MD/PhD programs

[baylor21]

I was wondering if any of you guys are in or plan to apply to MD/PhD programs. I'm assuming that research experience is vital to getting accepted, but how much? 4 years? 2 years?

Do you know what else they look at that might be different from just normal MD programs? Just trying to gauge my chances of getting accepted.

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[RDO]

All of my friends who are applying to MD/PhD programs have 4 or more years of research experience and are published. I'm not saying this is absolutely necessary to get in, but MD/PhD programs are known to be extremely competitive and this is just my experience of the type of people applying for them. Good Luck.

-RDO

 

[tr]

I think that the difficulty of getting into MD-PhD programs is often overestimated. Yes, they are competitive, but I have heard gossip such as: you must be published, you must have a GPA of >3.9, you must have an MCAT of >39, you must have published in top journals, etc, etc, in order to be admitted to a top MD-PhD program. All of these are grossly untrue. I was at an interview at a top-5 school last week, and one of the other interviewees mentioned that she had not done any research until midway through her college career. I myself have been doing research since high school, but am not published. It doesn't seem to have hurt me much. I think that your PI's opinion of you counts far more than whether he chose to be do you a favor and put your name on a paper. You do need good research and lots of it, but don't let anybody scare you away from applying if you think an MD-PhD program is the right thing for you. Best of luck.