The Ultimate Guide to BS/MD Programs

Learn about what it takes to get accepted to guaranteed admission medical programs (BS/MD programs) and whether a BS/MD program is right for you.

Yesh Datar, a current medical student in Boston University's BS/MD program, will walk through the basics of BS/MD programs and what the applications process for these programs looks like. He'll also walk through a comparison of the BS/MD and pre-med tracks, discuss the differences between BS/MD and BS/DO, and walk through the types of admissions profiles that are likely to be successful in BS/MD admissions.

He'll also open up the floor for a Q&A about anything and everything related to BS/MD programs.

Video Transcript:

0:00

Guide to BS MD programs. I see people starting to come in, which is awesome. But before we get started, I want to do a quick audio and visual checks so you guys can hear me, and then also see my screen. Let me know in the q&a box. So the q&a box can be seen where in one of those boxes is ask a question, feel free to type in there, hey, Ash, we can hear and hear you. And then I'll get started with the presentation. Then, meanwhile, while you guys are doing that, I will share my screen as well.

0:37

Perfect. Thanks, Laura.

0:50

All right, so Laura can see and hear me. And if throughout this presentation, or even now, if you guys can't hear me see me, there's any other technical issues, just let me know in that same q&a box. And I'll kind of jump on it real quick, make sure we can figure everything out, continue smoothly. Okay, so general cadence for today is I'll be presenting our live stream for the day. And then at the end of livestream, I'll do a q&a. Wrap Up q&a. So throughout the presentation, if you guys have any questions that immediately come to mind, maybe just been thinking about, feel free to put it in that chat box, q&a box, and I can get to it at the end of the presentation. Or if I see something pretty urgent or pressing, based on one of the slides that are present, I'll just kind of address it right up front. Yeah, so with that, I think we can get started.

1:39

Before we get started, I'll introduce myself or any of those of you who are new here. My name is Yesh, I am a current. Well, I'm a current medical student at Boston University. And I was actually part of the BA MD program, the seven year program at Boston University. So I finished my three years undergrad, now I started my first year medical school. So that's a little bit of me. And I've been working with CollegeVine for the past three years now. So I've been helping students and families navigate the admissions process. And it's really been something I've started to come very passionate about. So glad you guys are here. Glad you guys can hear great advice for me.

2:13

And let's get into the presentation. So things we'll cover today are really defining what a BS MD program is in the first place. And a lot of you guys might be curious what it is, or maybe guys do know. But there's some finer details to address. And we'll segue into talking about SMD programs, and other pathways into medicine, kind of comparing and contrasting those. We'll talk about how to apply by looking specifically at the high school profile, how to apply by looking at the process the application process as a whole. And then, like I mentioned before, we'll wrap up with that q&a session. So let's dive into what a BS MD program is.

2:53

A BSMD program is essentially a Bachelor of Science degrees. So that's what that bs part of the acronym is. plus a Doctor of Medicine degree, an MD degree. When you apply to BS MD programs as well, an early senior into high school, usually, you're applying for both and undergraduate program and medical school at the same time, the huge advantage, right? Typically, you're either commit to one school for the length of the program or partnership of schools. So let me explain that. From my program at Boston University, I committed to one school. So I did my undergrad at Boston University. And then I finished out I will finish out my medical degree as well at Boston University. So I'm committed to one school. However, there's also options for partnership of schools. So for example, in New Jersey, there is a tcnj ruckers program. So essentially, you are taking your undergrad years at tcnj, the College of New Jersey, and then you will segue into our matriculate into the Rutgers medical school. So that's in some sense of a partnership with schools. And we'll see a little bit more examples later. With these BSMD programs, you'll still need to maintain GPA requirements, take prerequisite courses and often achieving the minimum MCAT score to matriculate to med school. So no way is getting into the program, an easy feat, but it's also not easy to stay in the program, right you have to maintain a lot of things, whether it be a high GPA requirement, taking prerequisite courses, or oftentimes you have to end up taking the MCAT anyway, but the expectations won't be as intense. What's also important to note is that BSMD isn't like the only name for these programs as well. Right? So BSMD is Bachelor of Science degree plus MD. You could also have ba MD so that's what I'm in a bu so it's a Bachelor of Arts degree in a medical degree.

4:44

So my Bachelor of Arts isn't really an arts degree I would say it's more of I majored in medical sciences. So it's always very, very hard core sciences right. I took the most intensive chemistry intensive biology classes I could and as requirement right but I got Ba Ba degree in STEM. You can also call bs MD programs guaranteed accelerated programs that can be seven years in length. Typically that means three years undergrad, four years medical school, eight years in length, so four years undergrad plus four years medical school, or even six year. And then there's also BSDO programs. That's a bachelor science degree. Plus doctor of osteopathy. We'll break this down. But note that bs MD program is not the same as early assurance program. Two different things. So like BSN programs, early assurance programs are for students committed to medical school. So if you really want to get into medical school, if you want to matriculate through sort of a fast track, early assurance programs could be the thing for you. However, it's different. So BSMD programs, you're going to apply starting at the end of high school. To get into early on get into medical school, sort of BS MD programs. Early assurance programs are as sophomores in undergrad. So sophomores in college will apply to early assurance programs for that same kind of guarantee conditional guaranteed acceptance of the medical school. So just note, the timeline is a little different for these programs, especially when you apply. Early assurance programs usually provide an extra two years, ensure that the medical path is right for the student. So unlike BSMD programs you're applying out of high school, early assurance programs allow you to wait two years, think if medical school is the right thing for you, and then apply. So typically early shows program, applicants will have a much more kind of substantial medical background, really take time to think through the decision before pressing on a medical school. While BSMD program applicants coming out of high school might not have all the experiences to really know for sure if they want to get into medicine. So that's something to think about right as a high school student, how committed you are you to medicine in the first place? Is it something you really want to do in the future? Or is it just an idea that you're kind of latched on to right, so really, really consider that before applying. Again, we'll kind of break this down a little bit, just some things to consider.

7:08

However, there are some benefits of a BSMD program, right? There's a guaranteed acceptance in medical school. And that's a really big thing right medical school nowadays, especially us medical schools are getting very competitive. The applicant pool is increasing over time just making admissions more competitive, right. It's also note that just because you're in a BSMD program doesn't mean you're guaranteed accepted to medical school. There are some prerequisites like I mentioned before that you have to still maintain such as minimum GPA or minimum MCAT score. BSMD programs are also provide less at undergraduate stress for the most part, and fewer requirements compared to traditional pre med. So in pre med, you have to take in college, you have to take certain biology or chemistry or physics courses, as well as other prerequisite courses in order to be eligible to apply to medical school. While in these guaranteed programs, you can almost kind of skirt along without taking all of the typical pre med requirements and still not have to kind of pad your resume over time across college to get into medical school, you can just kind of, in some ways coasts through the undergraduate process. The BSMD programs also give you time to explore other interests in undergraduate years, rather than stressing about medical school admissions and application building, all while an undergrad. So in a lot of ways, it does provide for a less competitive undergraduate experience. But in some ways, you still have to consider the benefits and costs of all of this. So here's a list of programs a good overview. So in the elite and highly selective category, we have schools like Northwestern, Brown, University of Rochester, Case Western. And a lot of these are elite and highly selective. We've categorized these in these bucket, because for the most part, these are still competitive undergraduate schools. So for schools like Northwestern or brown, or Baylor or rice, still pretty hard to get into. It's a very selective college, even just for undergrad, so get into their med school as well, is much more difficult and requires a lot more from the applicant. So that's the kind of general idea of why these are the selective. It's also important to note that in the elite and highly selective category, a lot of these med schools are in the top 30 med schools in the US. So as a high school student to get into these top 30 medical schools, it's a lot more intense, right. So there's a lot more expectations when it comes to high school competitiveness.

