georgetown?

[gnin]

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I'm curious about the georgetown smp program. Some of the previous posts mention that many of the 50% who get into medical school during the first year there would have gotten into medical school anyway. If this is the case, why did these students even bother enrolling in the program?

Also, the program website claims that 80% of applicants are eventually admitted to medical school. Does this mean american allopathic medical schools, or include DO/carib schools as well? If not, does anyone know what fraction eventually make it into american allo schools?

 

[docquaker]

hi gnin,

i did the smp last year and i am now at a DO school. the average gpa and mcat for my class was 3.3 and 27, respectively. pretty good...but may be a little lacking for MD admission. of course, since that's the average, half the class had higher than 3.3 gpa's or 27 mcat's. there were some that just wanted to see if they could handle the med school curriculum, some that are switching careers to medicine so they needed to demonstrate proficiency in the sciences...

as for the 80%, that does include DO/Caribbean schools, but the vast majority of that 80% end up at US MD schools. mainly gtown, drexel, nymc, slu, but people went everywhere last year. of those that didn't get in, some chose DO school, while others decided to reapply. i don't think anyone went to the caribbean, but i could be wrong.

it's a good program and it's helping me a lot this year in med school. but know that most med schools are expecting you to get A's, which is not that easy, considering you need to score the equivalent of a gtown med student receiving "honors." (about 10% of the class). as you can see, there are no guarantees into a US MD school...you may want to consider finch's applied physiology program...i heard that if you maintain a 3.0, you're pretty much guaranteed a spot in the first year class.

good luck.

 

[medstylee]

hi gnin,

i did the smp last year and i am now at a DO school. the average gpa and mcat for my class was 3.3 and 27, respectively. pretty good...but may be a little lacking for MD admission. of course, since that's the average, half the class had higher than 3.3 gpa's or 27 mcat's. there were some that just wanted to see if they could handle the med school curriculum, some that are switching careers to medicine so they needed to demonstrate proficiency in the sciences...

as for the 80%, that does include DO/Caribbean schools, but the vast majority of that 80% end up at US MD schools. mainly gtown, drexel, nymc, slu, but people went everywhere last year. of those that didn't get in, some chose DO school, while others decided to reapply. i don't think anyone went to the caribbean, but i could be wrong.

it's a good program and it's helping me a lot this year in med school. but know that most med schools are expecting you to get A's, which is not that easy, considering you need to score the equivalent of a gtown med student receiving "honors." (about 10% of the class). as you can see, there are no guarantees into a US MD school...you may want to consider finch's applied physiology program...i heard that if you maintain a 3.0, you're pretty much guaranteed a spot in the first year class.

good luck.

that's a good synopsis, docquaker. i'm in this year's smp class and it seems like a lot of the people here can be considered right on the cusp of md admissions with or without the program. i think a lot of that has to do with the states the students are coming from and where they're applying. with that, it makes sense that a large proportion of our class comes from california. this year's class had an average gpa of 3.3 and an mcat of 29.5 or so. it's getting more and more competitive each year. i spoke to an admissions coordinator at an md school (will remain un-named) and he/she said that that school looks upon this program as kind of an ultimate way for a student to prove that he/she can handle medical school. so, someone may have a chance to get into a medical school beforehand, but after showing that he can get B's and A's at smp (which is very doable, with a lot of work of course), he will get noticed by a greater # and quality of schools. SMP has had people get into schools like pitt, case, columbia, etc. the fact that 85% are accepted to medical schools by the application cycle after finishing the program sold me on the program. i'm learning a ton and i really feel a lot more confident that i'll get into med school this year and i'll have a big advantage over my fellow students once i begin. best of luck

 

[gnin]

Around how many hours of studying per week outside of class do you typically need to do to perform well in the SMP program?

 

[SC Alex]

A lot. They recommend at least 35 hours a week outside of class as the bare minimum, but suggest more. I know some people who study quite a bit less and still pull off decent grades, but there aren't many who can do that. I think it really depends on the person and how efficiently they study. So far I feel that the program is doing a great job of preparing me for medical school and teaching me the study habits I need to succeed in med school. One of the things that they told us that helped put the workload in perspective is that you are applying a job where you will work at least 60+ hours a week and if you want to go into surgery make that around a 100, so studying for 40 isn't really much at all.