Hello. This is my first post.
I am in my second year of high school right now. I will be in high school for one more academic year as I will be graduating early due to AP courses (which I don't intend to use for college credit), excess credits every semester and summer school. I will be applying for admission to some 6 year combined BS/MD programs...perhaps all that are out there. So, I'll start the BS/MD track when I'm 17 and finish the MD at age 23.
I really don't want to do the whole undergrad thing, I just feel that getting a bachelors degree...even if it is in say a biology/biochemistry field...i'll be learning it in a way that is not applied to medicine...thus i would not enjoy it...thus may recieve a low GPA and then not get into medical school ever all together.
I am wondering if any medical school students here know of PD views of graduates of these programs? Are they taken less seriously because they lack the traditional four year bachelors degree?
It's pretty clear based on the fact that these programs are fewer in number each year that the model is falling out of favor. The average age of med students is increasing each year, and med schools are putting more and more emphasis on maturity.
I personally would advise you to enjoy college, try lots of different things, and allow yourself to "season" a bit prior to putting yourself squarely on a med school track. You should not be making career decisions at 17 before trying your hands at different things. The statement that you feel getting a bachelors degree is not related enough to medicine for you to do well at it suggests you are far from the level of maturity required at this point, and that a few more years of broader education would actually do you a lot of good. You are going to have many years of coursework unrelated to your ultimate career, both in college and med school, and you are expected to excel at it all, not pick and choose what you are interested in enough to do well at.
I would suggest that if you are concerned about not getting a good enough GPA in a regular college track to get into med school, you should be concerned about getting good enough grades and test scores
in med school (regardless of how you got in) to get you to your goal. It's not like doing well only matters until you get in. It actually is good to have a stronger foundation and track record of doing well at the college level before you attempt med school, or you may crash and burn and end up deciding between specialties you have less interest in. So there is some advantage to med schools forcing folks to get their share of As before matriculating; it sets them up for future success. The folks who get in with their 3.5+/31+ know that in the adcom's opinion they have proven their ability to thrive in med school. Folks who get in right out of high school don't have that seal of approval, and that could create some angst.
Medicine is a service industry, and folks with broader and more diverse backgrounds are regarded by adcoms as actually bringing more to the table than someone who focuses in on premed/med school courses from the get go. For this reason nontrads and non-science majors are the two groups whose admissions numbers have been increasing the most over the last few years. Being of broad background is now the ideal, and being narrow in focus exclusively to things that will help in medicine is a flaw schools are trying to get away from. I think you are not doing yourself any favors with these accelerated programs.
Additionally, you have to ask yourself why you are in such a rush to be in med school. Life doesn't get better in med school. If anything college is where you will have the most freedom, the most social life opportunities, the fewest obligations. Most people consider this one of the best times in their lives. By contrast once you start the medical school part of your program, your 20s are over. You will have the least free time, the most regimented schedule and a ton of obligations, only to be followed by residency which steps things up a notch. It benefits you to push this off for 4 years of liberal arts education if you have the opportunity. It will always be there and is better faced when you are more mature anyhow. All too frequently these abbreviated programs appeal to those who would most benefit from those who are least mature in their decision making. If you are doing it to get through med school quicker, or because you are afraid of the competition when applying the normal way, you need the seasoning that college provides. You need to step back, learn what college has to offer, broaden your perspectives, and if medicine is still of interest, then proceed. Rushing toward some nebulous goal with the desire to do nothing else along the way is precisely the lack of maturity that is causing schools to rethink these programs.