9:45

In the selective category, we have schools such as tcnj and gms, which I mentioned before, Penn State Jefferson medical school, VCU, Drexel University, etc. These are a little less likely than before, mainly because the undergraduate schools aren't competitive. And the eventual medical school isn't in, say, the top 30 medical schools. And then a trend for the less selective schools. Again, this PowerPoint will be available to you and the recording of this live stream will be available to you after the live stream is over. But I will there. So I'm just kind of kind of speed through the list here. But when it comes to less lack of schools, typically there's a trend, we see a lot of Osteopathic, those BSDO programs to be less selective than a US medical school granting programs. And for the most part, a lot of these other undergraduate schools are a lot less selective than the previous buckets, right. And very important note to also make. So we mentioned these schools before. And thank you diksha, for bringing this to my attention. And for those who have mentioned in previous live streams. But a handful of schools because of Coronavirus are, unfortunately not so lucky Hopkins this year. So they're no longer running for this year, mainly because the competitive competitiveness of applicants can't be judged. So there's a lot of requirements for strong Bs, MD applicants name they're like research shadowing opportunities. They're kind, of course where their GPAs all this really matters when it comes to putting together highly, highly competitive application as a high schooler, and a lot of that can't be fulfilled. So namely, schools like Northwestern, for example, are not continuing in their program, and I just speak other schools will kind of follow suit. So just pay attention to that when you're applying to be as new programs, make sure that your program is still accepting applications for the year.

11:50

Okay, so I did mention before some other parts of like, an ideal application for high schoolers will kind of deep dive into that, and those ideas and a little bit, but I just wanted to preface that by explaining kind of the methodology behind some programs cancelling over others. All right, so another essential comparison that we make is this idea of BS MD programs versus the pre metric. So bs MD is a medical school admissions with a undergraduate degree, which we've kind of talked about, there's a conditional guaranteed acceptance medical school, usually contingent upon a certain GPA requirement that's being met, and MCAT score a medical college admissions test that you'd have to take, usually around your junior year of undergrad or college. So that's what MCAT stands for. It's a possibly accelerated route. Typically, these programs are seven years, or eight years with no gap year in between college and medical school. You often have a non negotiable undergraduate major, for example, my case I had a non negotiable entrepreneurial major of Medical Sciences. So I had to take intensive physics intensive chemistry and tests of biology, as well as a slew of other courses. You also could be under one school system for years, my case as well. And summer internships and research opportunities also might be limited, right. So in order for acceleration to take place, in order to take three years of undergrad, instead of four years, oftentimes, you're gonna have to sacrifice summer to take summer courses to make sure the acceleration happens. Or you might have to study for the MCAT or something, right. And so that kind of inhibits the summer internships and research opportunities that are available to you over the summer. Not not being said during the school year, you have more time to do research. Pre med route is an alternative, right, so it's a designated undergraduate route for medically interested students. So those students in college who eventually want to go to medical school, but aren't in one of these programs. So typically, they'll be applying to medical school come their junior year, end of junior year, start a senior year of college. Here, they're going to have a much more competitive GPA, have to take and achieve a higher score on the MCAT. Right. They also have a choice to have a gap year so a gap year is between college and medical school. Typically students take a year or two off to pursue research or go into industry and work a little bit. really figure out if medicine is right for them, or build up their application. They also have flexible undergraduate majors. So oftentimes medical schools look favorably upon English majors or arts majors, not kind of strictly in the hard sciences, for example. And these pre med students might have more opportunities for summer internships and research opportunities Well, just in because of the time available to them. So the choice between bs MD programs and pre med is not often an easy decision. So here's some things to consider. Definitely, definitely consider Are you 100% committed to go into better school, right? As a high schooler, it's hard to really think of that it's hard to envision What you want to do in the future, and you're going to need a lot of experience to support your reasoning for going to medical school? So are you doing things right now that really speak medicine, and allow you to explore medicine to the best of your ability? Also consider Are you willing to attend a less prestigious undergraduate program?

15:18

If you saw the list before, not all the schools are Ivy League's right, you might be a super competitive high school student. But just note that for bs new program, because you're being admitted to medical school, they're very, very intensive. So they're very competitive to get into. And you might not always go to a very prestigious undergraduate school for the sake of getting into a BSN program. Also, you want to ask, would you rather have more time to explore before coming to medical school? Are you willing to work hard to maintain spot in the BSN program? By no means is a BSN program a cakewalk? Right. There's a lot of expectations, a lot of mandatory classes that you've taken that are probably going to be the hardest at your college. Right? So you still want to make sure that you can stand up for the crowd at your schools and perform while. Also, do you meet the application criteria for being better be SMB applicant to talk about in a bit? And how much of the college admissions process can you commit to the bsme applications? notizie applications are very thorough, right? There's a lot of things to do. And you have to make sure that you can fill it all to the best of your ability, especially when before you can start applying.

16:29

Okay. Okay, another comparison that's pretty important to make is a comparison between MD and do programs. So MD programs are school school admissions for Doctor allopathic medicine. So allopathic is considered the traditional medicine path. There's a reliance on pharmaceutical and surgical therapies, although there's been a recent shift to preventive medicine. So when you think of kind of like the standard doctor, typically that doctor will be an allopathic doctor. For licensing, these students will have to take the usmle exit board exams, which take place three times across the medical medical years. And historically, MD programs provide more chances for students to specialist specialize into other careers of interest. So say, cardiology or dermatology, anesthesiology. Now do programs are a little different their school admissions for Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, osteopathy, treats, not just specific symptoms, but the body as a whole. There's an added more hands on approach diagnosis. So we can often focus on more holistic and alternative therapies as well. So, oftentimes, from history, osteopathic doctors will often be more general practitioners or not as specialized as say an MD and for licensing these do doctors will have to take a complex exam or the usmle if they want to apply for resit certain residency. So the choice between MD programs and do programs might not be easy either. So you definitely wanna consider how do you see yourself practicing in medicine in the future. These schools can impact future medical practices and the way you practice in the future, the level of specialty that you can get into the residency that you could get into. So are you aware of the potential career impacts of the MD versus to choice could make often note that do offers less chance at obtaining competitive residency spots? Unless you have a very high us Emily score? There's also a perceptional difference between MD and do programs? And are you aware that there might be a difference education of the BSMD and bsdo programs. So these are some things to consider and just do your research before you kind of go forward? We definitely do have CollegeVine blogs and this is okay, so before we go forward, we are having another event today at 6:30pm is how to write a why major essay when you're undecided. So if you are undecided, maybe you're thinking a BSN program, but you don't really know what you're gonna do undergrad. Here's how to figure that out. So here's how to figure out how to write the why major essay. So if you're interested in this live stream, definitely register. And if you don't mind, another question we have is how many colleges are you all planning to apply to? And while that's going I can answer a couple questions here.

