A BS/MD is a dual-degree program in which an undergraduate school partners with a med school to provide high school seniors with conditional acceptance into medical school after completing their undergrad. BS/MD programs are for students who show a focused interest in medicine through their high school career and demonstrate remarkably strong academic qualifications.
BS/MD students receive a Bachelor’s degree and then immediately enroll in the linked medical degree program, assuming they maintain the program requirements during undergrad.
Typically, these are 6-8 year programs, in contrast to the traditional 4 years of undergraduate plus 4 years of medical school when going the traditional route. BS/MD’s main benefit is a fast track into medical school, whether it be by reducing the number of years you’ll spend in school or the time you save not applying to medical school during or after undergrad.
A BS/MD program provides a streamlined path for students to earn both their undergraduate degree (Bachelor of Science) and their Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree.
Note: BS/MD programs are one type of direct medical program (sometimes called baccalaureate-MD programs). Many institutions also offer BA/MD (a Bachelor of Arts) or BFA/MD (a Bachelor of Fine Arts), which are essentially the same except that the undergraduate degree is more in line with a liberal arts education. You can also find baccalaureate-DO programs, listed as BA/DO or BS/DO.
In general, the term “BS/MD” is broadly used to refer to all similar programs that confer a Bachelor’s degree and an MD or DO degree by the time the program is completed.
Read Next: MD vs. DO: What’s The Difference + How To Choose
Let’s take a look at the primary features of how these programs work.
High school students apply to BS/MD programs. If they are accepted, they immediately gain conditional acceptance to medical school in the future. The BS/MD application process is highly competitive, which I describe in more detail a little later in this article.
Students complete undergrad coursework, often in the sciences. These years should provide a strong foundation in sciences and include prerequisites for a college of medicine. Extracurricular activities, volunteer work, and internships should reflect a commitment to healthcare.
The student’s conditional acceptance into medical school is contingent on maintaining specified academic standards during the remainder of their studies, typically including a high undergraduate GPA and sometimes a minimum MCAT score.
Depending on the program, some BS/MD students are not required to take the MCAT during their undergraduate career.
ON-DEMAND WEBINAR: MCAT 101: Everything You Need to Know About the MCAT
Students will transition into the medical school curriculum. Clinical experience becomes a focal point, allowing students to apply theoretical knowledge in real-world medical settings.
Students take USMLE Step 1 and 2. They begin to prepare for the residency application process, honing in on their chosen specialty.
In general, medical school for BS/MD students is often the same as for any other medical student. A select number of schools offer accelerated medical school programs in just 3 years, but these accelerated programs aren’t necessarily limited to only BS/MD students.
BS/MD programs differ from the traditional medical school route in several ways:
| BS/MD Program | Traditional Med School | |
| When to apply | During senior year of high school | During 3rd-4th year of undergrad, or after undergrad if taking one or more gap years |
| Program length | 6-8 years; accelerated programs may require summer classes | 4 years or more (after 4 years of undergrad + gap years) |
| Medical school choices | Must attend the medical school associated with your undergraduate institution | Unlimited unless applying early assurance |
| Competitiveness | Acceptance rates at individual BS/MD programs are typically around 3% (other students may be deferred to standard application) | Around 41% of applicants are accepted to med school any given application cycle |
| MCAT requirements | MCAT is not required before applying to BS/MD; some programs require students to take the MCAT and meet a score requirement as part of their course of study | Test required to apply, score expectations vary by school, scores 511+ are typically considered competitive (lower scores may be competitive at some DO programs, while much higher scores are needed to qualify for most Ivy League medical schools) |
| Cost | Cost for a full undergraduate degree plus medical school; less expensive for accelerated programs (6-7 years) | Cost for full medical school degree, plus undergrad degree cost |
Financial aid is generally the same for most BS/MD degree programs compared to traditional undergrad and med school financial aid. Some programs may offer specific scholarships to BS/MD applicants only and some aid to traditional students only, but I find it basically balances out.
BS/MD programs often have specific application cycles aligned with standard college application timelines.
Waived MCAT requirements were a previously common benefit of many BS/MD programs. But today, most BS/MD programs require students to take the MCAT before entering their medical program.
In some cases, baccalaureate-MD programs require students to achieve a minimum MCAT score, while other programs do not specify a minimum score but still require you to take the MCAT.
Of the many dual-degree programs in the U.S., 15 totally waive the MCAT requirement for med school.
Many BS/MD programs take 5-20 students per year. To matriculate, applicants must have a high GPA, strong SAT or ACT scores, stellar extracurriculars, and solid letters of recommendation. Admissions want to see the applicant’s commitment to a career in medicine.
How hard is it to get into a BS/MD program? It is very difficult. Only 3.3% of med school graduates came from BS/MD programs in 2022, up from the 2.8% that matriculated in 2018.
Most BS/MD programs are tight-lipped about their acceptance rate. But it’s clear from the institutions that do share their admissions data that BS/MD programs are extremely competitive.
Drexel University’s BA/BS+MD Program has stated that it admits roughly 2.5% of applicants. Brown University’s Program in Liberal Medical Education said that it offered 3.6% of applicants admission in 2019, a number that has surely dropped even lower since then.
No organization compiles official acceptance data on the applicant pool as a whole, so it’s impossible to know what percentage of BS/MD applicants get one acceptance or more. But based on acceptance rates at individual schools, that number is likely to be quite low as well.
To be competitive, you’ll need a very strong high school GPA, especially in math and science coursework. The programs also look for a strong portfolio of extracurricular activities, volunteer work, and research experience.
These programs are competitive because admissions committees are looking for the rare few students with enough maturity and focus to successfully tackle a compressed curriculum.
As a BS/MD medical student, you are essentially doing everything as you would if you were a traditional pre-med. The main difference is that you will do that work in a slightly condensed format, with the benefit of less pressure concerning whether or not you’ll get into medical school.
Is a BS/MD worth it? In theory, a BS/MD is very worth it, but only if you have the particular qualities required to excel in an accelerated program.
Read through our checklist below and ask yourself honestly, “Does this sound like me?” If it does, a BS/MD program might be your perfect path.
While BS/MD programs offer a unique path for students set on a future medical career, they come with their own set of pros and cons.
Some schools might reserve your spot in medical school while you take a few years off to pursue other graduate degrees, while others don’t allow you to do so. This depends on the school’s philosophy.
For example, REMS at the University of Rochester encourages students to take gap years to pursue fellowships or other graduate degrees because they believe this will eventually help them become better doctors. Learn more by contacting individual programs directly.
BS/MD programs are known to be some of the most competitive programs in the country. Some of their acceptance rates make Stanford and Harvard’s 4% acceptance rate sound like a cakewalk.
While there’s no trick for guaranteed admission, there are 4 things you can do to make yourself a top-tier applicant.
Most students who are serious about getting into these programs don’t just wake up one morning of their senior year and make a spur-of-the-moment decision to apply. The top percentile of BS/MD matriculants know before they even step foot into high school.
It is important to stay involved with health-related activities during your high school years so that…
Whether it’s research, volunteering at a hospital or simply shadowing your family physician for clinical mentoring, it’s never too early to enter the field of medicine. Don’t wait until your senior year to go all in!
Keep your GPA high and study hard for your ACT/SAT tests. As previously mentioned, some of these programs have single-digit acceptance rates, which means having a strong GPA and a high ACT/SAT score is of utmost importance.
Some schools (such as Drexel University, Case Western, Penn State/Jefferson) require BS/MD applicants to be in the top 10% percent of their graduating class in terms of GPA and to have standardized test scores above a certain number.
A 1600 SAT score and 4.0 GPA will not guarantee your acceptance into any BS/MD program. However, high academic statistics are an indication of academic maturity and will greatly increase your chances of being considered.
My greatest piece of advice is to narrow down your list of colleges early — and by early, I mean by the end of the summer before senior year, at the latest.
Then, create an Excel sheet noting all the important information in separate columns. It may be a pain to sit down one day and spend hours researching all the specific submission details for each university you are applying to, but it will largely pay off in the long run.
For example, indicate which BS/MD programs require you to submit essays through email and which ones have apps or website application portals you can submit through. Application deadlines may vary, too.
Each of these little details is unique to the program and can be easily missed. Rather than having to Google every time you forget one tiny detail, having an easy-access document with all the necessary information is much simpler.
Read Next: BS/MD Essays — Pre-Writing, Writing, and Editing Like a Pro!
Rejection is never easy. Remember not to take a BS/MD rejection personally. Most of these programs accept only a handful of students out of the hundreds or thousands of applicants.
These programs can only admit a small group of students and, as such, are looking for the most qualified candidates they can find. You might be on track to be valedictorian, but if you don’t have the extracurriculars that an institution was looking for that year, they may pass you up. Don’t worry – if you’re competitive enough to even consider applying to a BS/MD program, odds are good that you’ll get into a fantastic undergrad program!
The cost of a BS/MD program is essentially the same as a regular undergrad to med school track. It’s not necessarily cheaper unless you do an accelerated program (i.e., a 6- or 7-year BS/MD program) rather than an 8-year option.
For cost reasons, accelerated programs are worth considering if you can handle the condensed workload. Graduating and entering the workforce sooner means less debt and an earlier start to paying off those student loans — if you had any.
Smaller but still noteworthy savings come in the form of bypassing the med school application program, since BS/MD programs offer conditional acceptance to medical school. Application fees to multiple programs and other expenses associated with travel and board can add up to thousands of dollars, fast.
