What Does It Take To Get Into YU’s Early Assurance Medical Program?
Pre-med students know that they have a long road ahead of them; and those who see medical school in their future want assurance about their future education. Luckily for these students, on Jan. 15, 2021, Yeshiva University and the Albert Einstein School of Medicine launched a new partnership B.A./B.S.-M.D. program that provides “early assurance” admission into the Einstein Medical School for students to apply from while in high school.
Students must meet many qualifications for acceptance at the time of submission and during their years at Yeshiva University to confirm their admission to Einstein. A prerequisite for acceptance to the program is acceptance to the S. Daniel Abraham Honors Program at Yeshiva College or Stern College for Women. The average honors student accepted has an SAT score of 1460 or 32 on the ACT with a grade point average of 94. While applicants to the honors program do not need to meet these exact criteria to be accepted, students applying to the Einstein program do need those scores at minimum. Prospective students must opt in to apply to the program along with their honors application. Only 10 students will be accepted to the program from Yeshiva College and Stern College combined.
Furthermore, these students will face many restrictions and challenges after initial acceptance. Students in the program can only spend one year in Israel. Once admitted, students are required to maintain a GPA of 3.75 as undergraduates. These students must also score at least a 515 on the MCAT exam, a 90th percentile score to remain in the program. It is possible that a student will be rejected from Einstein during this application process despite meeting all the requirements. Therefore, it remains unclear exactly what that “early assurance” is and how much of an advantage the students in the program will have against other applicants.
Many students might not even find this program appealing, considering the program does not allow for students to go to Israel for a shana bet and acceptance does not guarantee admission. Similarly, students applying to this program would have to make this commitment to medical school in high school. Pre-med major Ma’ayan Schwartz (SCW ‘24) agreed with this sentiment, “I think between people not wanting the pressure of needing a certain score and people not knowing as a senior in high school if they want to go to medical school or not, this new option doesn’t seem life changing.”
This announcement came after YU ended its operational ties with Einstein in 2015 because of the severe debt the medical school was collecting for Yeshiva University. Over the past five years, the link between Yeshiva University and Einstein has been murky — until 2018, when YU stopped granting the school’s degrees yet credited Einstein with “academic oversight.” After that, any link between the schools seems to have vanished, calling into question their mutual associations. This new program seems to be an answer to the question, as it offers an unprecedented partnership between YU and Einstein, allowing high school seniors graduating in June 2022 and beyond a chance to apply.
Prospective pre-med students can also consider other programs that YU offers. The Upstate Medical University College of Medicine (SUNY), is another guaranteed entrance program offered by YU. Once high school applicants are accepted into this program, they are guaranteed admission to the medical school and are not required to take the MCAT exam and apply to the medical school separately. According to the YU website, applicants are expected to have some prior experience in the medical field and have at least a 1360 SAT score or 29 ACT score. Once YU has approved their application, students are required to interview with the SUNY admissions committee as well. While it is true that the Einstein program has more demanding requirements for admission than SUNY, it is also considered to be a more prestigious school and has a more appealing location for most people. Einstein is ranked number 39 in the country by U.S News and World Report, while SUNY Upstate is ranked 88. Einstein is also much more selective than SUNY with an acceptance rate of 4.3% compared to SUNY’s 34% acceptance rate. Both programs, however, will provide YU pre-med students with a unique opportunity to choose a more complete path for their studies straight out of high school.
—
Photo Caption: Einstein Medical School
Photo Credit: Wikipedia