19:46

Okay. Noreen asked for bs MD. Can you still have a negotiable minor or double major? Yes, for sure. So perfect example is Boston University. We are actually required to minor in something outside the natural science So in my case, my minor was public health. Some of my friends did minors in anthropology, minors and business minors, economics, so a lot of different things that you can do. And oftentimes, Bs MD programs are okay with that BSD programs open it up, you can also double major. If I had, if there was a public health major, I would have doubled major is pretty simple to do at a lot of time in my undergrad. But some schools, the curriculums a lot harder, a lot more in depth, might not have time double major. But for the most part, I think a lot of students will end up being capable double majoring, especially if you're competitive enough to get into a BSN program in the first place. Okay, so a really great point. So someone mentioned there's an endovascular neurosurgeon at my local hospital who's a deal. So when to do program? So that's great, right? So the general pattern is that Deal programs typically end up creating general practitioners or more kind of holistic approach practitioners. But there's always exceptions. Right? And so here's a perfect example, maybe this Nebraska neurosurgeon took the usmle exam was super brilliant, super scored super highly, and then got into a competitive neurosurgery residency. Right. So there's definitely avenues to go from do programs into more specializations. But again, it's trend wise, it's more common for an MD to get into these programs than do and that just kind of how the trend is. But thank you for bringing up that point. It's very accurate, you're talking about? So thanks.

21:36

Okay. So in terms of BSN programs, there's some recent trends that have happened. There are more applicants from high schoolers. So there's increasing competition in medical school acceptance, right. So because there's more applicants, there's going to be more competition, higher expectations. And you also want to note that the guarantee of the program does not mean it's an easier way of getting into medical school, you still have to maintain a lot of different requirements on your undergrad, maybe just not in terms of GPA and MCAT, we strive to take really intense courses and achieve score really highly. The amount of students that are applying these programs are increasing, but also there are higher achieving students. So because of that there's higher academic and extracurricular requirements for the students. And there's more need for medical specific focus in the application. So as a high school applicant, it's really hard to show that you have a lot of medical strong medical backgrounds prove you've had medical experiences, but that's really needed. And then sort of what we started mentioning, not just because of COVID, but there are some programs that are closing. So for example, about three years ago, the University of Miami switched from a BS MD program, seven year program into a early assurance program. So no longer high schools that schoolers could apply to University of Miami medical school. It was just sophomores at the University of Miami undergrad, that could have gone. And so because there's been a recent drop off offered programs due to various factors. So there's also this COVID factor nowadays. So a lot of programs this year, not a lot, but a good portion of them have said we're closing for this year and will continue next year. And because again, there's just more competition. Right. So okay, so before we dive into how to apply, talking about the high school profile, another question we have for you is, have you used college vines admissions calculator, the chancing engine to calculate your chances of admissions?

23:55

Right. Great. Thanks for that. And so, what is the philosophy behind the ideal BSMD applicant? In terms of academics, you really want a strong overall GPA, especially when looking at your science courses, you want a high science GPA. You want strong SAT or ACT scores here, it kind of just put si t but standardized test scores is so and you want high SAT II subject scores on science and math exams. This is also critical. So the Subject Tests really prove push efficiency and certain science subjects, whether it be or STEM subjects, whether it be chemistry, biology, or math. And a lot of applicants will end up taking just those exams to prove that proficiency. In terms of extracurriculars, you want strong overall accomplishments, but you specifically want strong STEM activities. Again, that's critical, right? So medical schooling is really based on the sciences, and they want strong students who are very capable in the sciences. You also want strong patient care experiences. So notably, as a high school, it's hard to get patient care experiences. Also, because of covid, it's even harder to get patient care experiences. So those things are very necessary to prove that you have a passion for medicine, because patient care is very central to what doctors do. You also want to show community engagement and a commitment to social justice as well. Again, this kind of goes back to the idea of humanity, right? So helping humanity is a key key part of wanting to be a doctor and wanting to save lives. Right. And I bet if you polled almost every doctor out there, they'd say the same thing. So this is why it matters. And in light of recent events, namely like the Black Lives Matter, back, Black Lives Matter movement, the idea of commitment to social justice, really dedicating time to help other people will show a really strong commitment to humanity in a lot of ways. So in terms of academic alignment, coursework includes both class selection and grades earned in those courses. So a student aiming for this new program should try to take and perform well in classes like biology, chemistry, physics, and math. terms of standardized tests. These include boats, ethics, sad Subject Tests in AP exams, consider taking SAP Subject Tests and biology, chemistry, math, two, and AP courses in biology, chemistry, physics, psychology. And again, really, this is just to show your proficiency in certain subjects, namely STEM subjects to the admissions tutors.

26:33

Okay, in terms of GPA targets, for the AP classes, you want to aim for at least a 3.7 for honors at least a 3.5 and CP college preparatory classes or at least a 4.0. Note that your overall unweighted GPA target is greater than 3.75 on a 4.0 scale. weighted should honestly be over 3.9. For really competitive admissions, chances are, the higher the better for GPA, especially in STEM courses. And just note the exact target depends on the context of the course load. So 3.7 with 10 AP classes is much better than 3.85 with only two AP classes. Also note that everything I said so far, is usually the minimum for students aiming for the less selective BSN programs, there will only be an increase with more competitive programs. So if you're aiming for the more selective or highly selective slash elite programs, you're going to want to aim for higher GPAs. So as I was saying before, it's a very competitive process to start. In fact, a lot of BS MBA applicants will probably be competitive applicants for Ivy League's or elite colleges, the top 40 colleges in the US. If we look at class rank as a metric for BSN program applicants share in the top 10%. Ideally, you'd be coming from a competitive public high school with multiple Ivy League segments per year. magnet schools are top tier private schools, you're in the top 5% typical public high school and suburban area or pair appeal or religious High School valedictorian or top 1%. Maybe you come from a small rural high school or a public school.

28:13

In terms of course, rigor, you want to aim to take the most challenging courses load a lot, but your school so if a guidance counselor kind of advocate for you, they'd say you took in the most demanding curriculum available to you. You focus on STEM courses that show interest in applying science to the world. And the more STEM courses of higher level you have the better. Usually the standard requirements for advanced courses do physics, chemistry biologists in calculus. And on the left, we see this kind of idea of a trend right. So as you're going through high school, we're ideally increasing in the rigor of our courses. So freshman year, you might take mostly honors courses, or CP, but typically honors for the more competitive applicants. Then as you continue on, you start taking mix of honors and AP. And then finally by the end of high school, you're taking mostly AP courses. In terms of SDG targets, if you don't have a 1520 or greater in the SAT, or similarly a 32 on the AC t they should have put that in getting admissions to be as many programs will be an excellent range re 1570 to 1600 ac t targets Okay, I did put it if you don't have a 32 are graded on the AC t getting admissions to be as new programs will be tough. Ideally, you'd have a higher sub score in the science section as well. And excellent range would be 35 to 36 competitive 32 to 34 terms of LSAT subject test targets. If you take three exams try to infer seven add 100 you have two exams 760 to 771 exam 720 are graded. Typically, schools will only consider it Most three total tests. So it's best practice to take chemistry, biology, math, two and one of your choice. Typically, math two is actually a requirement for a lot of BSN programs. So be sure to note that whichever B and C bs MD programs you're applying to check what the qualifications are for each school, check which LSAT subject test they need, check which standardized test they take, make sure you meet all those requirements even before applying. Because if you don't have those, you're not going to even be qualified to apply to these programs.

