A.T. Still University Arizona (ATSU-SOMA) Discussion Thread 2016-2017

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For the supplemental application clinical experience section, should I include shadowing experiences?
I just called admissions to see if I should also add paid work and not just volunteer work. She said add all clinical experience including paid and shadowing.

If anyone has heard otherwise, please chime in.

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I just called admissions to see if I should also add paid work and not just volunteer work. She said add all clinical experience including paid and shadowing.

If anyone has heard otherwise, please chime in.
was this for kcom or soma as well? i already submitted my secondary and only listed my volunteer experiences. i did, however, mention a few times in all those essays that i work at a hospital...
 
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was this for kcom or soma as well? i already submitted my secondary and only listed my volunteer experiences. i did, however, mention a few times in all those essays that i work at a hospital...
Same EXACT situation. For the question I only listed volunteer activities. I did not, however, mention the fact that I have had a paid position in healthcare for the past ~8 years. If all clinical experience was meant to be entered here I kind of feel like I missed an opportunity to stand out???
 
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Same EXACT situation. For the question I only listed volunteer activities. I did not, however, mention the fact that I have had a paid position in healthcare for the past ~8 years. If all clinical experience was meant to be entered here I kind of feel like I missed an opportunity to stand out???
if they wanted all clinical experiences, they should have said it directly... i'd understand if the poster was talking about kcom because that secondary did say all clinical experiences. i just followed the directions stated for soma...
 
if they wanted all clinical experiences, they should have said it directly... i'd understand if the poster was talking about kcom because that secondary did say all clinical experiences. i just followed the directions stated for soma...

I email this to adcoms. They said only list "volunteer" experience.
There will be a section below that to list non-healthcare volunteer as well.
They define it to me volunteer = non paid. So I did not list any paid experience in there
 
Someone please advise. I screwed up pretty badly. For the supplemental questions I was under the impression that we had to answer all the questions they had listed (part A and part B) instead of picking one. I submitted the supplemental answering both the questions. Is there anything I can do? Should I emailed the Adcoms? Or will this not be a big deal?
 
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Someone please advise. I screwed up pretty badly. For the supplemental questions I was under the impression that we had to answer all the questions they had listed (part A and part B) instead of picking one. I submitted the supplemental answering both the questions. Is there anything I can do? Should I emailed the Adcoms? Or will this not be a big deal?

it might be a good idea to call admissions to just touch base with them. but if you can't do anything about it since you've submitted, we can just hope for the best that your answers were awesome enough to have the adcoms overlook that you skipped over the directions.

I'm not sure if they accept updates before interviews, but another thing you could potentially do is send in an update letter explaining how that mistake happened. I'd maybe include an actual update and not just the explanation though.


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Someone please advise. I screwed up pretty badly. For the supplemental questions I was under the impression that we had to answer all the questions they had listed (part A and part B) instead of picking one. I submitted the supplemental answering both the questions. Is there anything I can do? Should I emailed the Adcoms? Or will this not be a big deal?

I agree with @gamieg you should definitely email asap.

Now on the other hand you answered both A&B in the alloted 500 words? I am impressed!
 
Last year the first II was during the first week of August.
 
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Anyone know how strict they are on the 20+ hours of shadowing from your letter writer?

I have over 60 hours of shadowing, but the DO who wrote my letter I only shadowed for 8 hours. The rest is MD shadowing.
 
Anyone know how strict they are on the 20+ hours of shadowing from your letter writer?

I have over 60 hours of shadowing, but the DO who wrote my letter I only shadowed for 8 hours. The rest is MD shadowing.
Hopefully not PCOM strict.

Anyways, happy secondary submission day to me! Holy moly, that took a lot of writing. Surprised I didn't have to pop a half gram of SOMA to finish... he he, Aldous Huxley joke anyone? Bueller?
 
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Any word on when we might hear about II's?


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Anyone know how strict they are on the 20+ hours of shadowing from your letter writer?

