Two For the Price of One
More programs are offering admission to med school and undergrad at the same time. How one Alabama university sweetens the pot.
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It's not that Raam Venkatesh didn't have one heck of a fun time filling out applications to a dozen colleges, from New York University to UCLA. It's just that, all things being equal, he would be perfectly content not to have a similar experience in three years, when he and other current high-school seniors who have their hearts set on becoming physicians will be applying to medical schools. Venkatesh, who graduated from Lakeside High School in Augusta, Ga., in June 2009, has known since he was a kid that he wanted to be a doctor (he's thinking cardiology), but that doesn't mean he wants his choices about what to study as an undergraduate to be dictated by what medical-school admissions offices expect. So the offer from the University of Alabama at Birmingham was one he couldn't refuse. If he kept up his grades and got decent scores on the MCAT, the med-school admissions test, UAB would guarantee him a place in its well-regarded med school—no application required. "I was really attracted to the program," says Venkatesh, pausing. "But the guarantee was important."
And did I mention that tuition for the UAB program that feeds students into its med school is free? "That you can have a place reserved for you in medical school, and go to college free, is beyond the imagination of many parents," says bioethicist Greg Pence of UAB, director of the school's Early Medical School Acceptance Program. "People ask, 'Why is the best student in Edison, N.J., going to college in Alabama?' EMSAP is why."
The Association of American Medical Colleges lists 43 bachelor's-M.D. programs starting with admission in 2010. They vary in detail, with some offering a curriculum that lets students graduate with both degrees in six years (University of Missouri–Kansas City) or seven (Northwestern and 16 others). But in most, students complete their undergraduate work in the standard four years and then matriculate at the med school associated with that college, including the University of Southern California, Brown, and Rutgers. The programs have been growing in popularity, says the AAMC's Gwen Garrison, with 145 students graduating with the two degrees in 2005 and 282 in 2008.
But acceptance into an undergrad–M.D. program has a cost, literally: the appeal of guaranteed admission to medical school means the undergrad part of the deal generally comes at full price. "Med school is such powerful bait, you don't have to offer scholarships or much financial aid," says Pence. UAB has, of necessity, adopted a different philosophy. "If you're a bright student in L.A. thinking of Harvard and MIT, you're not thinking of college in Birmingham," says Pence. "Some people arrive here expecting the Klan to meet them at the airport. We have to sweeten the pot."
Admission to the UAB program is based on board scores (it's looking for a 34 on the ACT or a 1520 on the math-verbal SAT), an interview at the med school, a solid record of AP courses in math and science, and a strong high-school transcript with a GPA of at least 3.5. It was only in 2007 that UAB began to recruit out-of-state students; in 2009 it accepted 12 students from California, Texas, Missouri, New Jersey, Wisconsin, Georgia, and Michigan, as well as Alabama. All qualify for scholarships that cover tuition and, in some cases, books and housing.
The UAB program includes standard premed fare, with about 10 required courses in organic chemistry, biology, physics, math, statistics, and other premed classics. There are also required seminars in subjects such as bioethics. But the guarantee of admission to med school means students can choose courses, and even majors, that in regular undergrad programs might hurt their chances with the med-school admissions office. UAB's EMSAP students can major in music, Spanish, or anything else as long as they fit in the premed requirements. Jason Lott, who was a freshman in the UAB program in 1998, earned a B.S. in math and a B.A. in philosophy. "I was able to take a lot of classes in a lot of different fields" because he didn't have to sweat med-school admissions, says Lott, who hails from Anniston, Ala. Nor did an untraditional (for a premed) major hurt him in med school.
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