I have previously written about BS/MD programs. If you are interested in such programs you have probably noticed that some are called BA/MD programs. But what is the difference between a BS/MD and a BA/MD program?

In general, colleges that award the BA degree, bachelors of arts, require that upon graduation a student have background knowledge in not only their major but also in a broad range of fields. For instance, a chemistry major will still need to have taken classes in the humanities, social sciences and fulfill a foreign language requirement for graduation.

On the other hand, colleges that award for BS degree, bachelors of science, for some majors have the student focus on their particular major and may not require the broad range of classes required for a BA degree.

One is not better than the other and for those taking the typical route to medical school, there is no difference.

So how do you choose between a college offering a BA/MD program and one offering a BS/MD program. Colleges with these programs do not care what your undergraduate major is as long as you complete certain courses before starting medical school. If you have interests outside the sciences and want to explore English, history, anthropology or whatever non science course you wish, then a BA program may be the better option.

If you really wish to focus on your particular science interest and not worry about non science classes then a BS program may be your better option.

But, many of the colleges offering these programs have both a BA and BS degree available so in reality you won’t need to choose when deciding which programs to apply to.

Bottom line?  In choosing a program, whether it is called a BA/MD or BS/MD program, should make little difference to most applicants.

I have already discussed the programs that combine an undergraduate education with medical school. But there are also BA/DDS degrees for those seeking to become dentists.

These programs are extremely competitive programs and even the best students may not be accepted.

You will need top grades and top test scores to even be in consideration for acceptance into one of these programs. You will also need to show a particular interest in being a dentist often evidenced by your activities outside of school.  Have you spent time volunteering at a dental office or shadowing a dentist? Those are the sort of activities a combined degree program will want to see.

As with other very competitive programs, the essays you write for the BA/DDS application will be critical to set yourself apart from other applicants.  The choice of essay topic needs to be given careful consideration.

You will also need to be able to answer the question of why you desire to attend a combined BA/DDS program. If you are being considered for admission to one of these programs you will be asked to come to the school for an interview. These interviews tend to focus on your particular interest in becoming a dentist. Finally, these programs also like to see compassion in a student so volunteer activities can be an important part of your application.

The length of these programs ranges from five to eight years depending on the particular school. You can find a list of BA/DDS programs on page 43 of the American Dental Education Association Official Guide to Dental Schools.

If you have dreamed of being a dentist all of your life, and have top grades and test scores, a combined BA/DDS program may be a great option for you.

Getting accepted to the best college for your needs involves many factors. But one of the critical factors for many students is the application essay.  At the most competitive colleges, most of the students applying have top grades and top test scores. The college essay is one way for admissions officers to distinguish between applicants.

The Choice Blog of the New York Times has a posting about writing the college admissions essay by the dean of admissions at Connecticut College.  This posting has some good general advice that students should consider before starting the process of writing the college admission essay.

One of the best pieces of advice in the post is the recommendation to get started on the process of writing the essay during the summer before senior year.  I strongly encourage the students with whom I work to get as much of the essay writing out of the way during the summer.  This includes the process of deciding the essay topic, the drafting of the essay and the editing of the essay.

I have previously provided other suggestions for writing the college essay. If you are looking for some actual examples, here are examples of college essays written by college presidents.  And if you are still lost, you might consider a book on writing the college application essay.

If you are having trouble getting started with your college essay, this posting should help you understand the process a little better.  And a strong essay may make the difference in whether you gain admission to your top choice college.

Last week I discussed BS/MD programs. Today I want to talk about what it takes to get into these extremely competitive programs. Just how competitive are BS/MD programs? In 2006 Brown University had 1974 applicants for their PLME program and accepted 79. The program at Rice University/Baylor had over 1,000 applications and only 14 were accepted. Finally, at the Caltech/UCSD program, only 8 were accepted out of 209 applicants.

Students with grades and test scores in the top 1% of students regularly fail to gain admission to these programs. So what does it take to get admitted to a BS/MD program?

