Chances for MD/PhD

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nyxassassin

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Going to be applying MD/PhD in a week assuming nothing unfortunate. I am primarily going for MD/PhD and I wanted to know if I am competitive enough giving my lack of clinical at this point. I am planning on shadowing and volunteering this week a bit and to continue throughout the summer/year but I already have a 9-5+ research job this summer.

MCAT: 40 (12 VR, 14 BS/PS)
GPA: 3.7, SGPA: 3.83

Undergraduate: Top 5
Science Scholar

Tutoring 1 semester, TA for Upper level Bio 1 semester and doing another in the fall. Research for 2 years now and about 2000 hours. 1 Project is close to pub, other is making progress. Presented freshmen year at undergrad thing. Had a job summer before freshmen year at industry. Had first author paper and presented at legit conference in high school so IDK if I should put that. Part of Fraternity and Honor fraternity. I don't mean this at a troll, I know I have great stats I just don't feel super confident about the rest and have heard very mixed things. Will be working on getting clinical starting this week. What are some good schools? Also, is it bad to apply MD/PhD to an university and also apply PhD to that same place later?

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You have a strong app as anyone on here (including you) can tell you. As long as you include some from different ranges, you should get in somewhere. I don't see why you would need to apply phd only later
 
Thanks, so what would be some good mid range schools in the north east? Would 20 different schools be a reasonable number? Sorry for being an anxious idiot.
 
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I see you say you have no clinical experience or volunteering, nor do you mention any non-research ECs. Speaking from experience, I don't think your chances are good. I applied last year with a very similar app, except I had more 1st author pubs and conference presentations, and ~30 hrs of volunteering and ~100 hrs of shadowing. I applied to 18 schools and got in nowhere. From what I can tell my problem was the lack of clinical experience and "interesting" ECs/life experiences. In the interviews I had it became readily apparent that research was only a minor concern; most of my interviewers seemed more interested in finding out how interesting of a life I led and getting a motivation for wanting to be a doctor. Surprisingly they were little different than my MD interviews.

I think until recently in the past it was true that MSTPs were mainly concerned about finding people truly interested and skilled in research. Back then the main issue was weeding out the kids looking for free med school. Ever since the NIH budget crisis went from "bad" to "apocalyptic", however, I think the focus has changed to weeding out the kids who are trying to hedge their bets on a research career by getting an MD with their PhD. In other words, if your CV reads like a PhD applicant's, that's a huge mark against you. From what I saw on these forums and at interviews, the most successful applicants have CVs more or less the same as MD applicants but with more research and better stats.

Also, apparently schools are expecting people to shadow MD/PhDs now. Or at least that's the impression I got since every interview asked me pointedly if I had ever shadowed an MD/PhD and didn't seem happy when I said "no".

Anyway, I'd suggest taking a year off to build up the MD side of your app more. If you decide to apply this year though definitely bias your school list towards lower ranked schools.
 
I see you say you have no clinical experience or volunteering, nor do you mention any non-research ECs. Speaking from experience, I don't think your chances are good. I applied last year with a very similar app, except I had more 1st author pubs and conference presentations, and ~30 hrs of volunteering and ~100 hrs of shadowing. I applied to 18 schools and got in nowhere. From what I can tell my problem was the lack of clinical experience and "interesting" ECs/life experiences. In the interviews I had it became readily apparent that research was only a minor concern; most of my interviewers seemed more interested in finding out how interesting of a life I led and getting a motivation for wanting to be a doctor. Surprisingly they were little different than my MD interviews.

I think until recently in the past it was true that MSTPs were mainly concerned about finding people truly interested and skilled in research. Back then the main issue was weeding out the kids looking for free med school. Ever since the NIH budget crisis went from "bad" to "apocalyptic", however, I think the focus has changed to weeding out the kids who are trying to hedge their bets on a research career by getting an MD with their PhD. In other words, if your CV reads like a PhD applicant's, that's a huge mark against you. From what I saw on these forums and at interviews, the most successful applicants have CVs more or less the same as MD applicants but with more research and better stats.

Also, apparently schools are expecting people to shadow MD/PhDs now. Or at least that's the impression I got since every interview asked me pointedly if I had ever shadowed an MD/PhD and didn't seem happy when I said "no".

Anyway, I'd suggest taking a year off to build up the MD side of your app more. If you decide to apply this year though definitely bias your school list towards lower ranked schools.

wtf? for real? wow this sucks... only have 50 hours of volunteering and 0 shadowing and no ECs. didn't think I needed to be super strong in this area since I'm applying MD/PhD...
 
wtf? for real? wow this sucks... only have 50 hours of volunteering and 0 shadowing and no ECs. didn't think I needed to be super strong in this area since I'm applying MD/PhD...

But really, 0 hours..? How can you embark on such a long journey to enter a career without even seeing what these professionals do?
 
