2012-2013 University of Virginia Application Thread

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bluestreaks said:
lol ok. Is it conversational or more like a... light interrogation?
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It's a lot more conversational than a security clearance interview... how about that?

Seriously man.. don't worry... Have an opinion on healthcare (because you should anyway) and solutions. Know your app (you should because it's you and you wrote it). Be yourself, be happy, and enjoy your time.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
Interview invite September 13th.
Interview date: November 5th.
I believe I was complete the day before my interview invite.
Instate
 
Got my II invite yesterday!! November 14 OOS.
Complete about 2 weeks ago
 
I really loved this school when I interviewed a while back. However, there was a paucity of students to talk to that day. Have any others experienced this same thing? Made me wonder with all the controversy toward the beginning of this thread. I'd like to hear more about how the students are adjusting to and liking the new curriculum. Also, I'd like to know how many students volunteer at the free clinic run by the school. Anyone?
 
no beans said:
I really loved this school when I interviewed a while back. However, there was a paucity of students to talk to that day. Have any others experienced this same thing?
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I imagine that's because the times that we can come visit aren't exactly convenient... we can either come before 10, but the first and second years generally have class until 10, or after like 1:30, but most people have either gone home or are in CPD and thus can't come. And, of course, upper level students are in the hospital or away, so don't have time to come during those hours either.

Also, I'd like to know how many students volunteer at the free clinic run by the school. Anyone?
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A number. Several of my friends do it. I don't because I didn't feel like I had time, but I may pick it up during fourth year.
 
Thanks mvenus. How is it going with the new curriculum now that the new year isn't so new anymore? Are the students adjusting better and liking it or have things changed for the better? Just wondering.
 
no beans said:
Thanks mvenus. How is it going with the new curriculum now that the new year isn't so new anymore? Are the students adjusting better and liking it or have things changed for the better? Just wondering.
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The second years seem to be doing pretty well. I've been on away rotations every other month for the past few months, so the only first year I really know is my friend's girlfriend, and I haven't even really seen her since school started. I think she mentioned at one point that it seems a lot more smooth than when we went through, but other than that, I can't really speak to their experiences.
 
MVenus, thanks for your replies. One more question. How have you liked your away rotations? What are they like? Also, how many weeks of away rotations will you have in total? I'm asking all these questions because I am very serious about UVA. Thanks again!
 
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no beans said:
I really loved this school when I interviewed a while back. However, there was a paucity of students to talk to that day. Have any others experienced this same thing? Made me wonder with all the controversy toward the beginning of this thread. I'd like to hear more about how the students are adjusting to and liking the new curriculum. Also, I'd like to know how many students volunteer at the free clinic run by the school. Anyone?
Click to expand...

The first and second years have had some vacation time recently, so that might account for the lack of students to talk to. When I was we got to speak to second, third, and fourth years (but no first years unfortunately) - seems like they are improving the curriculum every year. Made me feel really bad for the 3rd years though... sounds like the new curriculum was really rough the first year. Overall, my impression was that it seems like it is improving and people are liking it generally.
 
no beans said:
MVenus, thanks for your replies. One more question. How have you liked your away rotations? What are they like? Also, how many weeks of away rotations will you have in total? I'm asking all these questions because I am very serious about UVA. Thanks again!
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No problem, I like answering questions.

I've enjoyed my away rotations. I was in Williamsburg for outpatient medicine, and really enjoyed getting to see another part of the state. I'm in Fairfax for Peds, and have also enjoyed it. I'm an out-of-state student and don't know many people outside of UVA in the state, so it can be a bit lonely at times, but third year in general is kinda tough because everyone in the class is scattered to the four winds. There are some people I haven't seen at all since February.

They're changing around rotations a little starting next year. The lengths of many of the rotations is the biggest thing that's going to change (OB is getting longer, general surgery and peds are getting shorter, Medicine is getting longer, etc), so I'm not entirely sure how that will affect the away weeks. As of right now, the average away weeks in my class is around 12-16, I believe, which works out to three away rotations. Most people will spend Family Medicine and outpatient Medicine away from UVA (which currently accounts for 8 weeks).

