2020-2021 Temple

Applying to Med School? Get In Or Your Money Back
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aturn57 said:
wow great! can you tell me a few things you like about the school?
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I like many things about the school but here's a few pros and cons

Pros
- Lots of space for you to choose how you want to learn. Lectures are optional, this allows you to learn at your own pace. By M2 many of my classmates abandoned lectures and focused on studying for step 1 but I continued watching lecture and paying attention in workshop sessions and I think it helped!

- The large class is broken down into smaller colleges - these are the people you spend most of your time with. I got a super cool college and we are all really great friends!

- Temple 100% focuses on community care, public health, and healthcare inequalities. It is taught to us from the very start and they begin training us to recognize biases and how to not contribute to these inequalities. This is a HUGE pro for temple.

- If you give feedback, many times, they actually address what the class is trying to say. They listen to us....sometimes lol but its better than nothing

- The clinical rotations at temple are great. You see so much stuff. Lots of textbook cases are seen at Temple. So far, it's never really been a boring day on clinical (although the days can be long but, I think that's just part of clinical in general)

- Less important but something I enjoy: the facilities are pretty! The building and library are nice with lots of natural light and windows. Some other schools i interviewed at looked so old, dark, and dingy, - not temple

Cons
- Admin seems disorganized at times but its fine, it seems like all schools have their administrative issues based off my other friends experiences at different schools. At Temple, their communication isn't the best but its fine, we all have to learn to advocate for ourselves right? If you have questions as a student, just email someone its not that big of a deal.

- I don't think they prepare you well for step with their curriculum so you have to spend a lot of time independently using outside resources (Pathoma, Sketchy, B&B, FA) learning. This is more of an issue in M2 but, it ended up being fine. You have enough time and can still have a social life i promise. They bought us Scholar RX and UWorld which was a HUGE help though
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MedScat said:
I like many things about the school but here's a few pros and cons

Pros
- Lots of space for you to choose how you want to learn. Lectures are optional, this allows you to learn at your own pace. By M2 many of my classmates abandoned lectures and focused on studying for step 1 but I continued watching lecture and paying attention in workshop sessions and I think it helped!

- The large class is broken down into smaller colleges - these are the people you spend most of your time with. I got a super cool college and we are all really great friends!

- Temple 100% focuses on community care, public health, and healthcare inequalities. It is taught to us from the very start and they begin training us to recognize biases and how to not contribute to these inequalities. This is a HUGE pro for temple.

- If you give feedback, many times, they actually address what the class is trying to say. They listen to us....sometimes lol but its better than nothing

- The clinical rotations at temple are great. You see so much stuff. Lots of textbook cases are seen at Temple. So far, it's never really been a boring day on clinical (although the days can be long but, I think that's just part of clinical in general)

- Less important but something I enjoy: the facilities are pretty! The building and library are nice with lots of natural light and windows. Some other schools i interviewed at looked so old, dark, and dingy, - not temple

Cons
- Admin seems disorganized at times but its fine, it seems like all schools have their administrative issues based off my other friends experiences at different schools. At Temple, their communication isn't the best but its fine, we all have to learn to advocate for ourselves right? If you have questions as a student, just email someone its not that big of a deal.

- I don't think they prepare you well for step with their curriculum so you have to spend a lot of time independently using outside resources (Pathoma, Sketchy, B&B, FA) learning. This is more of an issue in M2 but, it ended up being fine. You have enough time and can still have a social life i promise. They bought us Scholar RX and UWorld which was a HUGE help though
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Thank you so much for this!
 
caffeinatedpremed_ said:
Does anyone know if Bethlehem has any specific rural curriculum or groups or anything? I was going to write about my desire to practice medicine in a rural area in the “why this campus” essay, but I can’t really find anything on the St. Luke’s website.
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Not sure about the curriculum, but I go to school in Bethlehem and can tell you it's the furthest thing from rural (urban).
 
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aturn57 said:
I'm an urm with a 505 mcat which is below the 10% on msar. Should I even submit my secondary. Everything else in my app is pretty adv.
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505 is the 10th percentile of matriculants. If their missions speaks to you, shoot your shot!
 
