Go to a US MD school with no MCAT, orgo, or physics!

Discover Your Odds of Getting into Medical School
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Your reaction to this

  • Outrage

    Votes: 68 36.0%

  • Jealousy

    Votes: 36 19.0%

  • Indifference

    Votes: 79 41.8%

  • Other

    Votes: 29 15.3%
  • Total voters
    189
GoodmanBrown

GoodmanBrown

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The NY Times reports on a little-known program that lets students get into Mount Sinai without taking any pre-med classes or the MCAT. You have to have a humanities major.

Some select quotes:

"I didn't want to waste a class on physics, or waste a class on orgo."
Click to expand...

and another

The humanities program has allowed her to pursue other interests, like playing varsity tennis and going abroad, she said.
Click to expand...

Your thoughts?
 
GoodmanBrown said:
The NY Times reports on a little-known program that lets students get into Mount Sinai without taking any pre-med classes or the MCAT. You have to have a humanities major.

Some select quotes:



and another



Your thoughts?
Click to expand...

god damn it, mount sinai is a good school too, this is such crap.
 
20091211-pxaximce4kucfy6264tfxhygb7.jpg
 
this is pretty absurd, but you can ONLY go to mount sinai, so whatever.
 
lol med school would be so hard without taking any pre-reqs!!! going into it with no science classes at all?! omg!
 
I voted for "indifference." Doesn't affect me, and I figure the school knows how to accept qualified candidates better than I do.
 
i picked jealousy. it's not too late to change my major...hmmmmmm

here i come mount sinai!
 
tweek125 said:
i picked jealousy. it's not too late to change my major...hmmmmmm

here i come mount sinai!
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It's too late, it was featured on the New York Times. Everybody and their mother will be applying now.
 
PrettySmartGirl said:
lol med school would be so hard without taking any pre-reqs!!! going into it with no science classes at all?! omg!
Click to expand...

They do some sort of Mount Sinai science bootcamp the summer before their MS1. But yeah. I am all in favor of more humanities for premeds, for multiple reasons, but premeds should at least take the normal pre-reqs...it's nice that these students are generally successful, but I wasn't surprised that they scored below average on the USMLE.
 
This is a well known program. It is not a secret by any means. They accept about 35 students per year. Feel free to do a search and find the threads from the last few years that were all about the application and process. Too bad no one made a big deal of it this year.
 
The main reason this program is "little-known" is that it is intended for a very small percentage of pre-med students. They will scrutinize your application, and if you have taken more than a few science courses, forget about it. It really is only for students who have an ardent love of the humanities (i.e. writer, painter, musician, study abroad, etc).

Planning to take/Taking/Having to take Orgo is an automatic disqualifier, as is having a research position, or anything else implying "I like the sciences."

Plus, I have heard that out of the 30 (only!?) accepted to the program, 27 or so come from the Ivies and another 3 or so come from Williams College (there is a linkage there).

@tweek125: Why apply to the program if you have to change your major just so you have a chance at getting it? They will absolutely see through that on your transcript, the application, and the interview. Though it doesn't hurt to try, why waste your time? Instead, spent your getting a research position or something IMO.
 
Suncrusher said:
They do some sort of Mount Sinai science bootcamp the summer before their MS1. But yeah. I am all in favor of more humanities for premeds, for multiple reasons, but premeds should at least take the normal pre-reqs...it's nice that these students are generally successful, but I wasn't surprised that they scored below average on the USMLE.
Click to expand...

But a whole lot of them end up going into psychiatry so who cares.

/jk
 
IMO that's kind of stupid. These 35 students cruise through a cushy major, don't take the MCAT, and are then admitted to med school while the rest of us bust ass? 👎
 
Chops369 said:
IMO that's kind of stupid. These 35 students cruise through a cushy major, don't take the MCAT, and are then admitted to med school while the rest of us bust ass? 👎
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exactly, this is ******ed.
 
I don't really care about them getting in, but what is their graduation and success rate? In my opinion, with no pre-preqs or MCAT, it must be pretty low. Obviously I am not saying that all humanities students are not ready for med school, but the majority can't possibly have the aptitude to handle med school with no pre-reqs.
 
They take Biology 1 & 2 + Chem 1 & 2. They however omit physics and organic chemistry completely. Now I don't know how much organic is needed for biochemistry.. but it seems like it'd be difficult to do without.
 
