Although 3-year medical schools have grown in popularity for a variety of reasons, they are not the easiest medical schools to get into. On the contrary, 3-year medical schools have extraordinarily competitive medical school acceptance rates and often require students to keep their GPA above a certain threshold to stay on the 3-year track. If youre admitted, however, 3-year medical schools can help you get an MD faster while freeing you from the enormous financial burden of a typical 4-year program. Speed and cost-effectiveness are only a few of the reasons 3-year medical schools are an attractive but challenging option.
This article will list the 3-year programs available at medical schools in Canada and medical schools in the US, and explain more about their differences compared to 4-year medical schools.
The traditional pathway to becoming a physician involves completing 4 years of medical school followed by 3-7 years of residency training. However, a growing number of medical schools now offer accelerated options that confer a medical degree after just 3 years.
These accelerated medical school programs allow students to enter the workforce more quickly and save substantially on tuition. But how exactly do they work, and are they the right choice for aspiring doctors? This guide provides an in-depth look at the structure, benefits, and considerations around the 3-year MD track.
What Is a 3-Year Medical School Program?
A 3-year MD program covers the same core content as a traditional 4-year curriculum but in a compressed timeline. Students take fewer electives and complete certain requirements earlier. For example, many 3-year programs have students take the Step 1 licensing exam at the end of year 2 rather than after clerkships in year 3.
The [Association of American Medical Colleges] reports that over 50 accredited US medical schools now offer some type of accelerated pathway. There are two main models:
1, Front-loaded curriculum All the pre-clinical coursework is completed in the first 1-15 years before starting clinical clerkships
2. Advanced standing programs: Students with prior graduate degrees like a PhD start in year 2 or halfway through year 3, leveraging their existing science knowledge.
No matter which structure, the 3-year pathway still includes all the clinical rotations and other experiences needed to produce practice-ready physicians. Students graduate at the same time they would in a 4-year program, just one year sooner.
Who Is Eligible for 3-Year Medical School?
Each medical school has its own admissions criteria for the accelerated track. Many schools automatically consider all traditional MD applicants for the 3-year pathway and make acceptances based on the overall applicant pool.
Students entering with undergraduate degrees typically complete the front-loaded 3-year curriculum. Those entering with advanced degrees like a PhD often qualify for advanced standing programs that skip the initial pre-clinical years.
Some schools allow current students to transfer into the 3-year track after matriculating, if they complete certain requirements and maintain grades and test scores above specific cutoffs. Students should speak with their school about transfer options.
What Are the Benefits of 3-Year Medical School?
There are compelling upsides to finishing medical school in just 3 years:
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Significant tuition savings – Students save 25% on the cost of their medical education, around $50,000 at public schools and over $100,000 at private institutions.
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Earlier earnings potential – Accelerated students can start earning a resident’s salary 1 year sooner. Over the course of a 30+ year career, that adds up.
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Accelerated entry into residency – Students get a head start on residency training in their selected specialty.
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Locks in school choice – Students gain certainty about where they will complete residency training. Many 3-year programs feed directly into residency at the same institution.
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Facilitates specialty focus – 3-year schools often cater to students committed to primary care and allow them to focus exclusively on this without distraction.
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Fosters mentorship – Early clinical exposure and projects provide opportunities to build relationships with faculty mentors.
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Enhances CV competitiveness – The accelerated curriculum can strengthen residency applications.
For the right students, these benefits make the 3-year medical school track enticing both financially and for rapidly developing clinical skills.
What Are Drawbacks of the 3-Year Model?
However, there are also some potential downsides of accelerated medical school:
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Compressed schedule – Fitting everything into 3 years leaves little wiggle room. Students who struggle academically may benefit from the extra year to absorb complex concepts.
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Fewer electives – Less flexibility to explore specialties through electives. Often focused on producing primary care physicians.
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Higher stakes exams – Some schools require passing Step 1 after 2 years to progress. Puts a lot of pressure on one test very early on.
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Limits options – A few schools do not qualify students for every residency program or certain fellowships. May force choices too soon.
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Less socialization – Condensed schedule leaves less time for student clubs, bonding with peers, and other facets contributing to well-rounded development.
3-year programs serve many students well but require exceptional time management skills and academic focus. The compressed pace is not ideal for everyone.
How Does the Curriculum Work at 3-Year Medical Schools?
Many medical schools now use an organ systems-based approach across the first 2 years, rather than strict divides between disciplines like anatomy, pathology, etc. The 3-year curriculum aligns with this model.
