would a masters help you get into med school?

as an MD-PhD student, I often have premeds ask me whether getting a master's degree would help with their chances of getting into medical school.

my answer is... it depends.

- if your reasoning for getting a master's program is that you need to complete premed pre-reqs, then yes! you should 100% complete your pre-reqs for medical school, there is no way around it. you can do something like a post bacc program, or just take courses, and some master's programs are geared towards this purpose

- if your reasoning is for GPA repair, then a masters degree can also be helpful. admissions committee will always have your undergraduate GPA though, so YMMV, but in general, if your undergraduate GPA is very low (or from a while ago), doing another degree might be useful. but I would say, anything above a 3.5, probably not really worth doing a master's for this purpose, since it's diminishing returns

- if your reasoning is you want to get research hours (ex: through a master's thesis)... then I typically would recommend students try to get a research oriented gap year position vs get a master's. why pay 60-80k to try to get research hours when you can get paid to do it instead?

bottom line: you don't *need* a master's degree to be a successful med school applicant. I was perfectly fine without it and many students apply straight into med school from undergrad! a master's degree in and of itself also won't help you get into med school, but there are certain situations where it can be helpful.

#premedical #medstudent #premed #futuremedicalstudent #medicalstudent #premedtips