30:34

Also note that some programs mandate a third test in a language. So for example, Boston University, I was required to take a subject test in the language. So since I had taken Latin and all of high school, I took the Latin subject test. Okay, looking at x impressiveness, of extracurriculars. And before we dive into this, I do see some questions. So I'll acknowledge that I'm seeing these questions. And I think I could probably get to them at the end. There's a lot of questions coming in. But they're really good questions. And hopefully, I can cover some of them as we kind of go because I feel like some of this content I will eventually get into. But thank you for asking the questions, nonetheless. Okay. So when we're looking at impressiveness, of extracurriculars, there's three categories, right? So you want to look at the accomplishments, considering things like Leadership Awards, and the tangible accomplishments. So fundraising, money amounts, or the number of words, you've gotten? The uniqueness of the chat activity? So how common is that activity? And how defined is the path to the accomplishments? Is it hard for a normal high schooler to do these things? Then finally, his idea of community focus is pretty unique to be so you want to emphasize touching the lives of others, and striving for social solutions. That's what I mentioned before, right? You really want to show that you're in touch with humanity, you really try to actively do things for other BSN programs, look for high school students who have self drive initiative and commitment, as well as all these other things. So there are some questions considering COVID. And because of COVID, a lot of the extracurriculars you know cannot take place in the same capacity that they would have without cooker. So because of the Coronavirus, a lot of these things are inhibited in some way. So what I'm going to try to do is talk through each of these, and then explain in light of COVID. How can we overcome these difficulties? Or how can we overcome these obstacles, and that's very relevant for today. So the most important thing, when it comes to extracurriculars when it comes to your entire application is to show initiative and drive, especially in the medical field. So as a high school, you're gonna have to do activities that are oriented with medical school. Gaining admissions to top programs is essentially like applying to medical school as a high school student. So when we talk about volunteering, you want to talk about helping the community. Here you can show leadership and engagement others when we talk about volunteer at the hospital, see if you can enhance on opportunities with patient and staff. When we talk about shadowing a physician and a practice or hospital, see if we can gain insight into life you're applying to lead terms of research conducted research project, show you actively pursue subjects that interest you individually or in through an organization. Then finally, pursue science and non science activities that make you stand out. Right. So these can be school clubs. These can be a nonprofit that you started. This can be really anything or your passion for music, or your passion for art, or a lot of whatever else you could put in an activities list that really doesn't specify medicine, but shows a good outlet for your own expression.

33:56

Okay, so let's break down each of these individually. When we talk about volunteering to help them communicate, there's value added if in this activity, you can gain experiences that show your leadership potential. And you engage in activities that serve others help the less fortunate and advocate for social justice. In terms of time commitment, you want to aim for three to five hours per week and hopefully participated for over two and a half years. Okay, so again, like I promised, let me address Coronavirus. So, in light of Coronavirus when we talk about volunteering to help the community. How can we do that? Right? So some ways we can kind of overcome this difficulty of not getting out in the world because we can't really be exposed to a lot of people. Maybe there's some local projects that takes place. Maybe there's Coronavirus, fire volunteering projects. So maybe that's zooming into the hospital and zooming into the hospital and playing the guitar for patients, letting patients who are isolated in The hospital kind of hear your own musical expression, kind of comforting them in, in through their isolation at the hospital, for example. Or maybe you can zoom babysit or zoom, read books to children. Right? All this is, in a sense, socially distance volunteering. But that still does have an impact somewhere. Maybe you can also record videos and post on YouTube for people to see free entertainment, right.

35:30

There's a lot of kind of also educational activities that can take place. That count is volunteering to help the community. Also, note that not all volunteering communities as ended the Red Cross, for example, or other organizations, who really rely on outreach to communities, like fiscal outreach to communities will have volunteering programs, albeit just a little more cautious. So you still have to wear a face mask, maybe face shields, but you can still actively participate and help patients or help underserved people. So those are some examples. When we talk about volunteering at the hospital, there's value added if you can get experiences that you can share an essay or an interview. This is actually very critical. So in a lot of essays are interviews for BSN, new programs, you really, really want to show that you've engaged with patients, you've talked to doctors, you've talked to nurses, you've talked to or Tech's a lot of different things, right. You want to show them that you've had these experiences and these experiences have touched you and motivated you to go into medicine. So really try to take advantage of these moments when you can. You also, there's value added if you can dedicate time and meet new people. This will allow you to solidify your own passion for medicine. And make sure that you really want to apply for bs MD programs in the first place. In terms of time commitment, try to aim for three to five hours per week, and ideally over two and a half years. But again, because Coronavirus if, say you're a freshman in high school now or sophomore in high school, maybe that's not possible. So again, these expectations will be cut down in future years. volunteering at the hospital is actually a tricky situation because of COVID. And in fact, the expectations for a lot of programs might be lowered, especially kind of in this realm. So I wouldn't try to really make up. Try to do this actively because of Coronavirus. But I would say that if you can't do this focus on other aspects that can improve your application chances. Charges shadowed physician there's value added if you can shadow a non family member and someone in the field that aligns with your interests, non family members actually kind of interesting. The reason for that is because with family members, you might be kind of shielded from experiences that you wouldn't otherwise that could be good learning experiences for you as before you enter medicine. And you might not get the same exposure from a family member who can kind of like shield you from real experiences, or might not want to show you all the kind of like the gory details of medicine or anything like that, that you could be exposed to a non family members. And there's also value added if you can gain experiences that you can share in an essay view again, and again, that's very quick terms of time commitment, try to aim for three to five hours per week participation of greater than one week here. So it's not actually like yours on yours, just kind of a week long. And it's best to have two to three physicians across different specialties. Right? to just show that you've put in the hours, you've really shadowed people understand what they do. And again, all physicians are probably pretty busy. So you won't really have the best times to meet them. We can't do that for months on end. But it would be helpful to have that exposure to stop to start in terms of Coronavirus, and this is kind of tricky. But oftentimes this could just be a phone call with vision and trying to figure out not to put on a resume just to figure out your own interests. figure out why being a doctor is the best for you. Right, I would still highly recommend this one, even if it's just a phone or zoom call with a physician without patient interactions.

39:02

Another way you can kind of get around this is there's a lot of kind of, in some ways of not that you can again write this on for an essay or anything. But on YouTube, there's a lot of kind of demonstrated patient interactions via physician patient that I would just recommend watching just to get to feel what it's like to be a doctor. In terms of conducting research, there's value added if you can find a project that matches your interests, medicine, you can work with an organization and publish your paper such as a high school student, that's kind of rare, but it shows you're very committed to what you're doing. And you can also gain a letter of recommendation for your amazing work. You can gain that for someone who you don't research with. It'll be very, very helpful for you just to show that you've pursued science outside of your high school coursework, and that you're very actively engaged in terms of time commitment, at least three to five hours a week, and conduct research for at least greater than one week. Typically it's might be summer long, couple months. Maybe two or three months. And this one can actually be accounted for because of Coronavirus. So a lot of research nowadays, not all research, but wet lab research, you know, you have to go into the lab. Oftentimes, it'll be like cell culturing, you have to be involved interact with other people. But in terms of clinical research, there's a lot of data out there. And if you're part of an organization, maybe you can get hold of that data. And maybe it can be part of that organization's research clinical research. By analyzing the data, looking at the data, looking at the numbers, trying to draw conclusions and correlations, see different patterns in the numbers, things like that. And a lot of that can do be done remotely. So as a high school student, it's hard to get those opportunities. But if you can, it'll be pretty promising and because of Coronavirus, not much that will be affected as much.

