to get you to really think about it. A better option might be a non-accelerated guaranteed med school admission program. I know that Pitt, Brown, and U. of Rochester have guaranteed med school admission programs where you do 4 yrs college, 4 yrs med school, so it's not any faster but you have that "guaranteed" admission (I think at Pitt you need to have a 3.7 GPA and 30 MCAT to matriculate). The advantages of these programs are that you have the guaranteed admission if you meet the minimum requirements and that you don't sacrifice the college experience. I think these programs also provide special experiences to students to enrich their experiences, but I don't know too much about this.Mr.Patel said:
Someone I know did a 6-year program at University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Medicine, but that was at least a decade ago.prefontaine said:
