A buddy and I had a discussion this weekend about using a DE Degree to go to Med School. More specifically using a RA DE degree to go to a B&M RA Med School. Has anyone on this board done this or know someone who has? Since getting into Med School is based on a retty high GPA and MCAT scores I would think it would be very tough to make the transition seeing as though a lot of us use CLEP or other ways of getting credits that don't show an actualy A-F grade. If he were to try this what do you think would be his best wayt to try it? What types of degrees would you say i could show him? I know he wants to get into Med school as soon as possible (he's in his thirties) but he wasn't sure what the best route would be. He's always been interested in going but always thought he was getting too old. He recently read an article about the potential upcoming doctor shortages and it got his interest again. Also this might help with suggestions but he's interested in the medical technology side (nanotechnology, etc.) than he is in the actual ractice although he would like to start out there. Thanks guys...
Hi Soup - I'm having two kinds of problems with your post (not you). The first one is that application to medical school is a tricky thing. You haven't provided enough info. Has your friend completed any college work? Just starting? If it's "just starting' then it means that your friend has absolutely no idea of what it takes to get into medical school. How many people can ace Organic Chemistry, Microbiology, etc.? There are people coming out of Ivy League schools with good grades who are not getting into Med School. If your friend has some college credits then what were the grades? Superlative? I hope so. The second one is simply this: Why doesn't your friend simply register for this site and ask his own questions? This whole thing about, "I'm just asking for my friend" is a bit too secondhand. If I want to ask him a question then I need to go through you? C'mon, if he can't register here how can he expect to earn an online degree? Sorry for the acidity but is this really a serious inquiry? He's ready to devote years of study and thousands of dollars but he can't register and ask his own questions?
Well this was more of a discussion this weekend between two friends and I decided to ask the questions because I'm just as curious as he is about it. He does not have a degree but we were discussing the application of a DE RA degree being used to get into Med School. The reason why I threw in his age is because that was his concern. My concern was actually using a DE RA Degree to get in and also what type of degree you should actually consider. Don't take offense to this but why would you take the time to post only to berate me? You could have just as easily ignored the post altogether. I don't see why he needs to post here if I am just as curious as he is. I'm always looking to learn and when we started discussing the potential doctor shortage we also started talking about DE degrees being used to get in. Maybe I'm reading into your post too much but typing is obviously harder to understand the tone than face to face talking. If I am mistaken I apologize. :cheers:
Medical schools typically don't require any specific undergraduate major, but they do require that you complete certain prerequisite courses as an undergraduate. These include several laboratory courses (commonly one year of intro biology, 1 year of intro physics, and 2 years of chemistry). In practice, most med school applicants are either biology or chemistry majors, and of course they take even more laboratory courses than these minimums. It would likely be difficult or impossible to complete the laboratory course requirements for medical school via distance learning. In general, distance learning has not been very successful at providing undergraduate-level training in science or engineering, other than computer/IT-related fields.
That was one of the issues we talked about. It seems pretty hard to finish the prereq's solely through DE. I guess a combination of both would be possible. I also found this on the LSU site which is my states flagship B&M. General Factors weighed in evaluation of applicants High grades and/or MCAT scores alone are not enough. Other factors that are weighed in selecting applicants for admission include letters of reference, the personal statement, difficulty of courses and course loads, trends in grades, extracurricular activities, leadership, volunteer work, care-giving and health-related experience, research, hardship, evidence of motivation for a career in medicine and other non-cognitive attributes. Impressions from the personal interview are especially important. Course Requirements Do I have to have a degree? No. While almost all new students have a baccalaureate degree, only 90 semester hours and a few selected courses are actually required. How many hours do I have to have? The LSU School of Medicine accepts students who have completed a minimum of 90 semester hours of college work, including the required courses shown in the table below. Where should I take these courses? These 90 hours must be taken in a college or university located in North America and approved by a Regional Accrediting Organization. Except for study-abroad courses taken while attending a qualified institution, credits earned at foreign institutions are not accepted for the 90-hour requirement or required courses. It is expected that the major portion of required science courses will be taken at the senior college level. An application that presents only a junior college academic record will not be considered. Online? ... Required courses, no. Others, yes if they are offered by a regionally accredited university or college. Very interesting. to say the least. The required courses are the only ones that cannot be taken online.
The LSU Medical School admission statistics indicate that they get about 800 applicants per year for about 175 slots. With numbers like that, they can afford to be rather picky about who they accept. In theory, LSU may be prepared to accept applicants without a bachelor's degree, or with predominantly online coursework supplemented by B&M labs. But in practice, I would bet that the odds of acceptance drop dramatically in such cases. There probably isn't much incentive to take a chance on an unconventional applicant, when there is a large surplus of traditionally-qualified applicants to choose from. Furthermore, the LSU statistics are probably misleading, in that they present an unrealistically "rosy" picture of med school admissions. This is because the LSU Medical School won't even consider applications from out-of-state residents; this greatly limits the size of their applicant pool. For comparison, the comparable admissions statistics for Tulane Medical School (which considers applicants from anywhere) are 6,503 applicants for 155 slots.
Your friend might want to consider completing a AA/AS degree via distance education and then attend a brick-and-mortar school on campus to complete the last two years of a BS degree. The AA/AS credit hours should come predominantly credit-bearing coursework rather than strictly from CLEPS or DANTES. The AA/AS could be finished in 18 to 24 months. By that point your friend will have a better idea whether he/she has the academic skills to pursue a medical degree.
I have never applied to medical school but know people who have. I have applied for hard-to-get selective positions in other fields. It seems the process for medical school is similar to many selective processes, that is, possession of minimum qualifications won't cut it. There are enough people with above average qualifications to choose from. I suspect med schools have no need to take a chance on a relatively new teaching mode (distance learning) when plenty of more-than-qualified applicants are following the traditional and accepted path. This isn't to suggest that distance learning isn't legitimate, only that medical schools can be very selective and at their own discretion.
What about the applicant's chances with a foreign medical school? Bear's Guide used to contain a chapter on foreign medical schools - some have a high percentage of American students. I would think that a qualified applicant with a largely DL degree and the ability to pay would have some type of shot at admission.
I guess I should have been more clear as to the reasons why I asked. I was just as interested in the answers as he is. I'm maybe more interested in the answers than he is at possibly doing it.
I think there would be two main challenges to this plan. The first would be to find ways of doing all the lab courses. These are one of the reasons that certain degrees are difficult to obtain. Anatomy, Physics, Chemistry etc. are courses that typically have lab components and these are hard to do through distance learning. The second is simply that it's hard to come out of college with a 4.0 GPA. I don't know how med schools view distance learning degrees. They turn down so many people who would seem to be well qualified it almost seems that you'd need something beyond good grades (like experience in the healthcare field). I'd have to guess that anything that might appear to make an applicant less qualified would be cause for rejection.
