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Hello everyone-
I have a couple of questions about preparing to apply to MD/PhD programs. Although the questions may seem a bit basic, I don't really have anyone else to ask, so please bear with me:
1) First of all, like many applicants I'm not sure I will have enough research. This fall I will be entering my second year of undergrad, but I will be graduating after my 3rd year due to AP credit. After graduation, I want to do a post-bac research program e.g. PREP, NIH'S pre-IRTA for a year. I would be applying to med school while in the program and hopefully enter med school in the fall of 2007. In addition to that research, I will be applying to summer biomedical research programs to do next summer, such as BioSTEP, SURF, SURP.
Will this be enough? Am I better off not graduating early so I can take a lighter course load and do research during the school year? Is doing research with a professor sufficient (as opposed to the post-bac research)?
2) Will my being a psychology major be questionable? Or in other words, is there something I need to do to make up for my lack of science experience/classes because of my major?
My college only has about 20-something majors, so the options of majoring/concentrating in neuroscience, human biology, physiology, cognitive science, etc aren't there- just the basic liberal arts majors. Since my options
were mainly biology and psychology, I felt I was more interested in the field of psychology as a whole than biology as a whole, mainly because many biology upper level classes at my school aren't directly relevant to humans (e.g. no human anatomy, human physiology, pathology, immunology, etc, yet many plant, ecology, invertebrate zoology, etc courses).
I have a couple of questions about preparing to apply to MD/PhD programs. Although the questions may seem a bit basic, I don't really have anyone else to ask, so please bear with me:
1) First of all, like many applicants I'm not sure I will have enough research. This fall I will be entering my second year of undergrad, but I will be graduating after my 3rd year due to AP credit. After graduation, I want to do a post-bac research program e.g. PREP, NIH'S pre-IRTA for a year. I would be applying to med school while in the program and hopefully enter med school in the fall of 2007. In addition to that research, I will be applying to summer biomedical research programs to do next summer, such as BioSTEP, SURF, SURP.
Will this be enough? Am I better off not graduating early so I can take a lighter course load and do research during the school year? Is doing research with a professor sufficient (as opposed to the post-bac research)?
2) Will my being a psychology major be questionable? Or in other words, is there something I need to do to make up for my lack of science experience/classes because of my major?
My college only has about 20-something majors, so the options of majoring/concentrating in neuroscience, human biology, physiology, cognitive science, etc aren't there- just the basic liberal arts majors. Since my options
were mainly biology and psychology, I felt I was more interested in the field of psychology as a whole than biology as a whole, mainly because many biology upper level classes at my school aren't directly relevant to humans (e.g. no human anatomy, human physiology, pathology, immunology, etc, yet many plant, ecology, invertebrate zoology, etc courses).