Successful students will generally have be in the top 1% of their high school class while taking multiple AP or IB classes. To be competitive the student will also need to have SAT scores higher than 2100 and preferably, much higher.

Here are some examples from some top programs. In the Honors Program in Medical Education of Northwestern University, the average SAT score is 2291. That includes an average score of 752 Critical Reading, 781 Math and 758 Writing. The average score on the SAT Subject Test in Chemistry is 763 and the average Math Level 2 score is 779.

At the PLME program of Brown University students “were generally among the top one percent of their high school class. Students offered admission to the PLME for fall 2007 achieved an average score of 723 Critical Reading, 738 Mathematics, and 727 Writing on the SAT Reasoning Test.”

So, high grades and test scores are expected. But what other factors are considered in deciding who to admit to these programs? Brown gives you some guidance here:

“Applicants, however, are not judged solely on the basis of test scores. Qualities of personal distinction, motivation, maturity, character, and intellectual breadth markedly influence the admission process.”

Well, that sounds nice but what does it really mean? Most successful students will have participated in activities prior to their application that evidences a strong interest in becoming a doctor. Have you spent time shadowing a doctor? Might be something to consider.

The successful student will also need to convince the program that they have a good reason for wanting such a program. Although students entering these programs are not committed to attend medical school if they change their mind during college, the programs do not want to waste resources on students that are not likely to continue onto medical school.  A commitment to a medical career as evidenced by your high school activities is one way to convince the programs that you are serious about a medical career.

Volunteer activities are also critical to having a successful application. But not all types of volunteer activities will impress the admissions committee. Your volunteer efforts, at least in part, should have some relationship to health care. Have you volunteered at a hospital or nursing home? Have you started a club, or been actively involved,  in efforts to benefit people with a particular illness or disease?

Another factor that will help your application is participation in some type of research at a university. Many applicants to these programs have this experience so if you don’t you will be at a disadvantage.

Even if you do everything write there are still no guarantees of admissions to these programs. But the stronger your application, the greater your chance of admission.  In the next few weeks I will be addressing some of the admission requirements for BS/MD programs, applying to these programs and the medical school interview generally required for most programs.

This past week more evidence has come to light that brings into question the legitimacy of the US News college rankings.

First, Inside Higher Ed reported that US News will be expanding their web ranking web site to include information about distance education and adult continuing education. Since these are growing areas of higher education this move makes sense. However, US News will also be working with a third party to sell to colleges the names of prospective students. So what you ask?

One of the criteria set by US News in their rankings is the selectivity of a college. So the more students a college says no to the higher the US News ranking. And now US News is offering to sell colleges more names which presumably a college can use to generate more applications to reject more students. Conflict, anyone?

And there is also the question of whether a college might get an inside bump in their ranking score if they buy lists of students from US News. Whose to know.  US News claims they are doing this to serve the student and “in the process make money.” Now there is nothing wrong with US News making money. But don’t suggest that this is really about helping students.

The second story aired this week, comes from the Gainsville, Florida newspaper. For those of you who are not familiar with how US News ranks colleges, 25% of a colleges rankings is based on what is known as peer assessment. To determine peer assessment US News asks top academics including college presidents, provosts and deans of admission, to rank peer schools.

The newspaper used a public record request to get the peer assessment ranking from the president of the University of Florida. The president rated the University of Florida at the top of the rankings along with Harvard, Princeton and Yale.  But when rating other Florida universities the president rated those colleges much lower.

There is nothing wrong with the president of a university thinking he or she has a great college. But it appears that the president was completing the assessment in a way to skew the results most toward his own college. Is he alone is doing this? Of course not. But that is one of the many reasons why the US News rankings are suspect.

Several weeks ago I commented on the efforts of Clemson University to manipulate the rankings. As more and more of the actions of the colleges are disclosed, the rankings lose whatever believability they may have had.  Rankings that can be manipulated, will be manipulated, and the US News college rankings are evidence of that point.