Year 1:
- Foundational basic science instruction in an organ-focused sequence
- Early clinical experiences woven throughout
- Academic support resources like tutoring to identify and assist struggling students
- Licensing exam Step 1 often taken in August
Year 2:
- Core clinical clerkships in internal medicine, surgery, pediatrics, psych, etc.
- Additional foundational science content threaded throughout clerkships
- Step 2 CK licensing exam often taken in April
- Decision on residency specialty area
Year 3:
- Advanced clinical electives in intended specialty area
- Residency preparation and audition rotations
- Specialized tracks for primary care, global health, research, etc.
- Step 2 CS licensing exam
- Residency interviews and match process
The NYU Grossman School of Medicine, a top-ranked accelerated program, shares detailed curriculum information on its [3-year MD website]. This provides an excellent guide to the pace and sequencing of learning modules.
How Does Residency Work with 3-Year Programs?
Matching into residency works the same for 3-year students as those in traditional 4-year schools. All students apply through ERAS and participate in the NRMP match.
The difference is many 3-year schools have early assurance programs. These guarantee students who meet certain criteria direct entry into an affiliated residency program after graduation, provided they rank that program. It adds certainty about where students will train for residency.
For example, [NYU’s 3-year MD program] offers early assurance for over 20 residency specialties. Other schools focus on primary care fields only. Students should understand what options their 3-year medical school provides.
Are 3-Year Medical Degrees Becoming the New Normal?
While accelerated pathways are gaining popularity, they still represent a small fraction of medical schools. 4-year curriculums remain the standard nationwide.
It is unclear if 3-year programs will continue expanding or remain a niche offering. Their availability does give students more options to complete medical school in a way aligned with their learning needs and professional goals.
For those entering medicine with a laser focus on their intended specialty, a compressed MD program can provide significant advantages. But these programs require an extraordinary level of academic diligence and certainty about career direction.
Students should carefully weigh the benefits and tradeoffs before committing to a 3-year medical school.
Key Takeaways on 3-Year Medical Programs:
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They cover the same content through an accelerated curriculum structure.
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Eligibility depends on each school’s policies but is mostly for focused students.
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Benefits include faster completion, tuition savings, and assured residency spot.
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Downsides include compressed pace, high stakes exams, and limited flexibility.
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Residency matching still goes through NRMP with most schools offering early assurance.
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3-year options remain limited nationwide but provide more choice to prospective students.
Should I Go to a 3-Year Medical School?
Whether you go to a 3-year medical school depends on whether you meet the requirements laid out by the schools listed here or any of the other 20 different 3-year medical schools in the US and Canada, all of which are different. But applying to a 3-year medical program requires more than just getting in. You may shave off a year from your medical school career, but there is a trade-off.
Taking only three years to complete an MD means sacrificing a lot of your life, since large amounts of information and studying are compressed into a shorter amount of time. Nothing in a typical 4-year program is left out of a 3-year program. As Dr. John R. Raymond Jr., President and CEO of the Medical School of Wisconsin, said, “The students sacrifice a lot of vacation time; their experience is compressed but not diluted in any way, shape, or form”.
Another bonus of 3-year medical schools is that a majority of them, like the Grossman School of Medicine, Mercer University, and the Medical School of Wisconsin, are connected to in-house residency programs: Grossman has over 20 different specialties for accelerated students to choose from when they complete the MD. This pathway also takes the pressure off students who do not have to look for residency prep courses, or hire residency match services while completing their degree.
The question of whether you should attend a 3-year medical school also rests on how certain you are of becoming a doctor and if you have already answered affirmatively to the question, “is medical school right for you?”. Many 3-year programs were created to address this particular niche of students who have made up their mind not only to become a doctor, but to specialize in something like cardiology, radiology, or family medicine and do not need more time to decide.
The existence of 3-year medical schools is relatively new, since the CAAMP was founded in 2015, when 8 schools created their accelerated programs, including the Grossman School of Medicine. But the two 3-year medical schools in Canada have always had these accelerated programs. The CAAMP website states several reasons for the organization’s creation, but every individual school has its accelerated program for specific reasons.
1. Remedying Doctor Shortages
Mercer University explicitly states that it created the ACT program to remedy doctor shortages in the state, especially in rural, underserved areas of Georgia. The Medical School of Wisconsin also makes clear its intention to swell the ranks of primary care physicians by training and graduating more doctors, faster. The programs in larger cities like the NYU program and McMaster University have other intentions, like allowing exceptional students faster tracks to becoming a specialized doctor.