Quote from article: Ms. Adler said she was inspired by her freshman study abroad in Africa. "I didn't want to waste a class on physics, or waste a class on orgo," she said. "The social determinants of health are so much more pervasive than the immediate biology of it."

This comment rubs me in the wrong way when I read it. Not only because it is rather incorrect (relating general physics with bio), but it does not address the type of thinking that develops in a well taught ochem/physics class.
 
Shinobiz11 said:
I don't really care about them getting in, but what is their graduation and success rate? In my opinion, with no pre-preqs or MCAT, it must be pretty low. Obviously I am not saying that all humanities students are not ready for med school, but the majority can't possibly have the aptitude to handle med school with no pre-reqs.
Click to expand...
From the paper:
sUUso.jpg


They do score lower on the USMLE Step I and are more likely to take a nonscholarly leave of absence, but there's really no indication that they're struggling to keep up with medical school or anything like that.
 
😛 It's a good thing because they are using it for research. We have all wondered whether we really needed all those classes to do well and this is answering that. Personally I think classes like orgo and my upper level bios taught how to study for the kind of intesity med school will have. Many non-science classes were easy and more about fun than studying.
 
Cleavername said:
exactly, this is ******ed.
Click to expand...
They're doing this at their own risk. If they don't make it to med school they will be working at Starbucks with their degrees 😛, opposed to working as a research assistant with BS in Biology.
 
Electronegative said:
They're doing this at their own risk. If they don't make it to med school they will be working at Starbucks with their degrees 😛, opposed to working as a research assistant with BS in Biology.
Click to expand...

I'm sensing massive sarcasm lol.
 
bobsmith said:
From the paper:
sUUso.jpg


They do score lower on the USMLE Step I and are more likely to take a nonscholarly leave of absence, but there's really no indication that they're struggling to keep up with medical school or anything like that.
Click to expand...


Exactly. People on here are bashing the program, but the reality is that the people who are accepted are very intelligent and would surely have been accepted anyway. This program allows them to focus on humanities, and while I would imagine that only a minority will truly appreciate that, there is truly something to be said for the advantages that a humanities based education provides.
 
They get accepted without the pre-reqs, but they end up taking them anyways..they do them during a "summer boot camp." I believe it is in the article. The only thing they really get away with is not taking the MCAT.
 
As a humanities major, I considered the program awhile back but felt they weighed high school performance etc. too heavily. However, I think it's a great idea. Maybe other schools will follow in their footsteps. It's no different then the 6 or 7 year undergrad+med school acceptances without previous HS prerequisites or MCAT scores. I think these kinds of programs are rigorous in their own right. As chman mentioned, they aren't completely ignorant to science.
 
chman said:
They get accepted without the pre-reqs, but they end up taking them anyways..they do them during a "summer boot camp." I believe it is in the article. The only thing they really get away with is not taking the MCAT.
Click to expand...

A summer boot camp is hardly equivalent to taking a year of physics and organic.

I think the program is a great idea. Medicine need more well rounded physicians that don't just jump through all the same hoops to gain admittance. There should be more variety in the process, even though that means there will most likely be an increase in unknown variables in the admissions process.
 
The article mentioned that these people were more likely to take off a year for research. From my understanding, many of the people who do so do it in between their second and third year--they feel unprepared for Step 1 and so they take an extra year to study (and do research in the meantime so it doesn't look too shady). The fact that these people do relatively poorly on Step 1 would support this claim. If it's true, then the extra research year is not a positive reflection on the students.
 
afugazzi said:
The article mentioned that these people were more likely to take off a year for research. From my understanding, many of the people who do so do it in between their second and third year--they feel unprepared for Step 1 and so they take an extra year to study (and do research in the meantime so it doesn't look too shady). The fact that these people do relatively poorly on Step 1 would support this claim. If it's true, then the extra research year is not a positive reflection on the students.
Click to expand...

Most take a year off after their third year, not second year. Plus, just about everyone takes step 1 after the second year.

From my experience at Sinai, it took humeds a couple of months to catch up to the traditional students, especially in the more science/math heavy med school courses like biochem and physiology. By the time 2nd and 3rd year rolled around, there were no differences in competency.

The comparisons made in the table posted above are kind of silly because third year clerkship grades (and derivatives of them such as AOA and MSPE performance) are all subjective and for anyone who has gone through third year, there is very little correlation between medical knowledge and future performance as a physician with how well you perform during third year. Regardless though, it's not statistically significant anyway except for psychiatry clerkship.

