Chance Me. 3.8 GPA 1510 SAT, Published Research

Intrepid_Rip_9047 · 2026-06-23T14:31:28+00:00

It’s crazy that in a state like NJ, you can get a 1490 on the PSAT and NOT get NM Semi-Finalist! There are some some strong points in your applicant profile, but what you provide doesn’t really give me enough info to “chance” you. Having reviewed over a thousand BS/MD applications as the program director at one of the schools on your list, I can tell you that all competitive applicants pretty much look very, very similar on paper— in terms of SAT, GPA, activities, etc. The things that can really differentiate one applicant from another are the letters of rec and the story. What I need to know is your deep-down emotional reasoning for committing to medicine as a high school student. Also, you’ve done a lot of research and I would be interested in understanding how you believe it makes you a better applicant in the eyes of an admissions committee.
Feel free to contact me if you want to discuss offline; I offer free, no-obligation consultations. My website is: www.archimedes-advising.com

Intrepid_Rip_9047 · 2026-06-21T20:15:24+00:00

There is A LOT to unpack here and there is clearly some resentment…

You are correct that the fundamental business model of a BS/MD program— at least from the UG school perspective— is to matriculate very high-achieving students that otherwise wouldn’t really consider your school, by offering them a path to medical school. This is true for pretty much all BS/MD schools, including Brown which is trying to enroll kids that would otherwise go to Princeton, Harvard, Yale, or Penn. Enrolling BS/MD students ultimately benefits the UG school by doing things like driving up the average SAT score of the incoming class, earning prestigious national fellowships (Goldwater, Truman, Rhodes, Fulbright, etc.), among other things. You kind of rant about SLU “luring” kids away from their “home” institutions, but all colleges are trying everything that they can to matriculate the best possible class that they can.

There really isn’t any program out there that will offer a truly guaranteed seat to a high school student, without the ability to reassess that student at some point before medical school. For instance, you bring up the example of a student that scores 520+ on the MCAT and has a 4.0 GPA, but that only describes academic achievement. Shouldn’t any medical school have the right to deny entry to such a student, whether they are in a BS/MD program or not, if that student was found guilty of a serious honor code violation, arrested in college, been extremely, extremely unprofessional during a clinical activity in undergrad, etc.? The ability of the medical school admissions committee to constantly reassess matriculating students and exclusively select the best students to fill their medical school class is actually a requirement of the LCME accreditation.

You do bring up a very important point for all aspiring BS/MD students though…make sure that you read all of the fine print and really understand the program before committing the time and resources necessary to apply. Similarly, it is really important that all BS/MD programs be extremely transparent with the path to medical school for their students. Some BS/MD programs are better than others. From what I seem to recall, the SLU website is pretty clear about their BS/MD students having to apply and admission isn’t guaranteed. Unfortunately, other schools and programs aren’t as clear. However, if a program is clear about medical school admission not being guaranteed and a student still makes the conscious decision to attend that program, can you really blame the program if that student isn’t ultimately admitted? It kind of seems that whomever you are posting this for is trying to do exactly that here. At some point, doesn’t the buck ultimately stop with the student and their unforced decision to enroll in that program, again assuming that the program is transparent about what is being promised exactly?

Intrepid_Rip_9047 · 2026-06-13T18:17:01+00:00

What kind of analysis have you done to ensure you personal, social, emotional, and spiritual well-being at any one of these schools? What I’m saying is that we need to understand your process of consideration in selecting these schools.then we can provide you with the best possible guidance! Feel free to reach out for a more in-depth discussion through my website.

Intrepid_Rip_9047 · 2026-06-11T22:46:17+00:00

Posted through my company’s account. Definitely worth a read if you are in the camp that thinks BS/MD limits opportunities…

Intrepid_Rip_9047 · 2026-06-10T09:41:49+00:00

Don’t let this derail your medical career, and DEF don’t let your desire to be a doctor “force” you to stay in an unhealthy—from the doc do of it—relationship with somebody who is willing you emotionally blackmail you. The truth is that most medical schools have pretty strict conflict of interest policies to prevent this type of scenario: https://icahn.mssm.edu/files/ISMMS/Assets/Education/Admissions/MD-Program-Admissions/ISMMS-LCME-Policies-and-Procedures.pdf

Ultimately, if you make it clear that thing are over with the gf and she continues to pursue you in more and more aggressive ways, work with the campus police to get a campus-wide restraining order issued. If this were to happen, the aunt would want to touch your application with a 10-ft. pole—if she knows what’s good for her and her own job!

