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The BS/MD Reading Room

BS/MD admissions, done differently

Everything you need to know to get in. Free.

Why? I'm a first-generation college student and a physician. Want me in your corner through the whole admissions process, and through college and medical school? As a former Assistant Dean at Brown's PLME, that's me.

Dr. Rory Merritt, MD, MEHP

New to BS/MD? Start with the primer →

Most families land here already worried. It usually starts with a forum thread about BS/MD programs, and the stress climbs from there. Under that sits a bigger fear: that the door never opens, and medicine stays out of reach for good. What you find here is what I would tell a colleague, not a customer. What matters, what does not, what to fix, and when walking away (toward a different path into medicine) is the smarter call. Free, because a family deserves to come through this whole.

If you want my eyes on your own student

Every engagement starts the same way: I read your student's file myself, and I tell you the truth about it.

See how we work together

“Dr. Merritt gave our student a compass to follow.”
Parent of a former advisee
“It felt like we finally had an insider's map.”
J.C., Illinois parent of a 2026 BS/MD applicant 2026 cycle · on the Match
“It gives the family direction, accountability, and more confidence during a stressful process.”
Parent of a BS/MD applicant On working with Dr. Merritt

The whole library, in the open.

Nothing gated, nothing teased. This is everything inside, and every line of it is free.

Plus two long-form field guides, free to read or download: the application year and the undergraduate years, semester by semester.

All of it free. None of it behind an email.

If you read one thing

What BS/MD Programs Actually Want

A note from Dr. Merritt. Families and students ask me the same things first. How many extracurricular hours? How much shadowing? Important questions, but not the ones that decide it. Here is what the admissions committee is really looking for.

Read the essay

Start where you are.

Three ways in, one for each stage of the decision. Pick the one that sounds like you.

The Case Files

The Case Files book cover

16 real cases, and how each one turned out

The essays teach the pattern. The Case Files show the pattern hitting a real family. A 4.0 rejected. Deep clinical beat the resume. Binding terms cost a seat. Every case is a real deidentified file, written up the way I would write it up for a colleague. All of them are free on this site.

Everything you need to know is on this site, free. Me in your corner is the other half. One honest review, the whole application year, or the years after they get in: that is when we work together.

Work with Dr. Merritt

Built by

Dr. Rory Merritt, MD, MEHP. Former Assistant Dean, Brown PLME. Practicing physician today.

Every BS/MD truth, in one place, free. Plain writing for the family making this decision, from a physician who has been through it. Truth as care.