I think the humed program is successful in some ways with diversifying the student population at Sinai. However, my major qualm with the program is that there is even a need to promote students with humanities backgrounds. Many of the traditional applicants nowadays will also have strong humanities backgrounds (plus strong science backgrounds). Even those who majored in true science or engineering fields I can guarantee have taken many humanity-based classes and also many interests in various humanities fields. I feel that a program like this is actually making less well-rounded applicants than the traditional applicants of today because while humed applicants have strong humanities backgrounds, they have weak science backgrounds (for the most part). Maybe 20-30 years ago something like this may have been useful, but not really anymore.
 
chman said:
They get accepted without the pre-reqs, but they end up taking them anyways..they do them during a "summer boot camp." I believe it is in the article. The only thing they really get away with is not taking the MCAT.
Click to expand...

Which some BS/MD students already get away with.
 
bobsmith said:
From the paper:
sUUso.jpg


They do score lower on the USMLE Step I and are more likely to take a nonscholarly leave of absence, but there's really no indication that they're struggling to keep up with medical school or anything like that.
Click to expand...

Wow! that is really interesting, I never really expected this. Good find!👍👍
 
sustentacular said:
Which some BS/MD students already get away with.
Click to expand...
i'm not too familiar with bs/md programs, but the ones i know of do require you to keep up a certain gpa in your science courses. so they may skip the mcat, but they have to take all the prereqs like the rest of us, and even some classes we don't have to take (up to calc 3 for the program i know the most about).
 
Chops369 said:
IMO that's kind of stupid. These 35 students cruise through a cushy major, don't take the MCAT, and are then admitted to med school while the rest of us bust ass? 👎
Click to expand...

not all humanities majors are cushy..

im pretty indifferent to this program though. People who can even apply for this program only have a shot for this program. We have a better chance getting into med school than they do.
 
The Poet Sings said:
i'm not too familiar with bs/md programs, but the ones i know of do require you to keep up a certain gpa in your science courses. so they may skip the mcat, but they have to take all the prereqs like the rest of us, and even some classes we don't have to take (up to calc 3 for the program i know the most about).
Click to expand...

Yes, I've read that about BS/MD programs too.. the typical gpa requirement I've seen is 3.5, but perhaps you know of programs that have a higher requirement. I dunno, 3.5 for sciences classes doesn't seem that tough to me for essentially an auto-admit to an MD program.

If you see the post that I had quoted chman was saying that students admitted to Mt. Sinai through this route end up taking the pre-reqs as part of a summer program prior to start of MS1 so they're just not taking the MCAT.


There are a lot of people who take some prereqs as summer courses as well as people who take them at community college.


It seems like some people with negative comments on this thread are suffering from no-fair-itis. It's not like it's an automatic MD, they still have to pass all the classes and USMLE. If they're less prepared then that's their problem.

PS. From what it sounds like one of the girls quoted in that article could have bought her way into Mt. Sinai anyway.
 
sustentacular said:
Yes, I've read that about BS/MD programs too.. the typical gpa requirement I've seen is 3.5, but perhaps you know of programs that have a higher requirement. I dunno, 3.5 for sciences classes doesn't seem that tough to me for essentially an auto-admit to an MD program.

If you see the post that I had quoted chman was saying that students admitted to Mt. Sinai through this route end up taking the pre-reqs as part of a summer program prior to start of MS1 so they're just not taking the MCAT.


There are a lot of people who take some prereqs as summer courses as well as people who take them at community college.


It seems like some people with negative comments on this thread are suffering from no-fair-itis. It's not like it's an automatic MD, they still have to pass all the classes and USMLE. If they're less prepared then that's their problem.

PS. From what it sounds like one of the girls quoted in that article could have bought her way into Mt. Sinai anyway.
Click to expand...
i wonder about the depth presented in their summer classes. so either they don't cover everything in depth like they need to (which i guess would lead into their lower board scores since they don't understand the concepts as well as they should) or they do cover everything in depth and these poor students' heads are just spinning? that's a lot of classes to take at once. i know med school is like that, but for the rest of us starting med school, we've seen the stuff before so it's not as scary (i hope!).

and that girl totally could've bought her way in. mommy and daddy would've been sure of it.
 