Cheezhead said:
\Made me feel really bad for the 3rd years though... sounds like the new curriculum was really rough the first year.
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Yeah, it was bumpy. The worst systems we had have been improved dramatically, to the point that the current second years have loved those systems. So, like I said before, you should take everything anyone in my class says about the pre-clerkship curriculum with a grain of salt. Not that our comments aren't valid, just that things have changed a lot since we went through.
 
Thanks cheezhead and mvenus! Three rotations away doesn't sound bad. Sorry to ask one more, mvenus. When you are on an away rotation are there others in your class there with you? For example, how many were on the Family Practice rotation? Or are each of you scattered in different practices? Are you in the same city? Thanks again.
 
no beans said:
Thanks cheezhead and mvenus! Three rotations away doesn't sound bad. Sorry to ask one more, mvenus. When you are on an away rotation are there others in your class there with you? For example, how many were on the Family Practice rotation? Or are each of you scattered in different practices? Are you in the same city? Thanks again.
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For outpatient medicine and family, you are one on one with a preceptor and are often sent to more rural locations, so mostly, you are alone. In Fairfax, there are generally four students on the rotation. In Roanoke, there are a few in many different specialties, so there are a fair number of students there at any given time. Same with Salem. For Richmond, OB and Peds are both there (though they have different housing), so there are 6-7 people there at any given time.
 
any instaters get interviews with MCAT<34 yet? From what I have heard in the past, they like to wait until january or so before seriously tackling the IS applicants.
 
hokie2012 said:
any instaters get interviews with MCAT<34 yet? From what I have heard in the past, they like to wait until january or so before seriously tackling the IS applicants.
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I have. They sent me my interview invite Sept. 13 and my application was officially complete around then since I sent the instate form in a couple days earlier.
 
Hooray!
Interview invite: 10/1 Complete: 9/26
OOS 4.0cum 37M
 
no beans said:
Thanks mvenus. How is it going with the new curriculum now that the new year isn't so new anymore? Are the students adjusting better and liking it or have things changed for the better? Just wondering.
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Hi No Beans,

I'm a current second year and can shed some light on what your day-to-day schedule will be like in the NxGen curriculum.

I copied this from one of my old posts:

"I've attached a copy of our current GI system overview (4 week system). You can see the specifics of the types of classes we've had during this system. Basically, we learn normal histology, physiology, anatomy, etc. early on - then shortly after, we learn the abnormal pathology/histology, etc. We also have patient presentations where a physician will interview an actual patient that has a disease that we are studying in front of the class in order to get us to understand how a patient would actually present in real life (and we get to ask questions, etc).

Take a glance at the various types of learning activities we have (last slide of powerpoint)...case presentations, large group discussions, small group discussions, patient presentations, TBL, etc. They really vary the learning style here to try to accommodate everyone's different learning styles. However, some students prefer ONLY traditional lectures = you can see where the frustration would come from.

My only complaint is that the workload is really heavy during the beginning of systems because the system leaders need us to understand all of the normal physiology before they can teach us the abnormal/pathology. This means that we struggle to keep up early on, but then we gradually learn the normal/abnormal by working with and applying the material during the subsequent weeks."

Hope that helps!
 

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afob100 said:
Hi No Beans,

I'm a current second year and can shed some light on what your day-to-day schedule will be like in the NxGen curriculum.

I copied this from one of my old posts:

"I've attached a copy of our current GI system overview (4 week system). You can see the specifics of the types of classes we've had during this system. Basically, we learn normal histology, physiology, anatomy, etc. early on - then shortly after, we learn the abnormal pathology/histology, etc. We also have patient presentations where a physician will interview an actual patient that has a disease that we are studying in front of the class in order to get us to understand how a patient would actually present in real life (and we get to ask questions, etc).

Take a glance at the various types of learning activities we have (last slide of powerpoint)...case presentations, large group discussions, small group discussions, patient presentations, TBL, etc. They really vary the learning style here to try to accommodate everyone's different learning styles. However, some students prefer ONLY traditional lectures = you can see where the frustration would come from.

My only complaint is that the workload is really heavy during the beginning of systems because the system leaders need us to understand all of the normal physiology before they can teach us the abnormal/pathology. This means that we struggle to keep up early on, but then we gradually learn the normal/abnormal by working with and applying the material during the subsequent weeks."

