I hope this helps with your decision:
I'm an extrovert. I like running, and talking to others and participating in a community (although, I DO normally like studying by myself! weird). What is the community like at Goucher? Do you guys have potlucks, exercise, play games, study, etc with each other? Are your classmates your allies now and in the years to come? Do you ever feel like the community is too small, and that impacts your overall happiness and ability to succeed?
This requires a definite YMMV answer. Goucher has a highly social atmosphere, but that atmosphere probably varies more from year to year than Bryn Mawr's. Having only 30 students means we are probably much more close-knit, but the character of the class probably fluctuates more from year to year than BM's. Since it's influenced by fewer people, having five people with particular personalities can have a greater effect. This year's class, for instance, seems more Wes Anderson-y than last year's. We also probably have more foodies than average years. Last year's class had a disproportionate number of chill veterans. Who knows what next year's class will be like.
I hang out a lot with a good number of people from last year's class who are still in the area, so the Goucher spirit is definitely not limited to twelve months here. Those alumni also hang out together a good amount. There's a definite interest in keeping friendships going during the glide year in particular. I can't comment on how long that esprit de corps lasts - although one of the reasons I chose my potential linkage school was because I really liked the Goucher vets there and expect to socialize a lot with them if I am lucky enough to link. I haven't asked about our formal alumni network yet, so can't comment on that. I expect most of us - in any postbac program - quickly focus on our new med school environment and those alumni from our programs who are at the same school. Do we stay in touch with alumni at other schools? Probably. But the business of medical education probably also means that people often lose touch because you develop tunnel vision.
There's definitely a lot of studying together, and you're not just tied to studying with a certain clique. There's usually at least one social event a week, on a casual basis. I'm glad to say that people who don't often attend those events because we already have an S.O. (myself included) don't seem to face any peer backlash, so chalk one up against groupthink there. This year's sport-du-jour is basketball, and people play together quite often in the Goucher gym (two of us also do intramural basketball). Otherwise, it's down to individual friendships and roommate arrangements. There are also a good number of students who do a lot of social stuff and still study on their own. There's no pressure in terms of study habits.
My experience from half a dozen linkage visits is that Goucher people are a little bit more eccentric than BM, but again that probably varies from year to year (and there's probably some cognitive bias involved). Also, Goucher, BM and JHU all recruit from roughly the same social milieu, so you'll see variations on a theme rather than significant differences.
The only time I'd be worried about the social environment would be if you were particularly non-traditional by typical college standards (in which case PM me), in terms of age, social or economic background. For instance, I have a decorated former special operations medic friend who also has a speaking part in Zero Dark Thirty. A very unique, accomplished candidate. He also happens to believe that a woman's place is at home and that the Bible is quite literal. He'll be starting pre-med soon and will make an outstanding doctor. Would I recommend a structured program like Goucher to him? Probably not, for mutual fit reasons.
The teaching. I have gone back in SDN archives, and the teaching reviews are mixed. What is the quality of the teaching? Are professors always available for office hours, questions, etc? Do you think you'll be prepared for medical school, MCATs and beyond?
As of yesterday, I'm officially in the academic bottom third of students in my class, so I suppose I have more excuses than most to complain about teaching. But I don't. Orgo instruction is outstanding, and how rarely can that be said at any school? Our summer chem classes used to draw ire. The new summer chemistry professor is young, dynamic and very good at both teaching and leading lab.
Opinions are less ecstatic about physics and bio, but I was happy with things. Bio is hard to teach because it's just a knowledge cramming exercise. But we get the entire year's slides with notes from previous years from day one, and little things like that make it a lot easier to keep on top of things. The exams were sadly the most typically pre-med, testing things that seemed a bit randomly esoteric on a fairly frequent basis. Our physics classes sometimes devolved into giant equations on blackboards, but I don't think that's very different anywhere else. The key was that the instruction and homework were often more complicated than the exams, so it felt like a "train hard, fight easy" approach. Labs are uniformly very good for all subjects and much less stressful than regular undergrad ones. Also, office hours are frequent, there's rarely a line, and it's easy to email the professors with questions.
Now, you might ask how instruction can be so good if I got below average grades. The answer is simply that I unnecessarily screwed up my finals, end of story. Not all the postbacs make it as straightforward as possible to get an A in all classes - but Goucher and BM certainly do. You do get some varying strengths - Goucher's is definitely orgo, and I hear BM's is physics. Depending on what you expect to be your greatest weakness, this might be a factor, but for the most of us it's just a bonus.
Finally, I think Goucher does currently have an advantage in terms of MCAT prep. We start early in the fall, and then really ramp things up with an MCAT boot camp in lieu of the last week of winter vacation. We also get plenty of MCAT prep during the spring, including on many Saturdays. I don't think any place integrates MCAT prep as well as Goucher.
The staff. I've read mostly good but a few mixed reviews. Some people seem to really love the post bac faculty, while others have said that they care more about statistics and see the program as a business more than anything else. Have you ever felt this way?
Were any mixed reviews from the Liza Thompson era? The current program staff don't strike me in any way as stats-oriented. If anything, I was surprised at the risks they take with some of us in terms of being sure things for high GPAs, both in undergrad and at Goucher (myself included). They definitely seem to go for a lot of candidates because they find them interesting first, and because they have great stats second.
I mentioned that I screwed up my fall semester finals. Well, this meant that I went from being a good candidate at my desired linkage school to a very, very borderline one. The first thing I did after seeing my grades was to call Betsy, the program director. I wouldn't have been surprised at all if she'd told me to either set my sights elsewhere or reconsider linking. She didn't - even though she acknowledged it would definitely be a greater challenge to get in. To me, that's not the behavior of someone who places program statistics above individual students, because there's definitely a chance that I'll be a failed linker. From a business perspective, the more prudent option would have been to dissuade me.