40:52

And then finally, pursuing science and non science activities. There's value added if you can show leadership potential in these activities. That's, again, pretty critical. It's not just about being a member of your school club or outside of school organization. It's really about how high the what kind of position you have, well, are you a president or vice president or secretary or treasurer, any of that kind of stuff, right? You really want to show demonstrated involvement in your field, not just passive involvement. You also want to demonstrate the capacity be creative, problem solving, intellectual, personable, and these traits are pretty critical of what it means to be a good doctor in the first place. Right. So these are the traits that you want demonstrate your activities. And then finally, the value added if you can engage with the activity enough that it shows your passion, right. Just like any other application, you want to show that you have passion for things. And that should definitely come through in a course non medical activities as well. Because these programs want to see that you're human at the end of the day that you have interests outside of medicine in terms of time, you want to aim for three to 10 hours per week, basically, because these are your passions. These are things that you do in your fun time free time, or that you're very interested in participation greater than three years here, preferably showing commitment to the craft your subject.

42:18

So an example of a competitive bseb application. Right. So in terms of applicant, academics, students had a 3.9 out of four unweighted, at least seven AP courses against Kenda numbers, typical of most selective schools is what we expect 1580 on the SCT, which puts them in the excellent range. They took the math to chemistry and biology exams. They were the captain of Science Olympiad did research at a cancer center. So this is kind of like that stem involvement inside and outside of school. They did a high level, hospital volunteer, they did physician shadowing, they're part of Red Cross club or vice president. And then they had passion in music. They were band saxophonist, and a section leader marching band. Okay, so before we deep dive into how to apply in the process of applications. Let's jump into another question. So we're curious, are you planning to apply to liberal arts colleges at all? This kind of curious for us because, namely, we see a lot of BSP applicants apply usually to research universities, not liberal arts colleges. So we're curious to see the numbers on this one. Then, thank you for answering that. And then another event that we have coming up today at 7:30pm. Eastern is the ultimate guide to Harvard University. So if you guys are interested in applying to Harvard University, or even elite colleges in general, we're interesting to hear. No, we're interested to see if you guys would like to attend our live stream tonight. Okay, so let's see if we can answer some questions here.

44:06

There's a lot of questions coming in. Okay, I'll keep a couple questions till the end cuz I think we'll hit some of these in a bit. Okay, so Siddharth, let us know that the northwestern and Wash U BSN programs got turned into early assurance programs as well this year. So really, for those sophomores have typically sophomores and undergraduate years. Okay. oosh asked question. How can we get patient care experiences during COVID? Does virtual shadowing count? Yeah, so I talked about that before. Yes, virtual shadowing desktop. And feel free to share if you will have any clarifying questions to ask. Actually, that's a great question. Is it okay to have only leadership positions and senior like Red Cross president? Yeah, I mean, if typically, if you know a high school only limits leadership positions to senior year, that's fine. Just kind of put that first in your activities list and say that your current president of Red Cross club, and then before that maybe you were, maybe you had a leadership position, or maybe you're just a member, but it's better to show even active involvement through the description of activity itself. So that'd be helpful.

45:28

Ria, as we ask, do you think being an EMT, and research at Johns Hopkins allows me to be a competitive applicant? Yeah. And I think because of that, you know, you have this clinical experience, where you're engaging with patients by being an EMT. And then also, you have the research opportunities at john hopkins, a very notable institution, where hopefully, you'll be able to engage with a lot of different research going on, fine tune your patterns through medical sciences.

46:00

Greg asked question, will you share your PowerPoint presentation after the session? Yeah, so it'll be available right after the session on the website through the live streams tab. And gretta, the PowerPoint presentation will also be mailed to you an email to you. So the presentation will be recorded, and the link will be sent to us for you to watch in your own time as well.

46:26

Okay, answer a final question, then I'll go back to the presentation. I'm just trying to tackle some of the questions early on. So Charlotte asks, Does inspiring stem in kids slash mentoring kids in science experience a good AC? Because it's not a hard science is still okay. I would say so. Right? So it involves stem. And it involves community service, in some ways. So in some ways, you're kind of getting a double whammy there. Right? You're helping. It's not underprivileged kids. I don't think you kind of wrote here. But you're helping guide kids towards a passion in science or technology, engineering and math. And you're helping community at large. So I think you're doing two great things here. Yeah, definitely go. Just to clarify, not all, all of the activities, you do have to be a hard science per se. A lot of them have to demonstrate science and passion for medicine. But also some of them can just be things outside of sciences that you're just really passionate about.

47:24

Okay, so let me go back to the presentation. Really great questions, I'll answer them all at the end. So when we talk about the application process, there's things to consider when applying. Note that there is a lot of time investment, you have to do school research, specifically BSMD programs that you're planning to figure out the additional academic requirements such as the subject test, excuse me, you have to write supplemental essays, not just for the undergraduate school that you're applying to, but also for the medical school that you're planning to see, you're all in fact doubling kind of the amount of work for the school year point. You have to prepare for interviews, if you're invited to them. And oftentimes, there's multiple interviews for one school, there might be an undergrad interview, might be a medical school interview. Also note the selection criteria is very demanding. So you're gonna have a lot of things on your plate, figure out a lot of things that you have to complete, whether it be standardized tests, or certain letters of recommendation, you have Smith. Note that there's also a whole flurry of due dates, like when I was applying years ago, there is an application to October end of October, early November, end of November, early December, and December, there's all over the place. So really note your timelines, there's no really synchronized way across all the schools, each school expect something at a different time. So keeping track of that is a pain. But CollegeVine does offer tools for you to kind of keep track of all those academic things, all those application things, definitely check that out. But just be aware of that. Some of the items you'll still need are the Subject Tests, plus standardized test your supplemental essays, resume CV, interview prep, and letters recommendation.

49:13

So when we talk about the application process, there's four stages, there's a college list selection, then writing the essays, creating a resume, the interview process and interview days, and these two are kind of clumped together. Okay, so let's talk about college list selection first. The college list may differ depending on the type of student the BSN B applications list may be different, right? So if you're a type one student, you're likely confident about pursuing medicine and wanting to get into BSN program. So maybe 60% of your applications will be for bs MD programs exclusively. And the remaining 40% of applications will likely be for science major undergrad, because if you're interested in medicine, likely you're very interested in sciences. If you're a type two student Maybe you're considering BSN programs, but you're not sure how competitive that you are. So 30 to 40% of your applications will be for BSN programs 60% of applications will likely be for science major undergrad, again, because you're just gonna BSMD, you might like sciences. We see a lot of students in this type two category. They're not sure how competitive they are for the most selective vs new programs. So oftentimes, they apply just for undergraduate programs for research universities. And then finally, type three students, they want to give a super hard reassembly program a shot, or they're unsure if they're competitive for BSN programs to apply to like one or two applications for BSN programs, and 90% of the applications maybe for another undergraduate major, maybe not sciences, because they're not sure if they want to go into sciences, or something similar to that idea.

50:56

Note that when selecting a college list, or building your college list, if you are applying to medical programs, you also want to add undergraduate schools to your list as well. And this is very essential. So getting into BSN programs is never a guarantee. And in fact, it's very hard to get into even the less active programs. So always have a backout as an undergraduate school, right. So just make sure you have that on your list, just to kind of cover your basis. You want to select the tier programs to which are most qualified. So we broke down those tears before, whether it be elite highly selective, or the selective, or the less selective schools. And then also select the programs that you see yourself attending their medical school. So again, you're applying to these programs, not just against get into the undergraduate school, but to get into their medical school. So you have seven or eight years at the school, for example, you want to make sure that at the medical school, you're going to be a comfortable student, you like the atmosphere, the medical school, you like the location, and all these other factors. So you have to really project yourself, think ahead to the medical school, not just undergraduate school. You want to find undergraduate schools that fit your ideal pre med paths well, so you want to ask do you like the degree offerings? Can you pursue research internships with shadowing? Does the college challenge you? Does it push you to be better. So a lot of it's not just academic things at the schools that you're choosing. It's also really kind of personal personality, building, career building things that you want to make sure that your college can give you.