2. Giving Exceptional, Motivated Students Another Path
Joan Cangiarella, the director of the Grossman School of Medicine’s accelerated pathway, gave more student-centric reasons for creating the school’s accelerated program, saying, “They (applicants) have to be pretty good at convincing residency programs that they already have the knowledge, they understand the specialty, and they have the reasons behind why they want to go into that specialty.”
Before the introduction of accelerated programs, these students would languish and waste their fourth year taking non-medicine or science-related electives to complete their degree requirements. Medical school directors justified this extra year by saying that students needed it to choose a specialty, but students and directors of 3-year medical schools disagree and believe that conventional thinking on how long it takes to become a doctor should change.
3. Saving on Medical School Costs
Yet another reason for a 3-year program to be attractive to mature and non-traditional students, in particular, is the reduced financial cost. Before applying to any program, many students first ask themselves, “how much does medical school cost?” and “is medical school worth it?”, since it is an enormous financial undertaking for anyone.
For example, one year at a medical school like the McMaster DeGroote School of Medicine costs CAD$23,126.64. But instead of paying for four years, you pay for only three, giving you a savings of the amount mentioned. This relief is something that appeals to mature students who have other responsibilities and often wonder, “am I too old for medical school?”
4. A Helping Hand for Mature and Non-Traditional Applicants
Accelerated medical schools are also a good way for non-traditional medical school applicants, such as mature applicants, to fast-track their medical careers. As a fairly new demographic of medical school applicants, non-traditional applicants face an uphill battle to have their unique needs accommodated by the medical school establishment. They often have limited options, such as having to consider residency programs that accept old graduates.
While many medical schools in the US and Canada have started to change their entrance requirements to accommodate non-traditional applicants, only a few have gone the extra mile to make concessions in their admission requirements, such as lower-than-average GPA requirements and 3-year accelerated programs.
Three-year medical schools fulfill several important and emergent needs in medicine, like addressing doctor shortages, decreasing medical school debt, and letting exceptional students finish their studies faster. However, the small number of 3-year programs in both the US and Canada shows that medical schools have been hesitant to change. This hesitancy remains, despite the evidence showing that 3-year students score as well on clerkship knowledge assessments and perform as well in their residency years as 4-year students.
Three-year medical schools also provide an accessible pathway for mature and non-traditional students to complete their studies faster, as they have either already completed other degrees or undergone professional development training, eliminating the need for a fourth year. The admission requirements for these schools vary, but are exacting. You should check and double-check the requirements and review all the advantages and disadvantages of taking a 3-year path to becoming a doctor before you apply.
Article Contents 10 minread
According to the Consortium of Accelerated Medical Pathway Programs (CAMPP), an organization made up of all the 3-year medical schools in Canada and the US, there are around 20 medical schools in both countries that currently offer “3-year or other accelerated curricula that lead to the MD degree.” CAMPP was founded in 2015 and consisted of 8 schools in the beginning. Through its mission to make medical education more efficient and less expensive, it has grown to its current membership by advocating for the benefits of accelerated 3-year medical schools and helping medical schools develop their own fast-track curricula.
Is there a super-fast way to get into medical school? Watch this video:
School of Medicine three-year M.D. program – Wayne State University
What is a 3 year medical school program?
A three-year medical degree program typically focuses on a particular area of medicine and includes fewer elective rotations to help reduce the risk of student burnout. However, accelerated programs include the same basic lessons in anatomy and other essential subjects as standard programs. What a First-Year Medical School Student Can Expect.
What is a three-year medical degree program?
The shorter program allows students to shave off a year of educational expenses. A Guide to Accelerated Med Schools A three-year medical degree program typically focuses on a particular area of medicine and includes fewer elective rotations to help reduce the risk of student burnout.
What is a 3 year accelerated medical program?
3-year accelerated medical programs are designed for motivated and academically accomplished students who are willing to commit to an intense and accelerated curriculum. These programs condense the traditional 4-year medical school curriculum into just 3 years, allowing students to complete their medical education at a quicker pace.
How many medical schools offer three-year MD & DO programs?
The number of schools offering three-year MD and DO programs has increased sharply in recent years. The Consortium of Accelerated Medical Pathway Programs, or CAMPP, was created in 2015 with eight medical schools; the Consortium now counts over 20 schools among its members.
