Hi All,
I have been a long-time lurker and have wanted to address this specific topic for some time now. I am a graduate of NYMC and hope that I can provide as accurate and unbiased advice about this school as possible. I don't have a chip on my shoulder of any sort nor do I feel a need to defend my alma mater, but I am just really tired of reading the same kind of thread year after year on this exact same topic. So here we go..
I think that there are many reasons for this view that NYMC is a safety school. I think a large part of this has to do with historical reasons. In the old days, NYMC used to be on Third Ave in Manhattan and then was later known as Flower Hospital. It started off as one of a handful of homeopathic medical schools in the country and only later became an allopathic school. NYMC back then, for whatever reason, was not known as a very good school. And in all honesty, from all accounts that I've heard, it was a pretty crappy school. If you ask many of the older attendings, they will have that same view to this day and will give that opinion of the school to their shadowing pre-med students or medical students. So as one can see, this can create a rather vicious and karma-like cycle. But in reality, I think that that opinion of NYMC is rather outdated, and while it may have applied a couple of generations ago, I do not believe that it applies in this day and age.
I think that NYMC is a solid school and does not deserve the criticism that it receives from this forum especially. But I'm going to keep it real. NYMC is an average school. It's not above average, but it's also not the bottom of the barrel as some SDNers might suggest. I think the problem is that in order to wade through all of the information that's out there in order to select schools, most pre-med students choose average matriculant grades and MCAT scores as a very important indicator of the quality of a school. I do think that this information is relevant and should be taken into consideration in choosing a school; it just shouldn't be the end all, be all. But even if one were to look at NYMC's average grades and MCAT scores, one would see that they have been consistently 3.6 and 31, respectively, for the past couple of years. Compare that to the national numbers, and you'll find that the GPA is a smidgeon lower than the national average, while the MCAT is slightly higher than the national average. This has been pretty consistent over the years in that NYMC will take students who may have slightly lower GPAs than the national average and have MCAT scores that are a tad bit higher than the national average. So even numbers-wise, NYMC is plain average; it's solid but not spectacular. In fact, if you compare NYMC's admissions stats with the other NY medical schools, you will find that they are consistently higher than Albany, Upstate, Downstate, and Buffalo (sometimes). Of course, the admissions numbers are different year to year, but stats-wise, that would place NYMC 9/12 in terms of admissions stats in NY; certainly not great but definitely not the worst either. Even those students that were selected by NYMC who had slightly lower GPAs tend to come from the more prestigious undergrads in the country, such as Ivy League schools and top private and public schools. I personally like the composition of the class in that roughly 1/3 is from NY, 1/3 from California, and the rest from every region of the country imaginable, including Utah and Florida. I found my classmates to be diverse, and this made my experience in med school that much richer. But again, I want to keep it real. There were not that many minorities in my class, only a handful, and I believe that the College is taking steps to diversify the school in that respect. It also does have a Catholic affiliation (at least until mid-2010), but in all honestly, this did not affect my education at all, except that the hospitals that I rotated at that were Catholic did not perform abortions.
Basic science wise.. I thought that I received a solid background of the basic sciences. NYMC professors are usually not national leaders in their field, so you might not learn about some obscure type of research, but they are still cutting-edge. The professors are like those of any other school; you have good ones and bad ones - that is a given in any school. Overall though, the professors there tend to be more down to earth and approachable as their labs are right across from the lecture hall. If you are a huge research buff, then NYMC might not be the best fit; it is not known for it's research unless you're talking about cardiovascular, infectious disease, and maybe a couple of other fields. I believe that NYMC's annual securing of NIH funds puts them consistently in the 70-80s out of the 126 or so medical schools in the country - again, not amazing but definitely not terrible; just pretty average. I can say from experience that if you do want to get involved with research, there are ample opportunities and you certainly won't be bored. My research mentor actually did his post-doc under a former Nobel prize winner; so these professors certainly aren't scrubs. The curriculum is pretty traditional and nothing really too innovative. They will teach you what you need to do well during the clinical years and for the boards. Our students consistently do well on the boards, and if you take into consideration that we accept pretty average applicants, that says a lot about the efficiency of the teaching. I do have to say that the basic science years at NYMC are rigorous; you will get hammered. In comparing other local schools in NY, I can honestly say that our curriculum is more rigorous than most other schools. For example, during second year for pathology, we read straight out of Robbins, the bible of pathology. You will literally read those 1000+ pages cover to cover and probably more than once. Many schools do not require you to read Robbins and just use it as a source of reference. But let me tell you that reading Robbins cover to cover helped me so much for the clinical years and also the boards, and I am still reaping the benefits from reading that bad boy as a resident.
The clinical years.. are what make NYMC so solid in my opinion. I didn't know what "diversity in clinical experience" meant until I came to NYMC. As a third year, I took care of complicated messed up Medicine patients at a Level 1 trauma and tertiary care center; I was doing EKGs on Family Medicine patients up in rural Kingston, NY right near where the original Woodstock was held; I was delivering babies at a community hospital in Connecticut; and I was talking to schizophrenic patients in the same hospital where the 9/11 victims initially were sent to. I will put my clinical experience up against any medical student's in the country. Westchester Medical Center also has the highest case selectivity index in the state of NY, meaning that it takes care of the most complicated and screwed up patients in the state; you will feel like a pro as an intern if you rotated there as a medical school. St. Vincent also has a rich history in serving the Lower West Side of NYC as it has treated the Titanic survivors as well as the 9/11 victims and also was a major AIDs center during the 90s when the AIDs epidemic was at its peak. But have to say that these hospitals are all broke (along with most other NYC hospitals). Westchester has been in financial hardship for some time now, and we've all heard about the recent news of the potential closing of St. Vincent.
And everything else.. I haven't even addressed the other issues, so I will speak about them briefly. As far as location is concerned, my personal opinion is that NYMC has a great location. Not that Valhalla, NY is a very happening place, but I think it's the perfect environment for studying. It's a nice quiet place so you won't have distractions when you're studying. And when you're done studying, you can just hop on a train and go down to NYC in 30-40 minutes (which isn't bad if you consider the average commute of a New Yorker). Valhalla is in Westchester County, which is one of the most affluent counties in America. If you want, you could stalk the homes of certain celebrities such as Martha Stewart and Bill Clinton. And that leads me to cost. The price-tag on an NYMC education is going to break the bank. You will be paying a premium, not so much for tuition but for living expenses. If you are not receiving any help from your parents, you will easily take out $200,000 in loans. If you are a NY state resident, I strongly suggest you go the public route because you will be buying your Benz a lot sooner than your private school friends. The difference in quality of education is minimal and not worth the premium that you pay in my mind. In terms of specialty choices, NYMC consistently has great matches across the board. However, we tend to match well in recent years in Radiology, Ophtho, Ortho, Neurosurg, Anesthesia, EM, as well as IM and Peds. I believe we haven't done as well in matching in Urology, Family Medicine, Derm, and Plastics. In recent years, we usually have 0-1 people matching in Derm and I don't remember seeing anyone go into Plastics in the last few years. But to be honest, I'm not sure if this is because no one applied or if people had applied but failed to match.
Wow, that was a crazy long post, but in summary, I think that I received a solid education at NYMC. I will put my clinical education up against anyone else's in the country. But let's be real: NYMC is an average school in a desirable region of the country. That is why I believe it receives 9000-10,000+ applications a year. I have no problem of some people viewing it as a safety school, but I believe that most of the reasons why it is such are outdated. I don't think it deserves the attention that it sometimes receives on SDN. NYMC is an average school; nothing more, nothing less.
I hope I get in!!
