I don't have my heart set on BUSM, I would definitely go there if accepted but I really just want to go to a good med school, I don't really care where it is. But I am a bit concerned with the "make it or break it" theme. But why is everyone seeming to go crazy over how hard it is. I understand that it is difficult but why then do medical school students that I have talked to say the classes aren't terrible as long as you study and prepare and they aren't too bad because you are studying something your interested in?
Basically, an SMP is seen as a 'last resort' for redemption students (e.g. students with extremely low GPAs). You're paying up the wazoo to get a chance to overshadow this red flag which would be otherwise hard to fix via years of post-bacc. The general understanding is that if you can do well (this is very subjective but I would say probably a 3.4+), you have a significantly higher chance of getting into a school, even with an abysmal undergraduate GPA. If you do not do well enough (again, very subjective but let's just assume lower than a 3.3 or so) then getting into med schools becomes VERY difficult. Let's not ignore that there have been alumni with even lower GPAs than this that have gotten into med schools, but they very likely had a decent (3.4/3.5) undergraduate GPA or incredibly high MCAT that also pulled some weight. Other people who do not have this higher undergraduate GPA (I'm talking your 3.0s-3.2s) and have average MCAT scores are effectively killing off their chances for medical school admission if they get a low SMP GPA, especially if they do not have any other redeeming qualities in their apps that would make them an attractive candidate. Thus the 'make or break' idea - this program was literally created to show how you fare with the rigors of med school, and if you are not up to par, no school is going to take you.
But, these numbers vary by SMP. Take Georgetown, for example, which has you competing with medical students that are literally sitting next to you. They average GPA in that sort of program is going to be low because of the sheer number of students in a single class (400+) competing for that top 15% for an A. Because of that, there are abundant alumni from that program that get 3.3's and 3.4's but still get admissions into an MD school (usually a lower or newer one, but still an MD). This is because adcoms know how hard these programs are and how much emphasis they should place on your SMP GPA. So if you pull a 4.0 from BU MAMS or Gtown SMP, which are considered some of the harder programs, they'll probably think 'holy crap this guy is very very smart' and your chances of interviewing at even top programs go up substantially. This is why you see people on the MAMS alumni list going to schools like Yale, Mt Sinai, Columbia, UCLA, etc. But, consider that these are probably the same individuals that are part of the group of people who get into BU - they are the top of the class, and while most MAMS people get interviewed, only a few of them get accepted and this will largely come down to MAMS GPA.
Thus, you need to consider which alumni/current medical students you talked to. If the alumni you spoke to thought it was easy, then they probably killed the program and are at a high(er) school. You can't ignore that there are 180 (180!) students in this program. Not all of them are going to be like these people. Thus, while a small majority might think the program is easy, this is (very, very very,) likely not the case. It's hard, it's just that those people you spoke to are all very smart
And the whole 'you are interested in this topic' thing does hold true, but is caveated. If you enjoy what you are studying, you are more likely to commit yourself to it, and thus will likely get a higher overall result. But, remember that this is the case for
everyone in the room, all 180 students. ALL of them love science, ALL of them want to be doctors, thus ALL of them will be studying like crazy, just as you would. Gaining admission into these SMP programs, especially more respected one like BU, is not a walk in the park - the people that are admitted have shown promise in one way or another, thus it's best not to overlook this. This is why the idea of 'I like this material thus I will do well' only holds true to an extent - even if this is supposedly one of the least internally competitive programs according to many alumni,
you are still competing with the person next to you. And they are JUST like you!
All of this considered, my major thought process if I were in your shoes would be this: why would I want to deal with this if I didn't have to? My GPA is phenomenal, thus I don't really need an SMP in the first place. My MCAT is the issue, and I honestly love the testing material, so why not just study that? Honestly, if you said no to the program and took the MCAT at the time you would have taken it if you had committed to the program (let's say June 2017), that's almost a
year dedicated to the MCAT, and you'd probably get a very good score if you could keep your work ethic in tact with that much time. Also, you could commit some of that time to shadowing every now and then, working in research, or whatever - all things that you will realistically have severely limited opportunities for in the first year of MAMS during your coursework.
But again, this is just what I would do if I were in your shoes. I don't want to discourage you from enrolling in BU MAMS because it seems like a blast tbh. It's just that I don't think you'd get as much benefit as us redemption students would, thus you should think quite long and hard about what you
want to do, and what would be
best to do. It's a very expensive program, so make sure you weigh all the costs and benefits before you decide.