52:35

Okay, so again, here's kind of a recap of these different buckets that we talked about, I left a lot of them out. But just a general idea. Mostly lead programs will have very competitive medical schools, usually in the top 10 or 15, as well as competitive undergraduate schools. And then it kind of goes down from there. Okay, now going towards essays and resume. So in addition to undergraduate essays, you must submit supplemental program essays. The essay archetypes include, why medicine, why the BS MD program, or reflection upon medical experiences through various essays, and also other essays to expect so things like leadership essays, problem solving essays, favorite hobbies, etc. And we'll break each of these down. So a question like why medicine. At the end of the day, the admissions committee is admitting a medical student, right? So you need to portray yourself as a mature, problem solving, ambitious, and most importantly, passionate about medicine kind of person. The purpose of this essay is to provide a convincing argument as to why you are choosing medicine. So a strong essay in this case, will demonstrate a couple of ideas. You're going to talk about what inspired you to enter into medicine. What are your core values? more so in the present tense, you're going to talk about what are you doing now to show your passion for helping others? What is being in medicine mean to you? And then kind of projecting in the future? How do you hope to impact the world in the future? What do you hope to accomplish? So ideally, when constructing a medical school, why medicine essay, you're going to include all of these ideas. So if you've already written your bsme, why medicine essay, are you planning on write again, make sure you include all these ideas to really show that you're convincing admissions readers why medicine is right for you. When answering the why program essay, this type question focuses on what are the factors that make the program unique to you. The admissions reader is trying to assess your desire to attend the school and if you're a good fit. Now, the wide program essay has a lot of different variations. They could ask why are you applying to this program? What about this program? I'm excited most, how do you plan to utilize a program to your benefit? How does the program to ensure future goals? How will the program how you accomplish these goals? Right? So a whole flurry of questions. There's also essays about medical experiences, the medical experience type questions, focus on using your own experiences to formulate an answer. The admissions reader is assessing how much you have experienced and how much you've learned from those experiences. So some types of questions, for example could be tell us about a time you spent with a doctor? How did that influence you? Describe a research project you worked on? What kind of doctor do you aspire to be? Do you know why? And what do you believe are important traits for a doctor to have? And then find out whoops. Okay. And another note on this is I gave you a lot of example problems, but these aren't kind of like all the problems that you can see, right? These are just good examples, good archetypes for the types of questions that you could encounter.

55:59

Okay, and then can you take one for the resume CV, a lot of programs will ask you to mandatory submit a resume or CV. So most applications will have a submit a resume in addition to your supplemental essays. Be sure to include experiences that show off your medical experiences, not kind of just a broad scope. You want to really prioritize medical experiences on this resume. You definitely want include high school statistics, GPA, standardized test scores, prioritize medical experiences first natural activity section then other ones include in the word honor section, you can include a skill section of their space, and ideally, it only be one page. As Geisel students, you shouldn't really be exceeding a page, you might just kind of have filler information there. Alright, now let's talk about the interview process. And then subsequently the interview days as well. So once your essays are received by the admissions committee, you must wait for an interview invitation. Getting an invite to interview is the next step in your missions journey. Without the interview invitation, it means you're really not going to go forward in the application process. They've already kind of decided you're not a qualified candidate, or you're not competitive, right. So let's talk about why interviews matter. Historically, only 20% of applicants receive an invitation to interview. These interviews assess the strengths of students outside of writing ability and academic performance. And they'll also ask questions that consider critical thinking communication strength, and again, assess your passion for medicine. In terms of interview days, this is one interviews take place. You meet interviewees and program directors all at once. It'll usually be a day long event on the medical school campus, because of Coronavirus. There's a lot of different ways to do this now. And oftentimes, they'll just be virtual interviews that will take place. Pre COVID, these would have been a mix of tours of the campuses, undergrad and med school campuses, a lot of presentations, meet and greets with program directors current students, there would also be a q&a session and the interviews. So you'd have an undergraduate interview and a medical school interview. If you look at the different interview types, there's a standard interview and something called an MMI. And we'll break these two down. So there's generally two standard interviews, one for the undergraduate school that you're applying to, and one for the medical school. So for example, at Boston University when I applied, I had to interview at the undergraduate campus and then also at the Medical School campus with different people. This may be a one on one interview or panel interviewers, it really depends from school to school. And they'll ask traditional questions like Tell me about yourself? or Why do you want to pursue medicine? Or why is the school right for you? They're very questions that you can really anticipate and expect ahead of time. There's also this new format. It's called MMI, relatively new, which stands for multiple mini interviews. And it's only recently become popular mainly for medical schools, but also PSP programs. It consists of six to 10 rotating stations for question with the questions. So imagine you and a lot of other applicants are in a room and one by one you're sent to different rooms, and you rotate through all those rooms. And each room you're asked a different question or assessed on a different task. Each of these rooms can be a one on one interviewing or peer group work. So peer group work for example, it could be you and for other people have to build a bridge out of straws, right or some fun activity like that. They're not really us. directing, say, assessing like, why medicine or standard interview type questions. They're really assessing communication abilities or critical thinking skills, those kind of things. At each of these stations, they could ask them this mix of type question types. So whether that be peer group work, or the traditional types that we talked about for like, tell me about yourself, why medicine, they could also ask ethical judgment questions, or problem solving questions. So a famous one that I've heard is, estimate the amount of fire hydrants in the city of Seattle. Right? That's a really fun one. But yeah, that's an example of problem solving. So MMI interviews, the format assesses the student with a lot more depth, it's becoming the new norm. It'll benefit a well rounded student who can think quickly critically and works well with others?

1:00:50

It's really difficult to prepare for specific questions, but you can prepare for the different types of questions. So for example, in that ethical judgment type of thing, you're going to be receiving ethical dilemmas or ethical problems that they're going to ask you about are ethical problems. So they might ask, do you think it's ethical for mandatory vaccination the US in light of the coronavirus pandemic, and you'd have to, you know, be able to articulate a cogent argument for why vaccines should be mandated or shouldn't be mandated, using the principles of medical ethics, namely beneficent, no malfeasance, autonomy and justice. All right, so other things to consider when for my interviews, or interviews in general, the standard interviews will have more predictable questions that you can prepare for, such as why tell me about yourself or why medicine. And then my interviews will have more abstract questions that are well suited for students we can think quickly. And most interviews independent of type will usually ask the quintessential why medicine question. That's always good to have on record. So always good to prepare for that one. So here's some examples of typical interview questions that either on the standard interview or MMI, that you'll get us, tell me about yourself? Or they could ask why do you wanna be a doctor? Or if you're not accepting the program, then what? Also tell me about a time you let a team or storica questions like, what do you consider to be the most influential medical discoveries in the last decade? Excuse me. So I would just release just preparing for all these be creative in generating new questions, because they can really ask anything. But what's in green here are typically the general categories that we've come up with. In terms of interviewing some best practices. So these are professional interviews, so wear appropriate attire, bring your resume, have plenty of energy and be ready to share. Be specific in your answers. don't respond with I don't know, write a point of interviews to get to know you better, doesn't really help you if you say I don't know. So give examples to support your statements. Even if you can't come up with a clear answer. Just talk through your logic. You also want to relate most your responses back to medicine. Again, you're trying to get into medical school here. So medicine, medicine, medicine, relate medicine wherever you can. And then finally, deliver your responses with confidence and poise. Don't rush your answers and have points prepared ahead of time. So a lot of interview prep, a lot of interviewing skills are just pure preparation. All right, and then we covered interview days as well. So just kind of some final notes, interviews and recommendation letters are more commonly used as a method for elimination for bs MD programs. Again, this is kind of like the last step in the whole process the interviews. Because of COVID, the standard for letters would come higher. You can't sleep, walk through any interview, you need to provide thoughtful genuine answers. Performance does not need to be perfect on the interviews just have high energy and being authentic. And recommendation letters need to be positive magic perfunctory as well. And then in terms of timeline, hopefully you've started kind of filling out the common app. Between now and October if you can, retake SAT or SAT II, this will vary school by school, right? So, be sure that you know which schools are looking for specific subject tests or standardized test scores. Get that in them. Ideally, maybe you started working on supplemental essays or you dsmb applicants occasions, which are probably do either this month or next month. You'll start hearing back for interviews, usually late December to mid February. That's when you all start preparing for interviews. And the interviews usually take place in February and so on, and decisions by March or so. Got these dates are a little flexible based on the programs. Great. And that wraps up the live stream. Well, the presentations for today, now get into the really great questions. Before we do just another quick poll for you guys. So on a scale of one to 10, how likely are you to recommend CollegeVine live streams to a friend.

