r/bsmd

Ask me anything! My other BS/MD acceptances were UMKC, Temple, VCU, Nova, and USF. Happy to help :)

I'm a junior at a large competitive public school in a non-competitive state. I'm wondering whether it's worth even considering applying to BS/MD as well as what I can do with a year left until applications. I feel like I'm not super competitive so I'm not sure whether it's worth applying or not. I also have very little shadowing.

STATS:

GPA: 4.0 UW

SAT: Just took for the first time, will retake until 1520+

Coursework: Max rigor for my school + CC classes (vector calc 1)

EXTRACURRICULARS (keeping sorta vauge):

• Neuroscience summer research internship (10th summer)
  • Presenting a poster + presentation at a scientific conference soon with the research
• First Tech Challenge (9th, 10th)
  • Went to states twice, won inspire at states + went to worlds once
• Hospital Volunteering (11th)
  • Starting this soon, still getting through orientation and all
• Youth branch of well known nationwide healthcare-related nonprofit (10th, 11th)
  • Executive board for my state
  • Helped found the youth branch in my state
• NASA TechRise (9th)
• Schoolwide Neurodivergent Awareness Club (10th, 11th)
  • Vice president
• Model UN (9th, 10th, 11th)

AWARDS

• National History Day (9th, 10th, hopefully 11th?)
  • Won at school and states, advanced to nationals both years
• Model UN Best Consensus award (9th)
• AP Scholar

For context, I wanted to do engineering in 9th so thats why I have all the engineering related ECs. Is there anything I can realistically do in the next year to make myself competitive enough to attempt BS/MD?

i was planning to apply for MSU's bs/do program, as I thought it was for high schoolers. But on their page, it now seems that it's only for undergraduate students? did the program get canceled for high schoolers?

ive alr gotten into a bsmd and a few bsdos, but just in general, I thought id share my stats and all, just to see what people would have thought where I had a shot at

Basic Info
Male, Indian American, from the Southern Bay Area, California.

Stats
GPA: 3.64
SAT: 1410 (1430 superscore)

AP/Honors taken: AP Biology (3), AP Calculus AB (had to drop due to pneumonia in junior year), AP U.S. History (3), AP Statistics, AP Music Theory, AP U.S. Government and Politics, AP Physics 1, AP English Language and Composition (3), AP Psychology, Chemistry Honors

Dual Enrollement Taken: NUTR10 ( Contemporary Nutrition), MATH1A (Calculus 1). KINS15 (First Aid, CPR/AED), KINS16A (Emergency Preventative Care), KINS16B (Prevention of Athletic Injurires), KINS16C (Treatment and Rehab of Athletic Injuries).

Extenuating Circumstances

- Junior year, I suffered from pneumonia which led me to be hospitalized for 2 weeks and total recovery took at least a year before my lung was normal again, even today, doctors report there is still some scarring. This led to a huge drop in my academic performance, which was already a bit fragile.

- summer before senior year, my grandfather went into cardiac arrest unknowingly and I ended up having to call 911, we got him to the hospital after restarting his heart 3 times, but by that point, he was kind of done. He was in a vegetative state for a week before we decided to move him to comfort care. The day we extubated him, he passed away a few hours later. this had an effect as he and my grandmother had lived with my family since I was an infant, literally.

ECs

Research

- Maternal mental health - I collaborated with a psychiatrist to investigate whether TMS can be used to treat postpartum depression. I did a full literature review and found multiple case studies and interviewed other interventional psychiatrists, one even being from Stanford. I culminated everything I gathered into a film which was presented at the El Camino Maternal Mental Health Symposium, the International Marce Society in Spain, and the World Congress of Women's Mental Health at NIMHANS in Bangalore. I would later go on to make a second film on teen pregnancy (though I don't really count that one as research cuz that was more generic)

Clinical Volunteering (100-150 hrs)

- The Forum at Rancho San Antonio - This was a nursing home where I would go and help care for patients who had dementia and alzheimers and help them out
- Junior Auxiliary Volunteer, El Camino Hospital, I did a lot of patient faced volunteering here, where I would literally change the patient water jugs, deliver the WeCare cart, and do a routine fall audit where I determined if patients were at risk of falling and ensured the beds and all were at their correct height. I even talked to patients a lot. One memorable encounter was with a widower who had his leg amputated, though I wasn't christian, I read him some bible verses at his request and even came back to talk to him after finishing my shift to ensure that he was all right.