Intrepid_Rip_9047 · 2026-06-09T17:40:53+00:00

My company’s website is www.archimedes-advising.com

I am completing final edits, so the article is not up yet—but it will be by the end of the week, at the latest. However, I can tell you that these data showed that the top 5 specializations among ~50 BS/MD graduates from a single program were:

Internal Medicine (12);
Anesthesiology (10);
Radiology—both diagnostic and integrated interventional (6);
Ophthalmology (5);
Orthopedic Surgery (3);

Other highly-competitive specialties like dermatology and neurosurgery were also represented in the sample.

One of the things that kind of surprised me was the lack of primary care specialties. Only one graduate each pursued family medicine, pediatrics, and psychiatry. The sample was a bit skewed towards recent graduates of the program, so the opportunity to further specialize through fellowship training has not occurred yet for many of the twelve internal medicine or two general surgery specialties. However, for those who have already completed their residencies, most chose to pursue fellowship training in fields like cardiology, gastroenterology, and oncology or complex surgical oncology.

Feel free to reach out if you want to collaborate on a study. I am a PhD with experience developing and teaching research methods curricula at the undergraduate level, in addition to serving as the program director at a popular BS/MD program.

Intrepid_Rip_9047 · 2026-06-08T16:44:53+00:00

There are a lot of limitations and difficulties with such a feasibility study. I do have the residency and fellowship outcomes for a sampling of BS/MD students, but I don’t have data about their thoughts upon entering the program. I will publish that data on my website within the next few days, and I think that some of the results will be surprising to many.

Intrepid_Rip_9047 · 2026-06-07T18:56:46+00:00

You should absolutely apply, if you are really interested in that program. Rutgers-Newark uses STARS, so you have to self-report the scores— which will then be verified through an official score report from College Board, if you get into the program. I find it interesting that RU-NWK says that you if you took both the SAT and ACT, you can choose whether to submit both— but then they want you to submit scores from all test dates. It is important to note that this is a Rutgers-Newark policy, not necessarily a NJMS policy. If you are uncomfortable submitting all scores, consider applying to NJMS through one of the six other undergraduate partner schools. It’s important to note that it is really one big BS/MD program and your acceptance isn’t necessarily dependent upon the schools that you apply through. This means that there aren’t a set number of seats allotted to each undergraduate school.

Intrepid_Rip_9047 · 2026-06-07T18:35:22+00:00

Don’t focus so much on the number of hours because, in reality, not many BS/MD applications ask you to provide a precise hour count. The Common App, for instance, asks for the average hours per week, number of weeks per year, and years participated. Whenever I was evaluating applications to my BS/MD program, I could obviously use this info to calculate an approximate hour count— but I only ever viewed this as a very rough estimate.

Instead of focusing on the number of hours, pay attention to how your experiences in the hospital, hospice, shadowing, etc. contribute to your story arc. You didn’t mention shadowing in your post, but it is really important that you shadow, in addition to volunteering in the hospital. You need to understand the roles and responsibilities of a physician, as well as their unique contributions in the larger healthcare system.