1:05:33

And while you guys are helping me with that, another event that we have coming up on October 16, at 4:30pm. Eastern is how to write the 2020 to 2021. Apply Texas essays. If you guys are from Texas, or interested in applying to Texas state schools, definitely check out this live stream. It'll help you guys figure out the apply Texas prompts, how to respond to them appropriately.

1:06:06

Excuse me. Okay, perfect. Let me get into the questions here. And again, if you guys do have questions, just feel free to put it in the q&a box. Alright, so john asks a really great question. Can you talk a little bit about the choices you had, you had to make about attending a BS MD? maybe share your experiences Did you apply for selective colleges? Great. So this was three years ago for me, or I chose to either apply to BS MD programs, namely I applied to BSP programs, such as Case Western University of Rochester Boston University Northwestern Yeah, I think that's it. I think, oh, Washington, St. Louis. And I also for undergrad I was applying to biomedical engineering mainly so Okay, so those are like the two pads I set out for myself when I was applying. So I did apply to a couple Ivy League's I did apply to state schools, things like that. It's really all around, I had a lot of applications to I think because I was bsme applicant, the application load became like 20 something schools. Ideally, we'd recommend eight to 12 schools. But because I was applying to BSN programs and undergrad programs, I ended up applying to law schools. So the choices I had to make right, I had to really be sure that I wanted to go into medicine in the first place. And be sure that I was going to apply to BSN program in the first place. So across all of high school, I knew I want to do medicine in some way. And I knew bs MD programs existed. So I set out a goal of myself to figure out what medicine was. So I did a lot of medical related things. So I was a part of the Red Cross, not just in my school, but also like at my county level. I wrote as an EMT, I did a lot of science clubs, I competed in science clubs. I did a summer internship at a company in Boston, a research internship. So a lot of things to kind of expose me to medicine early on. Right. So making the choice about the SMD, it became very clear that this was something I really wanted to do. So yeah, and then I will say that my academic profile is pretty selective or competitive for selective schools. So I did apply to a lot of selective schools. And though just by nature, a lot of students who are competitive BSN programs will be competitive for undergraduate programs as well.

1:08:49

Okay, Charlotte asks, How important is English? Is it okay, I have a few B's in English. Yeah, that shouldn't be a big deal. What I would say is if English isn't your strong suit, so be it. In fact, it wasn't my strong suit either. I think I actually had like two B's in English. I think it was my freshman and sophomore year, and I finally turned it around junior year. Yeah, I had like the hardest English she's just my gracias. Coincidentally. What I will say is though, just make sure that your overall GPA and science GPA are still high. It's okay to have B's and classes. But just make sure you know, you're outperforming the other competitive applicants for bsme programs as you've seen his presentation, it's a lot more about the other things that you're doing outside of class that show your orientation toward medicine, and programs really, like students do that.

1:09:44

Okay, Lucia is what would you say are less likely to be SMD applicants? A programs OpenBSD programs. Yeah, so I had that on a slide earlier. That's all the way at the top But I'll just keep the slide open for you. Sure. So the left selected programs are here. And here. I'll keep it on this page, I guess. And so again, this presentation will be available to you. So you can kind of go back and forth through the presentation, kind of see which slides you need answers on. But I'll keep this one here for you.

1:10:21

Okay, so another question is, my school doesn't offer AP courses. What can I do? Yeah, so it's not a huge problem. Usually, if your school doesn't offer AP courses, try to take IB HL courses, which are on par with AP courses, or things that show that you're taking the most demanding science curriculum available to you. That alone will show admissions officers that you're passionate about, excuse me, passionate about sciences have a strong curriculum, or educational background sciences, which you're gonna have to provide.

1:11:00

Okay, um, ah, Mandy, asking good questions, or how much of the bsme program? Yeah, something I really didn't highlight here. So for BSN programs, finances is actually a kind of a big thing, right? So think about it, you're applying to an undergraduate school, but also medical school. And you have almost like a conditional guaranteed acceptance rate. So schools are not incentivized to give you any financial aid for the most part. Why? Because they know that you really want to go to the school, you really want to get into their medical school. Right. So for the most part, and I could speak for a lot of my classmates, their only form of scholarship was directly through the undergrad. There might have been like a presidential scholarship because they were such a competitive student. They were one of the top students in the entering class. But also they had like national merit scholarships as well. So they save like 20 K or 30. k off their tuition. mainly through external scholarship, not mainly from the school. Yeah. Yeah. So that's kind of what I speak on there.

1:12:11

Okay, another question is, I often hear pre med track, what is that? Okay. Yeah, so I did cover that before. I'll leave this slide open. But essentially, pre med is a designated undergraduate route. So it's not like a major. So major for pre med would be music, or English or chemistry or biology, right? Those are majors typically. So I could take a lot of classes that have to do with chemistry, and graduate with a degree in chemistry, Bachelor Science degree in chemistry. Pre med track is a little different. It's basically like, I am a student, undergraduate student who wants to go into medical school. So I call myself a pre medical student. Pre because it's before medical student, right? pre med student. Yeah. So basically, I say, I'm a pre med student for four years. So I have to take a lot of coursework that is required for me to apply to medical school. That's usually like a call a chemistry, biology, physics background. Then I take the medical college admissions test, a lot of things that are required as a pre med student per se. So hopefully that clarifies your question.

1:13:24

Okay, um, okay, Siddharth asked, could you share your academics test scores and extracurriculars? Yeah, sure. So I mentioned a bit about the extracurriculars before I mentioned mainly that I was trying to explore medicine, right. So I did. EMT was part of the Red Cross. I was a lot of part of science clubs, competitive science clubs, things like that. I did research over the summer. Other extracurriculars, I was also really passionate about music, right? So I was part of all the different types of bands. I played the saxophone. So I was part of jazz band, or, yeah, for most of my high school, I was part of Pitt. So we played in the orchestra below the stage, first theater, I was part of a concert band. And then I played in a state band my senior year, which didn't really go my application. And then for marching band, I was a saxophone for three years, and then I was conductor my last year. That was my music kind of background. In terms of academics. Yeah, I took a lot of AP courses, mostly in the sciences. I didn't actually have them anyway, I think I'm like five AP courses, mainly in sciences that might have been a weak part of my application. For example. standardized test score, I took the LSAT scored a 2400. So a lot of my academics, a lot of my test scores extracurriculars. Were again just very high up for more selective schools.

