MSTP easier to get into?

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physicsMD

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My best friend is an MSTP at UCLA, who said that at his Harvard interview they actually told him that it was easier to get an interview for MSTP than just MD. Of course, if their MSTP likes you, you have to get through the competitive MD part. It seems that higher tier schools where most people take off a year to do research work this way. Has anyone else heard of schools where MSTP is actually LESS competitive than MD?

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Well...getting an interview may be easier. I think actually getting admitted is about the same difficulty.
 
Depends on what you mean by "easier". MD/PhD applicants are a fairly self-selected group, which means that although there are fewer applicants, they tend to be more highly qualified as a group. So it might in fact be harder to get an interview, especially at the very competitive programs.
 
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In terms of the number of applicants, it may seem easier, but I understand that the applicant pool is more competitive than regular MD admissions candidates.
 
I think maybe getting an interview is easier because maybe there are only say 400 applying to a certain school. While the med applicants are like 10,00.
But I think in no way easier to get accepted to. If the goverment is handing out free money, I think they will be very selective, one.
MSTP canidates tend to be involed in alot of things, plus have great research experience, making them betted applicants.
SDN is proof enough of the caliber of applicants.
 
Again, it depends on what you mean by "easier." Let me put this into perspective. The ratio of interviewed applicants to total number of applicants is roughly similar. For example, at UCSF (a very competitive program), around 60 interview invitations are given out among the 400 or so applicants (~15%) for MD/PhD. For MD, it is about 500/5000 or ~10% (note that the latter figure includes both MD and MD/PhD applicants). Yes, you can say that it is "easier" to get an interview because a greater ratio of applicants gets interviewed for MD/PhD compared to MD. However, this would be very misleading. The average MCATs, GPAs, and amount of research experience are significantly higher for MD/PhD applicants, making even getting an interview at least as competitive as MD, if not more so.

Furthermore, the class size for MD/PhD is very small compared to that of the MD program. The acceptance rate for MD/PhD is the same or lower than for MD, but not higher.

The bottom line is that the MD/PhD pathway should not be looked at as a backdoor to MD admissions. Given that interviewers are highly attuned to picking up on that sort of thing, I would not recommend applying MD/PhD unless you are extremely motivated and have a strong interest in both medicine and science.
 
According to folks at my school, last year there were approximately 32k applicants for 16k positions in med school. (The number of applicants this year is projected to decline 3 or 4%.) For combined degree programs (MD/PhD, MD/JD, etc.), there were around 2,000 applicants. The number of MD/PhD slots in any year varies from 300 to 400. Assuming that the majority of applicants to combined degree programs are MD/PhD applicants, it would appear that this is somewhat more competitive than going straight MD. However, my understanding is that many MSTPs accept >50% of interviewed applicants. So, if you get a lot of interviews, you are probably in pretty good shape. MD programs, on the other hand, may accept only 20-30% of those who are interviewed. In either case, if you have what they are looking for, you will likely get offers from several schools and will have the happy task next spring of deciding where to go. Buena suerte!
 
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