How are rotation sites determined and when do you find out what site you get?
Relevant to everyone:
Sites are determined via a lottery system. We do a mock vote/lottery around October so people know how many people are interested in each site as their first and second choice. That way we can get an idea as to which sites will likely be competitive for rotations. Then first and second choices have to be submitted sometime around the end of November. You find out whether you matched to one of your choices around early December (about a week after submissions are due). If you don't match to one of your choices, then you get to pick which site you go to out of whatever is left over based on your GPA. So the initial lottery is random, but the second one is based on how well you do in classes. Most people match to one of their choices. I think my class had about 10 of ~260 not match. A previous year had everyone match, and a few years earlier had a ton of people not match (I think around 25-30). It really just depends what your class wants. Also, after everyone knows where they are going, they can trade with another person until a certain time (not sure when).
Relevant to some:
Between the mock lottery and the actual lottery, people can write either statements of intent to site directors or appeals to go to a certain location to a student committee. Site directors have the right to fill half of their rotation spots based on statements of intent. For example, there's a rotation at Fort Myers, FL that has 10 spots and the director fills 5 of those with students who can speak Spanish well every year. The other half are filled through the lottery. The appeals are read by a group of 3 students and they decide who will be given permission to be guaranteed a spot at that location. Typically, that isn't granted unless there is a medical reason for being somewhere or some kind of family emergency (ie, being near a dying parent or sibling). A lot of people try to appeal so they can be closer to family or because they bought a house, but apparently those usually get shot down. There's no way to find out if you were chosen for one of these 2 reasons, the only time you know the result is if you don't match to the site you appealed/wrote a letter of intent to.
If you're interested in one of the fellowships (anatomy or OMM), you can rotate anywhere, but you will be in KC during the year of the anatomy fellowship and either Kansas City or Joplin for OMM. The OMM will probably change back to KC only once Joplin has a few classes make it though.
Additionally, there are a certain number of spots in KC set aside for people in the MBA. In the past, MBA students were required to stay in KC, so that took up some of the rotation spots. Now people can go to other sites and watch the classes for MBA online. Idk if this means spots will not be guaranteed in the future, but they were for my classmates. Also, bioethics students weren't previously guaranteed a spot in KC, but maybe they are now? Not sure about that one. I've talked to people about the bioethics masters less than the MBA.
Tracks: If you want to do one of the specialty tracks (surgery, ob/gyn, peds, etc.) you MUST match to KC. The match happens first, and if you match to KC you can apply for one of the tracks if your GPA is good enough. If you want to do a track but don't match KC, then you can try and trade with someone, otherwise you're out of luck.
That's all I can think of off the top of my head. Hopefully that helps!