Hope that helps!
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Thanks afob! That was very helpful. Looks like they make an effort to please everyone:love:. Really enjoyed looking at the schedule. How have you liked the new curriculum?
 
I have to be in Virginia next Saturday, and I'm wondering if I should send an "in the area" letter. Are interviews Monday-Thursday? I'd like not to take another 8 hour trip later on in the year, but if UVA isn't receptive to this kind of thing I'd rather not risk it.
 
Cornu Ammonis said:
I have to be in Virginia next Saturday, and I'm wondering if I should send an "in the area" letter. Are interviews Monday-Thursday? I'd like not to take another 8 hour trip later on in the year, but if UVA isn't receptive to this kind of thing I'd rather not risk it.
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I don't know how much success you will have, but it doesn't hurt to try. Yes, interviews are Monday through Thursday.
 
mvenus929 said:
I don't know how much success you will have, but it doesn't hurt to try. Yes, interviews are Monday through Thursday.
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I just found out I actually have to be there both next week and in another month (not for interviews, unfortunately :( ). Would it be better to only mention the later date or to include both in the email?
 
no beans said:
Thanks afob! That was very helpful. Looks like they make an effort to please everyone:love:. Really enjoyed looking at the schedule. How have you liked the new curriculum?
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I've enjoyed the new curriculum. It seems to make the most sense to learn the basic sciences in the systems-based approach - especially since you basically study for boards in the same (systems-based) way. I really enjoy the clinical cases (usually at the end of the week depending on the system) where you get together in a group of 20 or so with a resident/attending physician and work through real-life clinical cases based on diseases we studied that week. It really helps to reinforce the material.

Also, during our CPD course (clinical skills course), we get a chance to examine and get a history from 3-4 patients with the diseases we are studying that week. For example, during our rheumatology week, we saw patients (with our CPD groups of 6 students) who suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, gout, osteoarthritis, etc. It was an amazing experience...and one that I'll never forget. When trying to remember the difference between RA and OA, I just picture the 2 different patients we examined and it becomes obvious.

Hope that helps! If you have any other questions, feel free to message me.
 
hi, i'm a first year here so if you have questions, please throw them at me!

to address some things above: there are people here with mcats < 36 (myself as one of them). yeah, a few of us were gone the past few weeks (2nd yrs had fall break two weeks ago, we had ours last week) so that might explain why we weren't around. also, in general, we end classes at 12, and i think most people either evacuate the building or locate elsewhere around that time, so it may be difficult to find us.

in our 3rd year of the new curriculum, i'd say it's pretty smooth. we still have a few complaints (for example, we've not been fond of this teach each other with powerpoints activity) but i think for the most part people are pretty happy here!
 
velleityx said:
hi, i'm a first year here so if you have questions, please throw them at me!
in our 3rd year of the new curriculum, i'd say it's pretty smooth. we still have a few complaints (for example, we've not been fond of this teach each other with powerpoints activity) but i think for the most part people are pretty happy here!
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Thanks, velleityx. Glad to know most of the kinks have been worked out and that students are happy.

afob100 said:
I've enjoyed the new curriculum. It seems to make the most sense to learn the basic sciences in the systems-based approach - especially since you basically study for boards in the same (systems-based) way. I really enjoy the clinical cases (usually at the end of the week depending on the system) where you get together in a group of 20 or so with a resident/attending physician and work through real-life clinical cases based on diseases we studied that week. It really helps to reinforce the material.

Also, during our CPD course (clinical skills course), we get a chance to examine and get a history from 3-4 patients with the diseases we are studying that week. For example, during our rheumatology week, we saw patients (with our CPD groups of 6 students) who suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, gout, osteoarthritis, etc. It was an amazing experience...and one that I'll never forget. When trying to remember the difference between RA and OA, I just picture the 2 different patients we examined and it becomes obvious.