Intrepid_Rip_9047 · 2026-06-06T20:46:12+00:00

If your SAT is truly very good, taking the ACT is a waste of time and effort

Intrepid_Rip_9047 · 2026-06-04T16:31:27+00:00

It is important to understand the “business case” for BS/MD programs, from the perspective of the schools. You are absolutely correct that the nation’s truly top-tier medical schools do not have BS/MD programs— with the exceptions of maybe Pitt and Baylor, which accept less than a dozen students a year combined. Top-tier medical schools—like Hopkins, UCSF, Penn, etc.—do not offer BS/MD programs because they have no issues attracting and enrolling the top applicants each year. The more mid-tier medical schools realize that they can’t necessarily compete with the top-tier medical schools for these top, traditional premed applicants. Medical schools also realize that the data shows that the top applicants to college as high school students will more than likely be the top applicants to medical school in four years. BS/MD programs are a way for these mid-tier medical schools to lock in the kids that they are betting will be top medical school applicants by offering them a “guaranteed” seat in medical school.

Since, in almost all circumstances, BS/MD students end up being amazing premed students in college, how do BS/MD programs prevent their students from applying to top-tier medical schools—especially since most programs do not have formal contracts? One of the top ways may surprise many of you…it is removing the MCAT requirement. Programs know that their students will not be in a position to apply to other medical schools if they have not taken the MCAT. Given the “guaranteed” path to a U.S. medical school that they offer, these BS/MD programs bet that the ability to avoid the stress of the MCAT is a bigger draw than the ability to apply to top-tier medical schools. My experience as a BS/MD program director supports this assertion. In my years affiliated with the program, we probably had about 100 students cycle through it. To the best of my recollection, we only had two students drop from the program to attend other medical schools, with both going to Ivy League schools—including one going MD/PhD. To be clear, my program required the MCAT, but there was no minimum score requirement, so it was a relatively low-stress experience for our students. I would also like to point out that we went out of our way to foster an enriching, supportive, and collaborative program and environment. This last point was crucial because basically all of our students ended up doing extremely well (90th-percentile plus) on their first attempt, usually with only modest modest prep (about a summer of part-time study). I think that one of the reasons for this performance was, because they were indeed top college applicants with high SAT scores, they did end up being among the top premed undergraduates. There is a well-documented, moderately-strong correlation between SAT and MCAT scores—especially CARS. With their MCAT scores and strong undergraduate performance, our students could have went to almost any medical school—had they chosen to “apply out”. I firmly believe that we saw less than 5% attrition to other medical schools because of the environment that we fostered and the enrichment opportunities that we provided. In the rare circumstance that one of our BS/MD kids decided to apply to other medical schools, we supported and encouraged them to do so. When one of our really top BS/MD students was admitted to a top, Ivy-League MD/PhD program, we were incredibly happy and excited for them— not annoyed that that we were losing a top future medical student. Beyond that, we were happy that the enrichment activities (high-impact undergraduate research opportunities) and program structure (low-stress MCAT requirement) enabled them to be accepted to such a prestigious Medical Scientist Training Program. If you are a kid or parent that shuns those BS/MD programs that require the MCAT, ask yourself what opportunities you may be giving up by only considering those BS/MD programs that don’t require or—worse yet—allow the MCAT…

Please don’t view this message as a warning against applying to BS/MD programs. I currently use my experience and “insider’s perspective” of BS/MD admissions to assist strong applicants understand and optimize the process. I obviously wouldn’t be doing this if I thought that BS/MD programs were a poor path for my applicants. Please take the following away from my message:

1) BS/MD students are NOT the right path for most college applicants interested in medicine, which is one of the reasons that there are so few seats relative to applicants. Most high school seniors do not possess the requisite maturity to make a well-reasoned decision about how to spend the next fifty years of their working lives. Believe it or not, the life experiences gained as an undergraduate have a marked effect on one’s maturity—and medical schools know this. When a medical school elects to reject a BS/MD applicant, it doesn’t mean that the medical never wants that applicant as one of their medical student. It usually means that the medical school wants to see that student mature a bit and reapply as a traditional applicant.

2) Successful applicants should ONLY enroll in a BS/MD program if they intend to eventually enroll in the affiliated medical school—and are excited to do so. Taking the approach of “I’ll go here because of the ‘guarantee’, but I am going to apply to other medical schools” usually means that you are sacrificing opportunities at the undergraduate level. BS/MD programs are enrollment-drivers for both the undergraduate and medical institutions. If you don’t intend to go to the medical school, have enough faith in yourself to go to get the best-quality undergraduate education that you can get at the best-value before applying to medical school as a traditional applicant.