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I got around the whole "shadowing an MD/PhD" thing by forming close research relationships with either MD/PhDs or MDs who were heavily involved in research. Although I never went to clinic with them, it did allow me to show that I had some perception of what the physician scientist path involved and that was good enough for everyone I interviewed with.

However, I would agree that you need some clinical experience (preferably before you write your PS). You can get this done quickly if you make it a priority. I took one summer and volunteered on my days off from my research job - it wasn't fun, but it was about 20 volunteer hours/week, and that was really what I needed at the time.
 
So I started shadowing and volunteering last week and hope to also shadow an MD/PhD at some point this summer. If I have enough experience by my interviews (if I get any) would that be good or do I have no legitimate chance.
 
Here's an alternate view:

I had 0 clinical hours and maybe ~30 hours of shadowing and got into multiple top programs this cycle with a lower MCAT and higher GPA than OP. I was, however, deeply involved in translational activities outside of my research (that probably fall under "interesting ECs/life experiences" as OCD mentioned) and had several mentors I worked with that were at the physician-scientist intersection. Consequently, I had ideas of and exposure to how to apply an MD/PhD to my (non-traditional) interests that were backed by my activities. If clinical volunteering and shadowing seem tangential to your goals, and you have gained experience in what you want to do in the future through other means, then I think volunteering and shadowing are not quite the "required check-box" activities that they are made out to be (at least at research-focused programs). Shadowing an MD/PhD is only one (often inefficient) means for exploring a field and your interests -- having direct experiences that show you what's possible with an MD/PhD in your area of interest are likely far more important. Of course, if you are genuinely interested in clinical volunteering or shadowing, or think a particular clinical experience will deepen your exposure to the field, then you should pursue it.

At least based on my experience: if you can intelligently articulate your rationale for pursuing an MD/PhD that is backed by experience, then whether or not that experience includes volunteering or shadowing does not matter that much.
 
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Another view of difficulty gaining admissions for otherwise qualified MD/PhD applicants:

If a person is odd, arrogant, quirky, awkward, not sociable, extremely geeky, has not demonstrated social activities, etc., can all be red flags or could preclude admission. A lack of life experiences, meaning non-academic experiences, can be taken to mean that you do not have a balanced life and that you are solely focused on academics, which at the undergraduate stage is not good. You are entering medicine- you need to have demonstrated social experiences. If the interviewer thinks that they would not want you as a doctor, you will have difficulty gaining admission. At things being equal, the sociable candidate will win.
 
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I see you say you have no clinical experience or volunteering, nor do you mention any non-research ECs. Speaking from experience, I don't think your chances are good. I applied last year with a very similar app, except I had more 1st author pubs and conference presentations, and ~30 hrs of volunteering and ~100 hrs of shadowing. I applied to 18 schools and got in nowhere. From what I can tell my problem was the lack of clinical experience and "interesting" ECs/life experiences. In the interviews I had it became readily apparent that research was only a minor concern; most of my interviewers seemed more interested in finding out how interesting of a life I led and getting a motivation for wanting to be a doctor. Surprisingly they were little different than my MD interviews.

...


Anyway, I'd suggest taking a year off to build up the MD side of your app more. If you decide to apply this year though definitely bias your school list towards lower ranked schools.


How many interviews did you get? What quality programs did you apply to?
 
Thanks for all the replies! I actually work under and MD/PhD though my PI doesn't practice and I am part of a fraternity and another honors fraternity so I do have a (small) life outside of academics and a few other interests which I doubt MD/PhD programs are interested in. If you don't mind me asking, what type of translational activities do you mean Regeneration? If you can't say, thanks anyway for your view. I attended a talk by admissions deans of a few strong MD/PhD programs which really focused on research more than anything.
 
wtf? for real? wow this sucks... only have 50 hours of volunteering and 0 shadowing and no ECs. didn't think I needed to be super strong in this area since I'm applying MD/PhD...
You need to have enough experience where you can point to something in it to backup your assertion that you need the MD and that it's right for you. So there's no hard amount of hours you need, but to get that kind of experience is most likely going to require a not-trivial amount of hours. Basically, you need to have some experience you can point to when answering the question "why do you want to be a doctor?" So if you want to give the "I want to help people" answer, you're not going to be very convincing if you have 50 hours of volunteering, especially if those 50 hours were earned in a few months. If you want to say something about being a leader in the community and you have no leadership experience and/or little to no volunteering, once again you're not going to convince anyone. And all of this becomes much harder if all your experience was recent (ie after you took the MCAT) because at that point you had obviously made up your mind to become a doctor, so you can't use any of that experience to convincingly explained that that was what made you want to be a doctor. And sure, you can come up with some nebulous motivation that got you interested in the first place, but then you'll have to explain why you weren't do anything clinically or service related during all that time.