The following is a list of all available BS/MD programs and similar baccalaureate-MD programs in the United States as of December 2024.
| Program Name | MCAT Required? | State | Program Length | Minimum GPA | Minimum Test Scores |
| University of Alabama/UAB School of Medicine | Yes, 506 minimum | AL | 8 years | Not specified | Not specified |
| University of Arizona/College of Medicine -Tucson | No | AZ | 7 years | 3.7 | Not specified |
| California Northstate University/CNU College of Medicine | Yes, 510 minimum | CA | 7 to 8 years | Not specified | Not specified |
| University of Colorado Denver/ University of Colorado School of Medicine | Yes | CO | 8 years | 3.5 |
ACT 27 SAT 1185 (Evidenced-Based Reading, and Writing + Math) |
| University of Connecticut/ UConn School of Medicine | Yes, minimum score in 80th percentile rank; no subtest scores below 55th percentile rank | CT | 8 years | 3.5 | Not specified |
| Florida Atlantic University/ The Schmidt College of Medicine | Not specified | FL | 7 to 8 years | 4.3 (weighted) |
ACT 33 SAT 1490 |
| Florida International University/ Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine | Not specified | FL | 7 Years | 3.7 (unweighted) |
ACT 31 SAT 1350 (no section below 600) |
| Augusta University/Medical College of Georgia | Yes | GA | 7 to 8 years | Not specified |
ACT 32 SAT 1450 |
| University of Illinois Chicago Guaranteed Professional Program | Yes | IL | 8 years | Not specified |
ACT 28 (recommended not required) SAT 1310 (recommended not required) |
| Indiana State University/Indiana University School of Medicine (open to residents of rural Indiana only) | Yes, minimum score must meat the mean score of the previous year’s matriculants | IN | 8 years | 3.5 |
ACT 27 SAT 1270 (Evidenced-Based Reading, and Writing + Math) |
| University of Evansville/IU School of Medicine Evansville | Yes | IN | 8 years | 4.0 |
ACT 29 SAT 1350 |
| Grambling State University/Meharry Medical College (open to Black/African-American students only) | Yes, score must meet the current minimum MCAT score (changes yearly), no section may be less than 122 | LA/TN (undergrad in Louisiana, medical school in Tennessee) | 7 to 8 years | 3.25 (no grade under C in science courses) | Not specified |
| Wayne State University/Wayne State School of Medicine | Yes, score must be no less than the 70th percentile | MI | 8 years | 3.5 |
ACT 28 SAT 1310 |
| Missouri Southern State University/Kansas City University | No | MO | 7 years |
3.7 (overall, unweighted) 3.5 (math and science, unweighted) |
ACT 28 (22 in math) SAT 310 (540 in math) |
| St. Louis University/SLU School of Medicine (does not offer guaranteed admission to the school of medicine but does increase chances of acceptance) | Yes, a score of at least 508 must be achieved. | MO | 8 years | Not specified | Not specified |
| University of Missouri-Kansas City/UMKC School of Medicine | No | MO | 6 years | Not specified |
ACT 24 SAT 1160 Writing sections not considered for either exam. |
| Caldwell University/Rutgers New Jersey Medical School | Yes, students must receive a competitive score | NJ | 7 years | 3.5 | SAT 1470 |
| Caldwell University/St. George’s University | Yes, students must receive a competitive score | NJ | 7 years | 3.5 | SAT 1270 |
| The College of New Jersey/Rutgers New Jersey Medical School | Yes, no minimum score required | NJ | 7 years | 3.8 (unweighted) |
ACT 30 SAT 1400 (Evidence-Based Reading and Math sections only; no super scores) |
| Drew University/Rutgers New Jersey Medical School | Yes, no minimum score required | NJ | 7 years | 3.8 (unweighted) |
ACT 34 SAT 1500 (Critical Reading and Math) |
| Monmouth University/St. George’s University School of Medicine | Yes | NJ | 8 years | 3.4 | ACT 30 |
| Montclair University/Rutgers New Jersey Medical School | Yes, students must receive a competitive score | NJ | 8 years | 3.0 | SAT 1100 (550 on both Evidenced-Based Reading, and Writing + Math) |
| New Jersey Institute of Technology/Rutgers New Jersey Medical School | Yes, no minimum score required | NJ | 7 years | Not specified |
ACT 33 SAT 1490 No super-scores considered. |
| Rowan University/Cooper Medical School | Yes | NJ | 7 years | 3.5 (unweighted) |
ACT score equivalent to SAT requirement (super-scores are accepted) SAT 1350 (Math & Critical Reading sections) |
| Rutgers University/Rutgers New Jersey Medical School | Yes | NJ | 7 years | Not specified |
ACT 32 SAT 1400 (Critical Reading and Math) |
| University of New Mexico School/ University of New Mexico School of Medicine | Yes | NM | 8 years | Not specified |
ACT – Math 22, Reading 19, Science 19, English 19 SAT – Math 540, Reading 410 |