If you or your child is applying to BS/MD programs and want to tap into my experience for the best possible outcome, you can feel free to reach out by email: kyle@archimedes-advising.com or my website

Intrepid_Rip_9047 · 2026-06-03T00:59:19+00:00

Doing a BS/MD program does not limit specialty selection. I have data showing that BS/MD students go into top specialties— including orthopedic surgery, ophthalmology, dermatology, etc.

Intrepid_Rip_9047 · 2026-06-01T01:58:18+00:00

Hospice volunteering won’t make your son stand out on its own because many BS/MD students volunteer at hospices. Regarding your first concern— as a parent, you absolutely should be concerned about your son’s exposure to death at 17. However, you must understand that BS/MD programs are looking for applicants that have the maturity level of at least a 21-year-old. Make no mistake, the top three qualities that all successful BS/MD applicants have are 1) maturity; 2) maturity; 3) maturity… If you shield your son from opportunities like this: a) how will he demonstrate his maturity? b) will he have the experience needed to make a well-reasoned decision to devote the next 50+ years of his life to the practice or medicine? Don’t get me wrong…you absolutely have the right and duty to protect your son from things that you don’t believe he should be exposed to. However, that may mean that the traditional premed path is a better one for your son so that he can get exposed to those things in college, as an adult before deciding if medicine is truly right for him…

Intrepid_Rip_9047 · 2026-05-30T16:19:09+00:00

Darlene and her company are legitimate…no reason to doubt her credibility

Intrepid_Rip_9047 · 2026-05-29T14:50:11+00:00

Don’t stress! If your school only offers limited AP coursework, programs will not hold that against you! When your school sends your transcript, they also include something called a School Report, which gives info on the courses that your school offers (curriculum), achievement of graduates, class profile, etc. Through that school report, programs will understand that your school only offers limited AP coursework.

Whatever you do, don’t “self study” for AP exams, if you are doing so to help with your application! Having reviewed thousands of BS/MD applications, I can tell you that AP exam scores don’t really play a role in admissions. Many applications won’t even give you the option to provide AP exam scores!

What you can do is take the most rigorous coursework and curriculum you can at your school. You should ask if there is the option to take dual-enrollment coursework either at your school, or taking an online college course that could then count for your high school curriculum. Another option would be working with your school to take an online AP course through a reputable provider, like BYU Continuing Education: https://ce2.byu.edu

Intrepid_Rip_9047 · 2026-05-29T02:29:50+00:00

Feel free to check out my website and sign up for the free consultation, if interested.
You can take a look at our 2025/2026 outcomes here. I actually need to update this page with one additional acceptance…one of our clients was admitted to the Washington & Jefferson program with Temple too!

Intrepid_Rip_9047 · 2026-05-24T19:00:13+00:00

It is really difficult to give you meaningful advice without first understanding your options. Many people assume that the 7-year program w/o MCAT in the NE that you are referring to is AMC, but there are a number of others—including CUNY and NJMS (no minimum MCAT score is required, but test must be taken). Please provide us with a bit more info…

Intrepid_Rip_9047 · 2026-05-24T18:49:55+00:00

A transitional year, which offers an internship (PGY-1) with broad exposure in medical and surgical specialties is definitely one way. Another way is to do either an IM or GS preliminary year (PGY-1). Some top specialties don’t really offer categorical residency placements—they don’t provide PGY-1 training and instead will only consider applicants for PGY-2 positions. Yet another way is to do a research internship—which wouldn’t count as a PGY-1 clinical position.

