Program Overview

BA/MD Robert Wood Johnson Medical School

The BA/MD program at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School is a highly competitive and selective program for SAS or SEBS students at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.

Program Overview

• Students apply at the end of the sophomore year and must have completed the required prerequisites and demonstrated strong academic achievement, a passion for medicine, and for helping others.
• Students who are not enrolled in SAS or SEBS must initiate a school-to-school transfer to one of those units in the spring semester of the sophomore year and be prepared, if accepted to the joint program, to complete a major in Biological Sciences and all of the requirements of their undergraduate school.
• In some cases, accepted students may major in Cell Biology and Neuroscience or Genetics but no other majors are compatible with the credit exchange that is integral to the program.

Program Requirements

• Accepted students will be expected to complete all SAS or SEBS core requirements by the end of their junior year.
• In their senior year, admitted students will take the complete first-year curriculum at RWJ Medical School and may use some of these credits in exchange to complete the elective course work for their school and the majors listed above.
• No other majors are compatible with the credit exchange.
• The program is not appropriate for students who intend to graduate in 3 years because of the credit exchange and the requirement that students in the program be simultaneously registered with the undergraduate unit and the medical school in the senior year/first year of medical school.

Benefits for Students

• Students will have a conditional, early-acceptance to Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.
• Students will pay only for three years of undergraduate tuition at Rutgers + 4 years tuition at RWJMS, thus saving one year of undergraduate tuition and fees.
• Credits for some classes taken during the first year at the medical school will count toward both the MD and the BA degree.

Credit Exchange

• The RWJMS BA/MD program is structured to include an exchange of credit from the medical school toward fulfillment of participants’ undergraduate degree requirements.
• Admitted students will be able to use a portion of the completed credit from the first year of medical school toward certain specific major requirements as well as elective credit toward the 120 credits needed for the undergraduate degree.

Eligibility Criteria

• They must have completed 4 semesters of college, with a minimum of 60 credits.
• As a minimum, they must be enrolled for one year at RU-NB, earning 30 credits.
• They must have earned and maintain a minimum cumulative and science GPA of 3.6 at Rutgers.
• Requires two semesters of General Biology with lab, two semesters of General Chemistry with lab, two semesters of Organic Chemistry (lab may be taken in the Junior year), one semester of college-level Mathematics, and one semester of English.
• If AP or transfer credit was granted for General Biology, two additional (3 credits or more) approved biology courses (200-level courses or higher) must be taken at Rutgers University by the end of the sophomore year in order to be eligible to apply.

Application Process

• The application will be available after spring break 2026.
• Instructions on how to request a BA/MD application will be sent out via the HPO listserv.
• Completed applications must be emailed to the HPO office no later than Friday, May 22 @ 5pm.
• In addition to the application, 3 letters of recommendation from Rutgers University must be submitted on behalf of the applicant to the HPO office.
• It is strongly recommended at least one of these letters be from a science course and one from a non-science course.
• Letters can come from professors, research supervisors, or TAs and should address your competency for medical school and, in particular, for an accelerated program.

Additional Requirements

• For students applying in 2026, RWJMS will require a standardized test score of either the SAT, ACT or MCAT.
• For students with an SAT or ACT score: If an applicant has a SAT or ACT score on record, it must be submitted with the application.
• The test must have been taken before admission to RU.
• It is the student's responsibility to obtain and submit test score reports with the completed application.
• If admitted to the accelerated program, no MCAT is required.
• For students without SAT or ACT scores: If admitted to the accelerated program, students are required to complete the MCAT by April 16, 2027, and score competitively with a total score=512 (with CPBS and BBFL sections at or above 127 and CARS and PSBB above 125).
• Students may take the exam two times prior to April 16, 2027.
• For students applying to this program in 2027, RWJMS will require that all conditionally accepted students take the MCAT by the beginning of April of their junior year.
• The MCAT score will need to be in the competitive range of other recently accepted RWJMS students.

Conditional Acceptance

• Matriculation in the medical school is conditional upon meeting additional requirements in the junior year.
• Orgo lab, General Physics, Biochemistry and a second English/Writing course will be required.