Which is the best option to take for getting into med school?

[cornellengineer]

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I am asking this question on behalf of someone who's one semester away from finish undergrad with a degree in Biological Engineering, with intentions to go to medical school. The university allows undergraduate students in their last semester to begin an early Masters of Engineering program, which usually takes two semesters. The options are:

1) Start this early Masters of Engineering, which would be completed in December of 2016, and then travel the world for the next few months while applying. This option would leave the undergraduate GPA as-is but also give a new only-Masters GPA.

2) Finish up the undergraduate degree without starting the early Masters of Engineering, which gives opportunity to improve undergrad GPA and then for one gap year, either:
(a) get a research-oriented job
(b) do the full two semesters of Masters of Engineering, not early

Would having a Masters of Engineering be more appealing to medical schools than employment in research? I feel as though the Masters of Engineering is a good fallback option in the event of dropping out of medical school, but not so important to admissions since it's more of a professional degree. Any advice on this?

 

[DrMidlife]

A good way to not get into med school is to put effort into plan B.

There is exactly no med school admissions appeal in doing a terminal masters in engineering.

Furthermore, getting a terminal masters in engineering prior to working as an engineer isn't going to make somebody more employable.

Being offered an "early start" to something you don't need or want is an offer you should ignore.

Pick. Wait for plan A to fail before devoting time/effort to plan B.

Best of luck to you.

 

[deleted480308]

get the BS, do undergrad prereqs while getting great grades/shadowing a doc, apply to med school

 

[CopaceticOne]

get the BS, do undergrad prereqs while getting great grades/shadowing a doc, apply to med school

100% agree with this. I worked for a long time as an engineer prior to switching careers and going to med school. Getting a masters in engineering is the absolute worst thing you could do if you really want to go to med school. Take undergrad classes to continue to boost your GPA. Best things to take are courses that cover similar material (albeit at an easier level). Crush the MCAT.

 

[cornellengineer]

Thanks for all of your input guys! Just curious, though: why is getting a masters the "absolute worst thing" to do? Can't one use the Masters program to have a better GPA to apply to med school with? Or do med schools in particular look at undergrad GPA and not care about anything else?

 

[deleted480308]

Thanks for all of your input guys! Just curious, though: why is getting a masters the "absolute worst thing" to do? Can't one use the Masters program to have a better GPA to apply to med school with? Or do med schools in particular look at undergrad GPA and not care about anything else?

graduate gpa is calculated seperately and most master's are considered to have grade inflation....if you want to go to med school, just do things for med school

 

[CopaceticOne]

Thanks for all of your input guys! Just curious, though: why is getting a masters the "absolute worst thing" to do? Can't one use the Masters program to have a better GPA to apply to med school with? Or do med schools in particular look at undergrad GPA and not care about anything else?

Also, getting an engineering masters sends the signal that you are / were committed to continuing a career in engineering. It has the potential to be seen as a red flag by admissions staff because it creates a sort of cognitive dissonance with respect to what you really want in your future.

Thus, just do schooling that will help with medical school preparation & acceptance. Note: random classes that help expand you as a person, such as languages, social sciences, or heck PE, can be fine mixed in with the science classes because you can tell good narrative about how the intent was to enrich you experiences prior to focusing on med school curriculum only once accepted. Above all else, get excellent grades.

 

[DrMidlife]

getting a terminal masters isn't the absolute worst thing (that would be sitting between 2 screaming infants with stomach flu on an international flight after losing headphones).

it's just a useless waste of $ at this point in your education/career.

 

[WGSgrad]

It seems like you already got pretty good advice in this thread, I would add the following...

This statement, "...and then travel the world for the next few months while applying..." and the fact that your friend is an engineer at Cornell (assumption), I would suggest that your friend not begin taking premed prerequisites next semester at Cornell. After three and a half years in Cornell engineering, your friend is probably tired (the only people more tired were the architect students) and if they are in need of some GPA repair (which you seemed to indicate) it's probably not going to happen next semester while he or she has to compete against eager beaver freshmen premeds, or worse, prevets, in intro weeder courses.

I would suggest your friend use next semester shore up their GPA as much as they can (maybe by completing depth and breadth requirements in the humanities/social sciences), graduate, take a minute to breathe over the summer, travel if they want, and then begin their prerequisites at another college or university. Bonus: Most other colleges and state schools don't cost $5,000/class.

Best of luck to you and your friend.