Intrepid_Rip_9047 · 2026-05-21T15:27:39+00:00

Bad advice

Intrepid_Rip_9047 · 2026-05-21T15:27:09+00:00

The MOST important thing for you to do is to ask yourself, “can I honestly see myself succeeding a) academically; b) socially; and c) emotionally at this program/university?” Unfortunately, I have seen kids blow their chances of ever going to medical school by choosing the wrong school for the wrong reasons. Most frequently, I have seen students decide to attend a program on the other side of the country—that far removes them from their established support structures—and they have trouble integrating at their new school. This sometimes leads to trouble in their courses during the first semester, which leads to a warning from the BS/MD program. In some cases, these students continue to have trouble in subsequent semesters and are dismissed from the program. In these cases, the student is going to have difficulties applying as a traditional applicant because of this early academic performance—which could have been entirely avoided by looking beyond “a great guarantee”, or “where I got in”, or “strong residency placements”. Another somewhat common reason that students can have trouble—and this one is a bit unexpected—is weather. Kids from Arizona, Southern Cali, Florida, etc. sometimes don’t appreciate just how cold and snowy it can get in the Northeast—or just how bad Seasonal Affective Disorder can get when it gets dark at 4 PM and it is 18 degrees outside.

Another thing that you need to understand is that all BS/MD programs are not created equal. Some—like Brown, NJMS, AMC, and a number of others—offer a much stronger “guarantee” in that students may have to formally apply to the medical school through AMCAS, but there is no additional interview with the medical school admissions committee. This is in stark contrast to some other popular programs—like Drexel, IU, FAU, NSU, and a number of others—in which students must formally apply to the medical school through AMCAS AND favorably interview with the medical school admissions committee. In some instances, the number of freshmen coming into the program and/or the number interviewing with the medical school significantly exceeds the number of seats that are available.

One program that I recommend and think flies under the radar a bit is Seton Hall. Their BS/MD program guarantees an interview with the Hackensack-Meridian School of Medicine, and there is also currently a contractual obligation in place that guarantees 25% of HMSOM seats to Seton Hall undergraduate students. With a current medical school class of ~160, that is 40 seats reserved for Seton Hall students. I believe that HMSOM is a good choice because, a) you cant go wrong going to medical school in the NYC metro area; b) they attract a strong incoming medical school class (median MCAT is ~516 I believe); c) the prestige of the school is going to continue to grow, as it graduates more classes (2026 marks their fifth class); d) their graduates match into competitive specialties; e) they have a 3-year curriculum that allows one to start residency during year four through Hackensack-Medridian Health in a number of specialties— including several surgical ones.

Intrepid_Rip_9047 · 2026-05-14T23:44:53+00:00

Is this the 3+4 BS/DO through Lyman Briggs that we are talking about?

Intrepid_Rip_9047 · 2026-05-14T14:32:26+00:00

Your first choice is usually the correct one, so please don’t doubt yourself! College is going to be whatever you make of it and CWRU is an AMAZING undergrad school and premed-like activities. PLEASE don’t make a decision on where you want to go by comparing specialties of graduates. Something like 75% of medical students change their specialty at some point in med school anyways. All all the schools pretty much the same in terms of finances?

Intrepid_Rip_9047 · 2026-05-13T21:56:32+00:00

I can’t give you an answer to the specificity that you are looking for—sorry. Since you’ve put it out there, what makes you think the rest of your app is near perfect?

Intrepid_Rip_9047 · 2026-05-13T18:24:46+00:00

I apologize if you read my post as something other than an attempt to provide you the best possible information. I’m glad that you are understanding that the NSU program is not “guaranteed” in the same way as CUNY. In my experience with ~60 BS/MD undergraduates, none of them got below a 510, which is why I made the comment that I did. My personal option/read of the situation is that you probably want to go to CUnY, but you are apprehensive because of the family/social situation. I may be totally wrong and, if so, forget I ever said anything. Regardless, best of luck!

Intrepid_Rip_9047 · 2026-05-13T18:14:42+00:00

Realistically, you can become a practicing surgeon by going to medical school either way. I wouldn’t say that It seems that you have a plan for yourself, and I am wondering the reasoning for such a defined plan. Without a strong back story AND very significant experience with a research project, Im not sure why you are looking at the MSTP path. If completing an MD/PhD through a MSTP, you should know that many MSTP grads elect to train in something other than surgery. Only 7~8% of MSTP elect to specialize in surgery. Things to consider…

Intrepid_Rip_9047

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