This site makes specific claims about programs that families use to make one of the biggest decisions of a young person’s life. A claim like that carries a duty of care. So here, plainly, is how every fact is made, checked, and corrected, and how the free record stays honest even though the same physician who keeps it also offers paid advising. If we ever fall short of the standard on this page, hold us to it.

The standard: published, sourced, and dated

• Every fact on a program page comes from an official source, the program’s own pages first, then public records.
• Every page shows the date it was last verified and the exact pages we checked, so you can read the same source we read.
• Every fact is ranked by how sure we are of it, and only the facts an official source supports become part of the public record.
• “Verified” always carries a date. A claim with no date is a marketing word, and we do not use it that way.

When a program is silent, we say so

Most programs do not publish the things families most need. When a program is silent, we write “not published” and give you the question to ask them directly. We never fill the gap with a guess, an estimate, or a number from a forum. The facts most often left unpublished:

• The college GPA you must hold to keep the seat.
• Whether taking the MCAT forfeits the seat.
• Whether applying out to other schools forfeits it.

A blank we admit is worth more than a number we invented, because you can act on an honest blank and you cannot act on a confident wrong answer.

What we listen to, and what we publish

We read the forums, the student threads, and the community closely, because that is how we learn what to check.

• Community talk is a lead, not a source.
• A claim earns a place in the record only when an official page confirms it.
• We keep what we can verify strictly separate from what we have only heard, on purpose and permanently.

The rumor mill tells us where to dig. It never writes the record.

Corrections

We will get things wrong. Programs change their pages without announcing it, and sometimes we do not catch it fast enough.

• Every program page has a “See something wrong?” link.
• We check every correction against the program’s official source before we change anything.
• We log every correction in public on the corrections page, with the date and what changed.

A reference that hides its corrections is not a reference. The willingness to be wrong in the open is the whole point.

How this is paid for, and why the record stays honest

This is the part that matters most, so here it is with nothing hidden.

• The knowledge on this site is free, and it always will be. No paywall, no login, no email required to read any of it.
• No program pays to be listed, listed higher, or left off.
• The directory never ranks or steers programs to push you toward the paid advising.
• The paid advising is a physician’s read of one family’s situation, never privileged data that you cannot get here for free.
• Everything a family needs to make this decision is on this site at no cost, and most families never need anything more.

If you ever feel the “objective” record is tilted to sell you something, that is a failure on our part, and you should email and say so.

Who stands behind this

This record is kept by Dr. Rory Merritt.

• A Brown PLME graduate, a physician practicing today, and a former Assistant Dean in Brown’s PLME (from 2018 to 2022), one of the original BS/MD programs.
• Someone who has worked inside one of these programs and knows how the machinery runs, from the reviewer’s side of the table.
• He does not have, and this record never relies on, inside access to any program’s admissions decisions.
• Everything here comes from public, official sources, the same ones any family can open and check.

The value we add is not secret information. It is the discipline of gathering the public record completely, verifying it, dating it, and telling you plainly where it runs out.

How current this is

• Every program page carries its own verification date and source list, so you see how fresh each one really is, not a vague sitewide stamp.
• We re-check programs on a cycle, and we check the full set before each admissions season, when programs are most likely to have changed their terms.

You are making decisions here that shape a life. This page is how we try to be worth that trust. Questions about our method, or a correction to file, go to rorymerritt@bridge2md.com.