So for my secondary supplemental materials, the Casper exam score is required before they consider the application complete. However, Temple still didn't receive my Casper exam and I took it a month ago. Anyone else having the same problems? Who should I contact regarding this?
 
Wow I'm so dumb. I JUST realized that I forgot to put Temple as a school when a took CASPER a month ago. So I just updated that now (submitted the secondary also a month ago) :/
 
cathhhhhh said:
Wow I'm so dumb. I JUST realized that I forgot to put Temple as a school when a took CASPER a month ago. So I just updated that now (submitted the secondary also a month ago) :/
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Do schools notify you if CASper is missing ?
 
Omgg thought I hadn't received a secondary yet but it was sitting in my spam :dead: Today is literally the two-week mark, do you think it's DOA if it's a few days past two weeks?
 
I saw that Temple's curriculum is changing fall 2020 - I'm particularly interested in how this will change the topics covered in the Doctoring 1 in Year 1. Before there was a lot of emphasis on health disparities, cultural determinants of health, and impact of healthcare policies, but the website on the new curriculum barely mentions this course so I was wondering if someone could speak to this.
 
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MedScat said:
I had a 504, im a URM and was below the 10% on MSAR and here I am a M3 at Temple. Temple values someone invested in the community so if you have a lot of volunteer work and experiences, I would 100% still apply.

EDIT: I also want to mention that I was within the earliest interviews and was accepted right on Oct 15 so, don't think low stats will mean you're at the end of their list either. If you get invited for an interview, you are immediately just as competitive as your peers with 510+
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I was below avg for MCAT/cGPA/sGPA, non URM, and Im here as a M2 even after interviewing on the last day. Temple is very mission focused and I really like the emphasis we have had on social determinants of health.

Also have the same Pros/Cons. To add to it:

Pros:
-Philly is actually a pretty cool city and there is a ton to do outside of studying (yes you will have free time outside of school).
-You can take electives which are fun. They have humanities like narrative medicine, drawing at the Mutters museum, etc and medical focused like addiction medicine, ultrasound, clinical reasoning, into to ortho.
-Faculty tend to be very responsive to concerns and will frequently drop exam questions we found unfair (and your grade can only go up when they drop Qs. I know some places where you grade could go down. Not at Temple.)

Cons:
-Research here is limited if you wanna do something niche but generally fine. Usually there are projects in every department so not like you can't find something.
-The non-STEP focus is kinda annoying as I use mostly UFAPs. But the curriculum changed for this incoming class and also P/F step will be a think so idk how much that will be an issue now.
 
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MedScat said:
I had a 504, im a URM and was below the 10% on MSAR and here I am a M3 at Temple. Temple values someone invested in the community so if you have a lot of volunteer work and experiences, I would 100% still apply.

EDIT: I also want to mention that I was within the earliest interviews and was accepted right on Oct 15 so, don't think low stats will mean you're at the end of their list either. If you get invited for an interview, you are immediately just as competitive as your peers with 510+
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If volunteer work and community is their mission, should I try to still volunteer during my gap year? I’m disadvantaged so I’ve mostly been working 40 hours a week as a scribe to start saving to pay back undergrad loans... I kinda miss volunteering though but it feels like there’s rarely any time. Will more volunteering be something Temple might like in an update?
 
MEDNERD_18 said:
I saw that Temple's curriculum is changing fall 2020 - I'm particularly interested in how this will change the topics covered in the Doctoring 1 in Year 1. Before there was a lot of emphasis on health disparities, cultural determinants of health, and impact of healthcare policies, but the website on the new curriculum barely mentions this course so I was wondering if someone could speak to this.
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The emphasis on health disparities and social determinants of health will only get stronger with the curriculum change. I'm not sure what the curriculum change is but, inequities in medicine is a very important thing to Temple and they are only trying to educate more about it I know that for sure.
 