Hope that helps! If you have any other questions, feel free to message me.
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It all sounds great and very exciting afob! Especially the CPD course. Thanks for your descriptions, you two.:D
 
CPD is the best!!! you really bond with your small group, and it's so helpful to have both a physician and non-physician mentor. the physicians just know so much to teach you, and the non-physicians give really good insight on what a "lay" person thinks (like ours will tell us stuff like "maybe you shouldn't say that so technically... i don't even know what that is"). i think they also do a great job of helping us look at diseases from all angles. we've had to deal with pts w/o insurance, pts who are angry, pts who have biases about medicine, and we've learned clinical skills along with working through patients.

like afob said, it's great how because we're on a systems curric, you get to see certain things from multiple perspectives that really helps ingrain them in you. we'll take one disease and see it from a molecular bio standpoint, a radiology standpoint, a path standpoint, anatomy (well, we're not quite there yet :p), histology, physiology, pharm, and then a real patient (or a simulated patient case).

OH also to the above poster about "in the area" notices -- uva was definitely one of the few schools that seemed to accept unlimited update letters and in the area notices from me very graciously, so i'd definitely suggest you shoot em an email!
 
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CsHead said:
How about questions not directly related to UVA, but focused more on a gem in your mdapps?
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Haha I'm curious/intrigued now, so sure! If you'd rather PM me, that's cool too. Sorry for the delay in responding!
no beans said:
I really loved this school when I interviewed a while back. However, there was a paucity of students to talk to that day.

Also, I'd like to know how many students volunteer at the free clinic run by the school. Anyone?
Click to expand...
Like others have said, Fall Break was on different weeks for the 1st and 2nd years, so that might explain why there weren't people around.

This is going to sound really bad, but what free clinic? Maybe I know it by another name. Mvenus, is this RAM or something different?
UVa14 said:
going to uva was the worst decision i have ever made in my life. the curriculum does not prepare well towards the boards. it is full of useless fluff. administration is rude and not interested in students best interest. interactions with attendings and residents are just unprofessional.
as for Step 1 for my class, everyone I know is very displeased with their score. So idk what this is about it being the same. sounds like half did well and half did not.
i wish i had been warned before applying here
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It wouldn't be a UVa thread without a random post from my class, haha! My favorite.

I obviously disagree and have enjoyed UVa a lot, but I think I'm also one of the biggest defenders of NxGen's preclinical curriculum. Yes, there was much room for improvement - it seems like they're made it better each year - but I felt the same way about the structure of the old curriculum. There were a lot of things about the old format that would've made me miserable, so I'm not sure how much I believe being "guinea pigs" was to our detriment. I learned a lot and felt mostly prepared for Step 1 - obviously had to study some things on my own, but that's what 6-7 weeks off is for, right?

I'd say the one area I felt under-prepared by the preclinical curriculum was patient presentation skills. After 1-2 months on the wards you catch up, but it was still a little struggle at first. They quickly realized it needed to be a bigger focus and has been more than addressed in changes to the CPD curriculum for SMD15. The administration is also pretty great and attendings/residents have been pretty cool. Attendings and residents certainly didn't change with NxGen...

As far as Step 1 goes - like others have said, our average was the same as SMD13. And yes, our distribution was different but so was the distribution for the 3 classes before us. If they all had the SAME curriculum yet still performed differently (in terms of average + skew), then how can you interpret any curriculum negativity from our scores?
 
Got an II this morning! Going 12/04 (though I was offered as early as 10/18). Completed 09/29. 3.9/36S OOS
 
Does anyone know if UVA might be sending out decisions today? I vaguely remember them saying at my interview that at least for those who interviewed mid-September that they would be aiming to send an email update about decisions today. Does anyone else remember this?
 
Yes! During my interview in early September they definitely said oct 16. The lady said midnight actually. Maybe none of us got accepted
 
I remember hearing today as well. I don't remember midnight though. And I think she said we'd get an email regardless of the decision.

Sent from my ADR6400L using Tapatalk 2
 
stevecoral155 said:
vaguely, but I think they might be snail-mailed.
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I definitely remember someone in the admissions office saying they would be doing an email that would send you to a status page for your decision but wasn't completely sure about the time. They were hoping to let us know a little quicker this year. Not sure how that panned out.
 
Just got the email at 2:13 (was so scared to open it), and accepted!!!
IS, first one!
:D
 
I got out on the alternate list.

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alternate list.... :(

...anyone know how active the alternate list is?
 
Accepted OOS! Really excited about this school and Charlottesville.
 
Accepted!!! OOS and so so so so excited about this school. Getting in here has made this entire process worth it for me.

:soexcited: :biglove: :soexcited:
 
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