Help!!! How difficult is an SMP?????

[lightthecandle]

how many credit hours does an smp for a semester FEEL like? 15? 30? 40?

also, for those who are currently doing one, or have done one, how difficult is it? how much more harder than undergrad?

 

[Perrotfish]

Obviously this is going to vary from person to person, but more importantly how could this answer possibly help you? Plan to study all day long, pretty much every day, and do the best you can. Don´t worry, you´ll be fine.

 

[Pedsbro]

It is very difficult work!! MUCH harder than undergrad!. SMPs are built to simulate med school, so think of it like that. I'm only going to speak for the Cincy SMP, which is also comparable to the Georgetown one. Med school is going to be much harder than undergrad in every way...and so are SMPs. At Cincy, you take almost 20 graduate-level units/credits the first two quarters...but putting a number of credits on it just doesn't quite tell the story. You'll have to work as hard as you would in medical school (which means harder than in undergrad), since you take 3 actual medical courses side-by-side with med students (at Cincy) as well as some tough graduate courses. You go to the same lectures and labs, take the same tests, and have the same resources as the med students.

I'll tell you I had a fairly tough undergrad schedule...I majored in biology and minored in history at a pretty big research-minded institution. I never worked as hard in all 4 years there than I have this year so far in the SMP...and we're not even done yet. There will be long hours spent at school or somewhere quiet to study, not including class time, which some days can last several hours. There will be late night study sessions (hopefully not all night). Weekends are not completely free, you will need them to study and catch up. And you hit the ground running...it's not like in undergrad when the first day of class is one that can be missed or you won't take notes on. First day of class, you'll be taking a lot of notes and it'll stay that way for the next 6-7 months depending on the class.

Make no mistake, this will test you more than you've ever been before. BUT, that means much greater rewards. Med schools are aware of the rigors of these SMPs, and they will reward you for doing well in them because it shows them you can handle a med school workload. You are directly compared to med students in the Cincy and G-town SMPs and some others (i.e. if you're in the top 10% of the class, you're doing "better" than the majority of the actual med students you're sitting next to). So hope this gives you an idea of what you're in for if you do an SMP. It's definitely worth it if you're serious about improving your app and getting into med school...if anything it not only proves to them you can handle it, but it proves it to yourself.

 

[Siggy]

how many credit hours does an smp for a semester FEEL like? 15? 30? 40?

also, for those who are currently doing one, or have done one, how difficult is it? how much more harder than undergrad?

It really depends on if there's an exam this week or not, as well as how the program is structured. For example, the second semester for Tufts is 19 units, but a 2 unit course (nutrition) started as we were preparing to take the final in anatomy. Similarly, first semester (16 units) had a bunch of 2 unit courses lined up so that one started as another ended (molecular biology ->immunology~> (sorta of, but not quite) Introduction to Clinical Med.

A perfect example is right now. We've just completed anatomy last week and we had another exam 2 weeks ago and 3 weeks ago. The 3 weeks following spring break were hell, but now that the next exam isn't till the middle of May (finals), it feels kinda of weird.