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HighHopes1298 said:
If volunteer work and community is their mission, should I try to still volunteer during my gap year? I’m disadvantaged so I’ve mostly been working 40 hours a week as a scribe to start saving to pay back undergrad loans... I kinda miss volunteering though but it feels like there’s rarely any time. Will more volunteering be something Temple might like in an update?
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Not sure about this...if your application was already heavy in volunteering I think it'll be fine to not update them about that. You already are doing other valuable things in this gap year so it's fine, especially if you are already volunteer heavy. If you were not heavy on the volunteer work then it might be worth updating
 
Is it normal for the complete email to also state you are under review?
 
I know I'm kinda late in the game but I opened the secondary and it's not giving me the option to even input responses?? Did anyone else have this issue??
 
also, for the question 3. What are your plans for the current year - June 2020 until June 2021?, are you including activities that were stopped due to pandemic, but that you anticipated that you would be doing if there was no pandemic?
 
rtrizzl3l said:
I know I'm kinda late in the game but I opened the secondary and it's not giving me the option to even input responses?? Did anyone else have this issue??
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Yes! I came on here to see if anyone else had this problem too. It gave me a mini heart attack because I thought I submitted it without pasting in any of my essays. I'm going to call them tomorrow to see what the deal is.
 
mls251 said:
Yes! I came on here to see if anyone else had this problem too. It gave me a mini heart attack because I thought I submitted it without pasting in any of my essays. I'm going to call them tomorrow to see what the deal is.
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I hope you got some information because I emailed them yesterday and they basically told me to clear my browser and it should work.. even though I did that 4 times with no luck
 
do you think for the "campus" question, it's enough to talk about features about Philadelphia (vs. Bethlehem) and that be a sufficient answer? Because otherwise, are there any major differences in the health campuses besides where they're located?
 
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godsgirly4320 said:
do you think for the "campus" question, it's enough to talk about features about Philadelphia (vs. Bethlehem) and that be a sufficient answer? Because otherwise, are there any major differences in the health campuses besides where they're located?
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Other than the differences in cities, the biggest difference I perceived (and wrote about) was research and research opportunities being very different between the campuses.
 
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rtrizzl3l said:
I hope you got some information because I emailed them yesterday and they basically told me to clear my browser and it should work.. even though I did that 4 times with no luck
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I called them and got the same advice which didn't work for me either, but after I emailed they told me they fixed it and its working for me now!
 
Gentle_Scientist said:
Other than the differences in cities, the biggest difference I perceived (and wrote about) was research and research opportunities being very different between the campuses.
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yeah, I was trying to write about my interests and experiences with underserved pops and just because Philly is an urban environment, there would probably be more opportunities to do that in Philly, but who's to say that you can't also do that in Bethlehem, especially if as someone mentioned, it's also an urban environment?
 
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godsgirly4320 said:
do you think for the "campus" question, it's enough to talk about features about Philadelphia (vs. Bethlehem) and that be a sufficient answer? Because otherwise, are there any major differences in the health campuses besides where they're located?
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In my opinion, this should be sufficient! they want to get to know you as a person so, might be a good time to also mention some unique interests that you can do in Philly and not in Bethlehem.

Edit: although Bethlehem is urban, it's still not a major city like Philly. I think the other person was just trying to get at the fact that it's NOT rural. Writing an essay about an interest in rural medicine as a reason to go to Bethlehem would just seem strange since it's not rural at all.
 
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MedScat said:
In my opinion, this should be sufficient! they want to get to know you as a person so, might be a good time to also mention some unique interests that you can do in Philly and not in Bethlehem.

Edit: although Bethlehem is urban, it's still not a major city like Philly. I think the other person was just trying to get at the fact that it's NOT rural. Writing an essay about an interest in rural medicine as a reason to go to Bethlehem would just seem strange since it's not rural at all.
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ok, thank you so much! :)
 
Im having trouble finding something to write about the question for regional campuses question. One thing that I was thinking about is talking about connecting with the large black Muslim population in Philly since I grew up being one of the few black Muslims in my town. is that an ok thing to talk about in this essay?
 
godsgirly4320 said:
yeah, I was trying to write about my interests and experiences with underserved pops and just because Philly is an urban environment, there would probably be more opportunities to do that in Philly, but who's to say that you can't also do that in Bethlehem, especially if as someone mentioned, it's also an urban environment?
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Sure but they are still drastically different environments. Philly is one of the most racially/ethnically, religiously, and culturally diverse cities in the country. You will be seeing an extremely wide variety of patients and learning how to take care on them with better cultural understanding. There's no other city in the entire state (other than Pittsburgh) that's gonna offer anywhere near that diversity of patients.
 