Why should there be so much outrage towards this? It's about 30 total accepted students out of the total pool and you could apply too if you wanted.

It doesn't affect me and it doesn't bother me that some people will get accepted without having taken the same prereqs because we're all taking the same med school classes in the end.

I think the program is a good start though not exactly the best way to go about trying to select intelligent but more humanistic physicians.
 
Honestly, there is a lot of outrage because people don't feel that it is "fair." Even if this is only 30 spots, that means 30 less pre-meds will get in each year. It seems that spots are being constantly whittled away by programs like the kind that give lucky kids an automatic acceptance straight from high school (so long as they don't flunk out of college) or that let in academically under-qualified students if they take a summer course or are reserved for in-staters. When all these seats are added up, the number is huge.

Programs like these are good. They diversify the class and the field of medicine. Regardless, if you've been rejected, you may feel bitter about them. There may be the ugly thought hiding in your head that these people didn't work as hard as you (be it true or not), but still got a spot when you didn't. You may feel cheated and angry. Anyone who thinks that these opinions don't exist hasn't spent much time on SDN.

If SDN teaches us anything, it is that med school admissions are emotional.

PS: I'm a little insulted that the article sort of implies I'm inherently less humanistic, compassionate, and aware of the human side of medicine than someone with a humanities major.

PPS: If you want to diversify medicine, DON'T only accept people from ivys whose parents are doctors!
 
Considering how little the pre-req classes and the MCAT have to do with med school, I'd say this move makes little to no difference. Like Mr. Ducks, however, I think it's total crap that they operate on the assumption that getting a major in a non-science field essentially makes you a better person. The aim of reducing the amount of bat**** crazy, socially inept, one-dimensional med students is spot on target, but the execution needs a lot of work.

edit: Also, I got a good chuckle out of basic physics being included with the MCAT and organic chem. :laugh:
 
This program is definitely much more risky than the Early Acceptance Programs at SUNY Buffalo, SUNY Upstate, UCincinnati, Wake Forest, Tufts, Georgetown, Toledo, UF, etc. It's the MCAT that bothers me the most, and none these programs have it. Why take the risk of not having background in the sciences in medical school Step 1?
 
sustentacular said:
PS. From what it sounds like one of the girls quoted in that article could have bought her way into Mt. Sinai anyway.
Click to expand...

To me, this is what it comes down to and is that part I find unfair. They seem to only want students from prestigious schools, and I guess one out of five students accepted has a physician for a parent (I don't know how that stacks up with other statistics). At any rate, it just seems a little...uppity. I can just picture some rich kid with no plan all of a sudden saying , "daddy, I think I want to go to med-school."
 
Slowpoke said:
Quote from article: Ms. Adler said she was inspired by her freshman study abroad in Africa. “I didn’t want to waste a class on physics, or waste a class on orgo,” she said. “The social determinants of health are so much more pervasive than the immediate biology of it.”

This comment rubs me in the wrong way when I read it. Not only because it is rather incorrect (relating general physics with bio), but it does not address the type of thinking that develops in a well taught ochem/physics class.
Click to expand...

I remember reading that too, but don't see it in the article anymore. I thought she was pretty annoying, maybe they felt the same and decided to edit that part out.
 
I agree with one of the posts above...they can't get into any other medical school if Mt. Sinai doesn't take them. I'm applying to 17 schools...can you imagine applying to one?
 
Well, I have had plenty of humanities courses, so there's no excuse. I'm just a dork. :laugh:

I like the idea of the program, but the fact that they take a vast majority of their students from the ivies leaves a bad taste in my mouth (if this is true). Their example student with a father on the board kinda supports this negative feeling I have about their admission process.
 
From CollegeConfidential.com:

"I get the feeling that they really like Ivy League. My roommate took two years off, and the year she was accepted to the HuMed program, she was one of 25 or so students. Only three were not Ivy League, and they were from Williams. Among last year's 25 or so accepted HuMeds, I heard there were 22. Of course, "favoring Icy League students" is not official policy, but that certainly seems to be the result."

"I also get the sense that they favor Ivy League students, but that is, of course, my opinion. I know that at least one of my roommates also shares that perception with me."

I agree that the father on the board example mentioned in the article is also a bit upsetting.
 
If they don't get in they can do a top tier postbac and go to a different top med school. Not a bad deal really.
 
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