The application process is like a storytelling competition. Whoever has the best stories wins. You need to tell a story about why you want to be a scientist and how good of a scientist you already are. You need to tell a story about why you want to be a doctor and why you want to help people. You need to tell a story about how you've been involved in the community and have shown leadership potential. Most important of all, you need to tell at least one story that (almost) no one else can tell.

Also, I can't state enough how important the uniqueness factor is. The majority of secondaries will ask you to state what makes you unique, and you'll be asked that same question in a number of ways at every single interview you do. At most interviews that's actually the very first question you'll be asked, often before the actual interviewing has even started (it'll come in the form of "Let's go around the room and have you guys introduce yourselves. Tell us your name, what school you're from, and a fun fact about yourself").

How many interviews did you get? What quality programs did you apply to?
6 interviews; 1 at a top 10, 1 at a top 20, 3 in the 20-40 range, and 1 non-MSTP (which was the only non-MSTP I applied to; probably would have gotten in somewhere had I applied to more non-MSTPs, but I wasn't impressed with any that I looked at). My school list was, in hindsight, too top-heavy, but not terribly so; I made a point of including a mix of schools, including a bunch that I was convinced were as close to safeties as I was gonna get because my stats were so much higher than their average stats. It's funny, but the schools that gave me interviews were mostly the ones I thought would be the least likely to give me interviews, whereas I was rejected pre-interview by most of my "safeties". Even weirder, the only MD/PhD program to not outright reject me was that top 10 (still waitlisted).

Another view of difficulty gaining admissions for otherwise qualified MD/PhD applicants:

If a person is odd, arrogant, quirky, awkward, not sociable, extremely geeky, has not demonstrated social activities, etc., can all be red flags or could preclude admission. A lack of life experiences, meaning non-academic experiences, can be taken to mean that you do not have a balanced life and that you are solely focused on academics, which at the undergraduate stage is not good. You are entering medicine- you need to have demonstrated social experiences. If the interviewer thinks that they would not want you as a doctor, you will have difficulty gaining admission. At things being equal, the sociable candidate will win.

I'd agree with this. Unfortunately for me a lot of that could describe me, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was why I got rejected outright after 5/6 of my interviews. That said, There were still 12 schools that rejected me without an interview, so there was obviously something wrong with my primary/secondaries as well.
 
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The application process is like a storytelling competition. Whoever has the best stories wins. You need to tell a story about why you want to be a scientist and how good of a scientist you already are. You need to tell a story about why you want to be a doctor and why you want to help people. You need to tell a story about how you've been involved in the community and have shown leadership potential. Most important of all, you need to tell at least one story that (almost) no one else can tell.

Somewhat agree, although I wouldn't call it a storytelling competition... in order to convince adcoms to let you into their programs you have to convince them 1) that you are academically capable of succeeding in research 2) that you are socially capable of succeeding in medicine 3) that you have the motivation and 4) that you know what the career entails. Your writing is a chance to show the schools an introspective assessment; however, if you make claims about yourself that are not substantiated by evidence (i.e. past activities that demonstrate your qualities and written evaluations about you), then what you say bears no fruit. You can say whatever you want, but the best way to evaluate your words is through third parties (letters, awards, manuscripts, past activities), which provide a more objective assessment of your qualities
 
Yikes, my story is somewhat unique (probably not that unique as its just motivated by family experiences) though I took the MCAT just as a why not before really looking into MD/PhD vs PhD. I guess its up to recs and interviewing. Any other big tips? Everyone here has been really helpful.

EDIT: also I assume it is a rather poor idea to talk about my own experiences with being passed between doctors without a diagnosis and being given very strong medicines as motivation? I feel very behind the ball
 
Thanks for all the replies! I actually work under and MD/PhD though my PI doesn't practice and I am part of a fraternity and another honors fraternity so I do have a (small) life outside of academics and a few other interests which I doubt MD/PhD programs are interested in. If you don't mind me asking, what type of translational activities do you mean Regeneration? If you can't say, thanks anyway for your view. I attended a talk by admissions deans of a few strong MD/PhD programs which really focused on research more than anything.

Yikes, my story is somewhat unique (probably not that unique as its just motivated by family experiences) though I took the MCAT just as a why not before really looking into MD/PhD vs PhD. I guess its up to recs and interviewing. Any other big tips? Everyone here has been really helpful.

EDIT: also I assume it is a rather poor idea to talk about my own experiences with being passed between doctors without a diagnosis and being given very strong medicines as motivation? I feel very behind the ball

For me, I mean applied BME projects. Talking about your own experiences being passed between doctors works fine, and I've found that a non-trivial number of people are driven to the field because of such experiences. Just reflect on things positively; you don't want the focus to be the anecdote, but it can be a thread tying together your other experiences, motivations, and aspirations.
 
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