As much as I am not a fan of most college rating systems, I understand that many of my readers like to look at such rankings. US News has just come out with this year’s version of the World’s Best College and Universities.

In addition US News has the rankings for best colleges and universities in several areas of the world as well as their opinion of the best colleges in various fields such as Arts and Humanities, Engineering, Life Sciences and the like.

As always, I remind people to take these ratings for what they are. The opinion of one businesses whose primary goal is to make money.

So you want to be a doctor. If you have top grades and top test scores one of your options may be the combined degree programs offered by some colleges and medical schools.

These programs offer high school students the opportunity to get admitted not only to an undergraduate college but also admission to medical school.  Some of these programs offer a BA and then an MD degree while others offer a BS and an MD degree. Those offering a BA degree generally provide more flexibility to undergraduate students in their class choices compared to the BS programs.

There are also some medical schools that will offer early admission to medical school after the student has completed several years of college. Tufts University is one such example. At Tufts, undergraduate students may apply to Tufts medical school during their sophomore year and if accepted are guaranteed admission to the medical school. They still need to finish their undergraduate degree and take the MCAT (medical college admision test) but they are assured admittance to medical school.

The length of the programs available also differs from college to college. Some of these combination programs are completed in the normal eight years but others may only take six or seven years to complete. You will need to look at each program to see the specifics of that program.

A list of 36 combination programs can be found at the site of the Association of American Medical Colleges. However, not all programs are provided in that list. For example, Brooklyn College has a BA/MD program with Downstate College of Medicine of State University of New York. Also, the University of Missouri Kansas City has a BA/MD program.

In my next posting I will discuss some of the specific issues related to admissions to these combination BS/MD programs.

You should never apply to any college you wouldn’t be happy attending. And that applies as much to a safety school as to your highest reach school. A safety school is simply one where you have good chance of acceptance considering your grades and test scores.

So why should you love your safety school? Because in today’s competitive environment you may end up at your safety college.  You don’t want to start your college life disgruntled because you didn’t get into a college you love. If you carefully choose which colleges to apply to, you will love all of your possible choices.

When students start to consider which colleges they will be applying to the question often comes up of how many colleges should I apply to? Like much of college admissions the answer is “it depends”.

The biggest factor that should effect how many colleges you are considering applying to is the selectivity of your colleges. If you are focused on less selective colleges then I generally recommend a student consider applying to six colleges. This would include two safety schools where you are sure to get in, two match schools where your grades and test scores make you competitive for the college and finally two reach schools that may be more difficult to gain admission to.

If you are not interested in any college that would be a reach then you might consider two safety colleges and three or four match schools. This is sufficient for most students because the reality is that even in today’s more competitive environment, most colleges accept most of the students that apply.

However, if you are considering applying to the most competitive programs, then a different approach makes more sense. For you I would consider applying to up to 12 colleges. Again, you need to have at least two safety schools. I would also recommend four match colleges and up to six reach colleges.

Is it possible to apply to more than 12 colleges and still do a good job on the applications? Yes, but to do so you would need to be very organized and very focused. I have worked with students that have applied to 25 colleges but very few students can do this many applications and do a good job with each of the applications. And if you are even considering applying to more than 12 colleges, you should have most of your essays in good shape before your senior year even starts.

Working during college is a way for students to help pay for college.  However, working too much has always been known to be a cause of students not graduating on time. But what is too much? And what other aspects of college life may be effected by working?

Inside Higher Ed has examined two recent studies which examined how different amounts of work impacts students grades and other educational experiences.

Among the findings is that working more than 20 hours per week during college negatively impacts a students grades.  This has been documented before in past studies and some negative impact can be seen in working more than 10 hours per week during college.

Also of interest was the finding that for students working less than 20 hours per week, those working on campus had higher grades while those working off campus had lower grades.

The takeaway from these articles? Work less than 20 hours per week (I recommend 10 hours a week or less) and try to find a job on campus. With that approach, you can make money and get better grades. Can’t beat that!