| Brooklyn College/SUNY Downstate College of Medicine | Yes, 509 minimum score | NY | 8 years | Not specified | Not specified |
| The City College of New York/CUNY School of Medicine | Not specified | NY | 7 years | Not specified | Not specified |
| Hofstra University/Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine (for underrepresented in medicine (URM) and economically disadvantaged pre-med students) | Yes, a score equivalent to or greater than the 80th percentile at the first sitting must be achieved | NY | 8 years | 3.7 |
ACT 32 SAT 1410 (Evidenced-Based Reading, and Writing + Math) Casper exam required |
| Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute/Albany Medical College | No | NY | 7 years | 3.5 |
ACT (No minimum) SAT (No minimum) |
| Siena College/Albany Medical College | No | NY | 8 years | Top 10% of graduating class |
ACT 30 SAT 1360 |
| St. Bonaventure University/George Washington University School of Medicine | Yes | NY | 8 years | Top 10% of graduating class |
ACT 30 SAT 1390 (Evidenced-Based Reading, and Writing + Math) |
| Stony Brook University Scholars for Medicine Program | Yes | NY | 8 years | Not specified |
ACT 35 (recommended, not required) SAT 1490 (recommended, not required) |
| Union College/Albany Medical College | No | NY | 8 years | Not specified |
ACT 30 SAT 1410 |
| University of Rochester/University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry | No | NY | 8 years | Not specified | None specified |
| Case Western Reserve University/Case Western Reserve’s School of Medicine | No | OH | 8 years | Not specified | Not specified |
| University of Cincinnati/University of Cincinnati School of Medicine | Yes | OH | 8 years | Not specified |
ACT 27 SAT 1270 (excluding writing portion; super-scores not considered) |
| University of Toledo/University of Toledo College of Medicine and Life Sciences (guaranteed medical school interview if requirements are met; not a guaranteed acceptance) | Yes, a score in the 65th percentile or greater guarantees an interview | OH | 7, 8, or 9 years | 3.8 |
ACT 30 SAT 1410 |
| The University of Oklahoma/University of Oklahoma College of Medicine | Yes, a score equal to or higher than the average of the previous year’s incoming medical school class (approx. 509) | OK | 7 to 8 years | No, based on “very high overall academic achievement” | No, based on “very high overall academic achievement” |
| University of Tulsa/University of Oklahoma College of Medicine | Yes, minimum score must meet the average of incoming medical school class (approx. 510) | OK | 8 years | 4.0 | None, successful applicants typically score in the top 5% on either ACT or SAT |
| Drexel University/Drexel University College of Medicine | Yes, a score of 511 or a total of 513 with no section score less than 127 | PA | 8 years | 3.5 (weighted) |
ACT 32 SAT 1420 |
| Penn State/Sidney Kimmel Medical College | Yes, 508 minimum required with no less than 126 in CARS and no less than 127 in all other sections | PA | 7 years | “Strong GPA” required, no specifics | ACT or SAT must be submitted, no minimum requirement (successful applicants typically score SAT 1570 or ACT 36; super-scores not considered) |
| Temple University/Lewis Katz School of Medicine | Yes, minimum 509 required with no section less than 126 | PA |
7 years (Health Scholar program) 8 years (BA/MD program) |
Not specified |
ACT 31 SAT 1350 |
| University of Pittsburgh/University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine | Only required if student is accepted without an SAT or ACT score, score is only used for advising (not admission) purposes | PA | 8 years | Not specified |
ACT 34 SAT 1490 |
| Brown University/Warren Alpert Medical School | No | RI | 8 years | None | None |
| Baylor University/Baylor College of Medicine | Yes, minimum 501-507 score required with no section under 125 | TX | 8 years | 3.7 (unweighted) |
ACT 32 SAT 1430 Recommended scores, more than minimums |
| Texas Tech University/ Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine | No | TX | 8 years | None, but preference is given to top 10% of your high school class |
ACT 30 SAT 1360 |
| George Washington University/GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences | No, but they do require an MCAT practice exam score | Washington, D.C. | 7 years | None specified | ACT or SAT score must be in the top 10% of test-takers |
| Howard University College of Medicine | Yes, 504 minimum required | Washington, D.C. | 6 years | 3.5 |
ACT 28 SAT 1300 (at least 650 in each section) |
Now you know what to expect and what not to expect if you choose to commit to a BS/MD combined program. If you want to pursue BS/MD, we have lots of resources to make your application as good as it can be.