1:15:01

Ah, really good question from Noreen. So, oh, I click the wrong one, but I'll answer it. So if an employment at a hospital is assigned rather than sought after, does it take away value from the experience? So corporate work study is required attending high school? No, definitely not. So again, these are just exposures to the hospital environment. Doesn't matter if it's paid or unpaid here. Yeah.

1:15:24

Noreen had another question, which is good. So is it possible to apply for early decision, early action for undergrad at another university and Bs MD program? Um, when we think of early decision, you can only apply early decision to one school. Right? So that is the school that you're certain about. So if they accept you, you have to go to that school, early decision, right? So you can apply early decision to an undergraduate school and then apply to a BS MD program. However, if you get into that early decision school, you must go there, you cannot turn down the offer for BFA program. Um, yeah, I think I answer your question. So early action is a little different. If you get into early action school, you're not obligated legally obligated to go to that school, you can go to other schools. So feel free to early decision early action to any school you want. But just note that if it's early decision, you have to go to that school. So it might be limiting two year eventual opportunities that you get.

1:16:32

Interesting question by Harshman. I'll try approaching this question I don't think there's a clear answer, or I don't know the answer to it. Do BSN programs take into consideration the fact that certain students in different states and cities have access to different amount slash type of opportunities. There is an element of So this question is some ways related to this idea of students from underprivileged backgrounds, or low income backgrounds were applying to be us new programs. And in some ways, it's not the same as selective schools. So a lot of selective schools will have in some ways, like demographic buckets, where they're trying to admit students from these kind of backgrounds, underprivileged low income backgrounds, right. So they have actually certain requirements to meet our quotas to meet for those types of students. bsme programs isn't as black or Wait is that but I would still say that there are probably that does factor into who they decide to emit in a more positive way. So if you're low income or from undergrad, previous background, you don't that could influence your decision in a positive way. But just note that the academic requirements are still just as heavy, just just as expecting as a privileged student or a higher income student, for example. So the standardized test scores and GPAs will still have to be at a very high caliber, similar to the other students that are applying while at selective schools. Typically, we see standardized test scores, GPA requirements, to be a lot lower for underprivileged or lower income students kind of make up for the educational differences or educational gaps, right. I wouldn't say from my experiences that that's the same as a PSP program. But good question. Yeah.

1:18:31

Ah, okay. Caitlin, is a good question. It's more about the life of being a student. I heard that BSN programs can be rigorous and tiring, and that sometimes students are mostly always focused on studying. Would you say that your life is Bs, Ms. Students is balanced? Yeah, great question. So I'll preface this by saying, I know programs that really ask a lot of students, namely Washington, Northwestern, for example, their GPA requirements are like 3.8 3.9. And students are so focused on maintaining that GPA, that they lose sight of kind of living life, right? They're really bogged down in studying or studying for the MCAT, all these different things. I would say that I'm, I guess, a little bit of the opposite. And thankfully, because I am going to a program that's a little more relaxed, not super relaxed, but my GPA requirement is a 3.2. So for me to maintain that, as a student, it's in my capabilities, I can do that. And because of that, I don't have to study all the time. I didn't have to study all the time as an undergraduate, I could take time to do other things that interests me, I was part of a dance team. I co founded an academic biology fraternity. I volunteered around Boston. I hung out with friends, I don't know, like a lot of standard college things that I did. So I feel like my life was very balanced. But again, it depends on which programs are going to be going to the more highly selective elite programs. Oftentimes, you're going to run into that idea of higher expectations. GPA quotations that you might not meet at lower, less selective schools.

1:20:09

Okay, um, Harshman asked, Is it worth it to become an EMT? If you can only get your license in October of your senior year? You have to be 18. In Wisconsin, My birthday is October 14. Okay, is it worth it? I say yes. Not for the sake of the application. Just in my experience, it was a big growing moment for me, I could really figure out patience, I could learn how to talk to patients, I learned more about myself, I don't know it's very satisfying for me to being empty. Um, terms of application, purely occupation, why it's probably not worth it. Because when you're writing your application for mainly for BSN programs, you want to write, in retrospect, like I did these things, this is what I learned from it. And unfortunately, you won't be able to do that, right. So might not be worth it from that sense. But in terms of kind of like, going to medicine, ideally, in the future, maybe you're thinking of that, it could be and like think later down the line as well, right? to being an EMT, if you're not admitted to be as many programs, eventually it might help you along the pre med route, where I think you might take the national licensing exam. And then you can probably practice or BMT in other states as well. So when you go to undergrad, you might be able to be an EMT there. So that could just help you in the pre med. So just think, more so down the line, rather than immediate, immediate benefits of it.

1:21:40

Um, okay, so we don't have much time left. I'll take maybe like one or two more questions. So I'm just going to see which questions that are. Okay, here's a good question for Lucia. Do we need to get certificates to show virtual shadow experiences? No. So a lot of this is on the honor system. So you don't actually need certificates for a lot of things that do. And there's no room to submit it on your application. So don't worry about that. But I would say just be honest, and especially when talking about volunteer experiences, it's really critical to provide support for your experiences. Tell us what you learned, rather than just stating You did it. Right.

1:22:26

Okay, Camila asked, If you live in a country with travel restrictions, how do you attend the interview? at Great question, um, this year, you know, the anticipation is that the interviews will likely be virtual, over zoom or some similar video streaming platform. So the travelers, Jason's might not do much. I would also say that just let the universities know, when you're applying, there's always spaces to tell them that you're living in another country and that there might be travel restrictions when it comes to interviewing. But that likely won't affect your chances at receiving invite to interview. Yeah, good question. But yeah, I don't think it's going to be a big deal this year. So just because a lot of things will just be virtual. Okay, one more question, and then I'll wrap up.

1:23:28

Oh, okay. Camila asked the question early on that didn't catch. How do you apply for this program? I don't see on the common app. Yeah, great point. So a lot of BS MD programs, there's two ways to apply it, on average, on average, don't quote me on it. So through the common app, you can select schools that have BSN programs. So for example, a lot of these schools ibsat programs, so maybe you add a for sure. I know that Boston University, Boston University has their school on the common app. And then through the common app, when you click Boston University, and add it to your school list, there's a checkbox that says Do you want to apply for the seven year medical program? Right? You click that, and then it opens up new prompts for you, and asks you to fill out a whole bunch of new prompts related to the BSN program. So that's the common app applying to be as many programs. Now, for example, there's another school I think, Albany Sienna college, Albany Medical College, if I remember correctly, this one you will apply through their website. So you have to go onto the website, find their bsmt page, and then find their application and fill it out on their website through a separate application portal. So yeah, so those are carmella the two standard ways of finding these programs There's also sometimes MCs. It's very confusing, I'm telling you like the due dates for all of these programs are always very scattered. So just make sure you're on top of it. Some colleges, you will apply via the common app for undergrad and then they'll send you a new portal. just submit your bs MD material through their website. Right. So it varies from school to school. But a lot of parents have a question ahead of time. Thanks for asking.

1:25:29

Okay, great. Let's wrap up for today. Again, very great questions. Thank you guys for asking, is super helpful for me to answer these questions for you all. Yeah, great. So glad you guys enjoyed. Take care. Enjoy the rest of your week. And I'll see you guys in the next live stream.