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do the MD/PhD essay questions come up from everyone including those who aren't applying to MD/PhD?
 
MedScat said:
In my opinion, this should be sufficient! they want to get to know you as a person so, might be a good time to also mention some unique interests that you can do in Philly and not in Bethlehem.

Edit: although Bethlehem is urban, it's still not a major city like Philly. I think the other person was just trying to get at the fact that it's NOT rural. Writing an essay about an interest in rural medicine as a reason to go to Bethlehem would just seem strange since it's not rural at all.
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Im having trouble finding something to write about the question for regional campuses question. One thing that I was thinking about is talking about connecting with the large black Muslim population in Philly since I grew up being one of the few black Muslims in my town. is that an ok thing to talk about in this essay?
 
philip675645 said:
Im having trouble finding something to write about the question for regional campuses question. One thing that I was thinking about is talking about connecting with the large black Muslim population in Philly since I grew up being one of the few black Muslims in my town. is that an ok thing to talk about in this essay?
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I'd totally write about it...and also it emphasizes your uniqueness as an applicant. There already aren't many Black applicants, but Black Muslim applicants are literally unicorns. If you're Black, Muslim, and male...you're whatever is more rare than a unicorn haha
 
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philip675645 said:
Im having trouble finding something to write about the question for regional campuses question. One thing that I was thinking about is talking about connecting with the large black Muslim population in Philly since I grew up being one of the few black Muslims in my town. is that an ok thing to talk about in this essay?
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This would be fine but it depends how you write about it. After you have a draft feel free to send it over.
 
Can any current Temple SOM students give info on what the culture of the class is? Is it collaborative or cutthroat? Does the school put students into learning communities or anything like that since it is such a big class? Any info would be appreciated!
 
Canweskipthispart? said:
Can any current Temple SOM students give info on what the culture of the class is? Is it collaborative or cutthroat? Does the school put students into learning communities or anything like that since it is such a big class? Any info would be appreciated!
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We're split into smaller groups called "colleges." These colleges of ~30 people will be the people you spend 99% of your time with during M1 and M2. All of your workshop groups will be with them, all of your doctoring courses will be with them. I have a great college and we all get along fantastically but I've heard not all groups are as lucky. There are some people that stayed friends from orientation or from being roommates but, your college ppl are your ppl.

In terms of collaborative/cutthroat...it's med school, everyone wants to do well and of course there are gunners but, at least in my class, its easy to avoid those people and just hang with people who are chill like you. Unless you're a gunner too and want to be around other gunners, you can find those as well lol.
 
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Is anyone else still having issues with CASper despite having your score delivered to all other schools ?
I submitted on 7/22 and emailed them about the lack of casper score on 7/31. Still nothing 1 month later.
 
II received! Complete 7/21, 516 MCAT, 3.84 GPA, IS and ORM
 
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When did you take the casper? I completed my secondary 07/16 and took casper 07/19, but didn't get a complete email from them til 08/04...most of the other schools said I was complete in last July.
 
Gentle_Scientist said:
When did you take the casper? I completed my secondary 07/16 and took casper 07/19, but didn't get a complete email from them til 08/04...most of the other schools said I was complete in last July.
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Took Casper on 6/4. I am complete at every other school. I have checked multiple times to ensure that the correct institution was listed as one of the recipients of my results. Unsure how to proceed given that I already emailed them about it.
 
lagjj said:
Took Casper on 6/4. I am complete at every other school. I have checked multiple times to ensure that the correct institution was listed as one of the recipients of my results. Unsure how to proceed given that I already emailed them about it.
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Oh darn, yeah it sounds like they've made a mistake. Honestly, I say email again. It has been an entire month, they should be understanding.
 
this is one of my top choices and I hope they show some love soon :(
 
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are anyone else's LORs from AMCAS still not received? from AMCAS it says they were but not on the portal!
 
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