Hospital Shadowing (75 hrs)

- Shadowed a gasterentologist
- Shadowed an Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon, was quizzed on my knowledge on white blood cells, and observed procedures and things.

General Volunteering

- Middle School Homework Center tutor at Sunnyvale Middle School - This was just something I did freshman year second semester where I'd go and help some kids with their homework. This accumulated to like 20 hours total.

Leadership

- Founded a Nutrition Club at my school where I helped educate other kids on various topics ranging from basic macromolecules to niche topics like GMOs and bioengineered foods. We hosted debates and did other fun activites and even brought guest speaker

- Health education, I led an initiative where I taught similar content at a school in India, hoping to make a difference.

Programs I did
- GHLC '23 and '24 - selected for this program twice with a 9.3% acceptance rate where I learned from world leaders on the importance of global health and the like. Speakers included then-U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, Dr. Thomas Quinn, Dr. Adam Levine, etc.
- UC Berkeley ATDP - Intro to Cancer Research

Non-Medicine related ECs

- Choir, was a part of Ragazzi Boys Chorus for 7 years. As a choir, we met every wednesday from 6:15-8:45 PM and toured internationally. Destinations we toured included Australia (Melbourne, Canberra, and Syney); Germany & Czechia (Berlin, Leipzig, Dresden, and Prague); Chile, Argentina, and Uruguay (Santiago, Buenos Aires). We performed in the Sydney Opera House in Australia where our performance was adjudicated and we won 2 gold medals.

--- I would also later apply and make it to the California All-State Honor Choir.

- Book: Inspired by Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, I wrote my own book on the dangers of being overly reliant on technology. The title is Technology: A Ticking Time Bomb, The plot was where a guy, living in a technologically advanced world in the future must survive when a solar flare, acompanied by a coronal mass ejection occures leading for a semi-worldwide blackout.

Awards
- AP Scholar
- California All-State Honor Chorister

- Green and White Award (Part of my school for being top of my class in Spanish 1)

Edit: Programs I got into

Seton Hall BSMD
LECOM EAP (Committed with my undergraduate Campus being Loyola Marymount University)

MCPHS BS/DO
Gannon BS/DO (this one is a bit sketchy)

Got into a pretty low-stress non-accelerated bsmd in the heart of a big city and was super enthusiastic about being here, but the undergraduate experience of a largely urban, commuter campus has been really taking a toll on me, mentally. I thought I could nevertheless make my own fun here, but it has been very hard so far. It is getting to the point where I feel sad all the time and as if I traded fun college years in youth for security. Am I focusing on the wrong thing and just need to give the college time and a genuine chance, or did I make the wrong choice? I’m a first year, by the way. I understand I might get a ton of hate for this, but again, I’m not in the best place mentally. My passion still lies in medicine, and even through this sadness, I’ve stayed excited about that career choice.

I could probably get a 1570 without much more studying, studied about 1 month 45 min/day for the September one

Penn State BS/MD ACT Score Reporting

 I took the ACT twice, in June 2026 and July 2026.

For the Penn State BS/MD (PMM) application, do I need to:

1. Enter the scores from both ACT test dates in the application and send official score reports from both exams?

OR

1. Enter only my highest ACT score and send the official score report from that test date?

My June score was higher than my July score, so I’m trying to figure out whether Penn State wants me to report/send both sittings or just the highest one.

Thanks!