OP,
My school doesn't have a 6 or 7 year program (at least not officially). My partner completed undergrad in ~3 years and went straight into dental school. Your daughter sounds quite intelligent, and may likely be able to get some of her undergrad cousework completed prior to matriculating at an undergraduate program. If she is as smart as you indicate, she should be able to wrap up her undergrad stuff quickly.
Another option available at my school is something called Early Medical school acceptance program. A certain number of high schoolers are recruited to enter the program each year. Participants are conditionally accepted to medical school when they join the program (as entering freshmen). Participants enter the university, are groomed by faculty, participate in special seminars & research programs, then go through a review to make sure that they met the requirments that were agreed to when they applied. If the requirements are met, then their conditional admission becomes official, and they enter the next class at the medical school. It used to be that participants didn't have to take the MCAT, though I think they do make them take the MCAT now, though it is less stressful for the participants since they are only trying to get a certain minimum score (as opposed to getting the highest score possible so that they can be competitive applicants).
If your daughter is very bright & motivated, she may even be able to matriculate in an undergrad program a year early. Doing that & finishing undergrad quickly should put her on track for completing her MD at a young age. We have a few matriculants at UASOM each year that are in the age range of 19-20.
Some things to consider:
1) Actually going through a regular undergrad program will give your daughter more options for her future (in terms of getting into prestigious schools), and it doesn't necessarily take more time to become an MD, if she agressively finishes her requirements.
2) My partner may have gotten through with his degree a little faster, but he was pretty miserable & burned-out and felt that he had made a mistake by not taking more time as an undergrad.
3) Part of being a good physician is being able to understand (to varying degrees of success) the point of view of your patient. This ability is developed by life experience, and by having quality interactions with many kinds of people. We need fewer physicians with bad social/psychological skills, not more. How sad that you are planning a course of action for her life that will quite likely reduce her ability to develop in these ways. Your daughter's future patients will benefit from her emotional and psychological maturity and sensitivity. If she is like most people (even most smart people), this will require time (and freedom from studying/resume building every spare minute).
4) As others have already said to you: Avoiding standardized tests, or stressful test taking environments is NOT a good way to get ready for medical education in the US. Test taking skills are a significant part of success in higher education. So what if the test is unfair or doesn't reflect someone's abilities. THE USMLE and the MCAT and the GRE all still exist, and some sort of standardized, high-stakes testing will likely always exist; we each have to encounter these tests & succeed on them to meet our goals.
5) My (current) job involves hiring smart students to help professors teach their students. Usually we work with pre-meds (a consequence of the courses & professors that we support). A major problem we have been seeing develop in the last few years is students who are unequipped to make decisions on their own. I get phone calls from parents, calling on behalf of their student children (who are 18-20); these parents do everything for their children, including thinking for them, and deciding which classes the child will take. I recently met with a panel of sophomores & juniors who will be applying to medical school in next two years. Half of them couldn't decide their way out of a paper bag, and relied too heavily on others to guide them to the "right" decisions for them. I do not think that those students will succeed as applicants, and if they get in, they will struggle trying to learn how to be autonomous. Doctors must be competent (and confident) in their decsion making abilities: their decisions affect themselves, their teams, and their patients & the patients families. Academic guidance for young students is important, and should be a part of the role of a parent (and the pre-health advisors at her school). It is admirable that you care so much for your daugher and are so thoughtful about her future. Good parents are surprisingly rare in this world. However, many parents are too involved, and this often ends up producing an impotent adult student. Your level of involvement in her academic life is probably appropriate at this stage (she is in 8th grade, after all). As your daughter continues to mature, please don't turn her into a puppet of your own desires & decisions. Hopefully, soon it will be she who is making posts to pre-professional forums, and not her benefactors. When I meet adult students that show signs of such parental control (or when their parent calls me), a red flag pops up in my mind, and I have to doubt whether that student is where he/she needs to be as a young adult. This trait (confidence in self-determination) is not a problem for all careers, though it is critical to the proper success and functioning of a healthcare professional.
Good luck to you and your family. You should be tremendously proud to have such a talented daughter. It sounds like she will have the support that she needs to succeed in whatever she puts her mind to.
Cheers,
odrade1
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