I have over 60 hours of shadowing, but the DO who wrote my letter I only shadowed for 8 hours. The rest is MD shadowing.

Just submit an MD letter. I had a DO letter 5 years ago when I applied, but similarly to you I'd only shadowed her for a few hours (she was my next-door neighbor and DO-school mentor so she knew me very well however).

Anyway, I didn't submit her letter, instead I sent. Two MD ones. I got in first attempt at SOMA.
 
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They wouldn't accept my faculty letter. Great...well, there are always other schools.
 
What was wrong with it?


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I don't really know for certain. It may be the age of the letter itself. It's a bit dated. The painful part is trying to get another one to try to replace it. So far they are the only school that complained about it, though. I have a good physician letter and a great letter from my boss. I also have a letter from my local charity where I do some volunteering.
They told me to go back to that prof and have him write another letter based on the specific classes I took with him. (Maybe it's possible that it's too vague?) I have a hard time believing it's vague, however, because he wrote a full page review of my work ethic. The professor hasn't taught me since his first letter years ago, so it's going to be impossible for me to obtain another one from him. I'm going to try to push through, unless I can luck out and get an online prof to cut me a break.
 
I don't really know for certain. It may be the age of the letter itself. It's a bit dated. The painful part is trying to get another one to try to replace it. So far they are the only school that complained about it, though. I have a good physician letter and a great letter from my boss. I also have a letter from my local charity where I do some volunteering.
They told me to go back to that prof and have him write another letter based on the specific classes I took with him. (Maybe it's possible that it's too vague?) I have a hard time believing it's vague, however, because he wrote a full page review of my work ethic. The professor hasn't taught me since his first letter years ago, so it's going to be impossible for me to obtain another one from him. I'm going to try to push through, unless I can luck out and get an online prof to cut me a break.

Dang man... That's tough. How did you know they had a problem with it? We're your LOR's never checked off? Or did you call them?


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Dang man... That's tough. How did you know they had a problem with it? We're your LOR's never checked off? Or did you call them?

They sent me an email saying I didn't have a science faculty letter. I figured they may have been overwhelmed-which they probably are- and sent them an email back saying that the letter from Dr. [so and so] was my science faculty letter and that he taught me [x class] and [x class].

They emailed back and said content did not meet the requirement. I'm not certain why not. It's plainly a science letter. Letterhead and signed. I'm honestly lost as to how it falls short. The replies were by two different admissions reps, so I know it wasn't just one person.
 
They sent me an email saying I didn't have a science faculty letter. I figured they may have been overwhelmed-which they probably are- and sent them an email back saying that the letter from Dr. [so and so] was my science faculty letter and that he taught me [x class] and [x class].

They emailed back and said content did not meet the requirement. I'm not certain why not. It's plainly a science letter. Letterhead and signed. I'm honestly lost as to how it falls short. The replies were by two different admissions reps, so I know it wasn't just one person.

What class did he teach?
 
He taught human parasitology (a grad level course) and a field biology class. He was my academic advisor for my biology student teaching practicum as well.

I'm signed up for that class this fall. How'd you like it?


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I'm signed up for that class this fall. How'd you like it?


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Personally I loved the class. It was fascinating. My prof focused a lot on parasite life cycles, infection photos, and microscopic identification.
 
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Anyone using a Hometown Scholars Endorsement? Isn't a guaranteed interview?
 
For the question in secondary that asks you to check the science courses we've taken in addition to pre-reqs, does anyone know if we should check the ones that are planned, like I'm taking them starting in a few weeks, or just ones I have completed and received a grade for so far?
 
If they are following the time table from last year then interviews should be going out this week. Let's hope that's the case!
 
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Anyone else's heart skip a beat when they got the email from AT Still SOMA admissions then realize it was just a DO-day event? this is my #1 top school so I briefly freaked out. Haha


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II!! See you guys at the Thursday social on Sept 15 :)
 
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II scheduled for August 26th! :)
 
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