**Official Drexel IMS 2015-2016 Thread**

[WhiteMaleSyndrome]

How much loans have you guys taken out for this? Will loans/scholarships cover tuition/food/rent/bus fairs?

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[xosmj]

The video feed is fine, and you can always ask questions on the microphone if you really want, but even the med students don’t tend to interrupt lectures very often. Also, most of the 1st and 2nd years are just sitting at home or the computer lab streaming the lectures at 1.7x speed – the auditoriums are deserted after the first few weeks of school (except for mandatory things). The professors are accessible by e-mail, or you can haul yourself up to the Queen Lane campus if you make an appointment. They also come to Center City in person to do review sessions and case conferences not infrequently.

Thanks! Although that is certainly different from the style of lectures in college, it sounds like I can use that to my advantage to have more personal study time. I'm curious about your experience with this program, would you personally recommend it? Is the admissions office helpful through the application process?

Thanks again

 

[DeucesHigh3]

Thanks! Although that is certainly different from the style of lectures in college, it sounds like I can use that to my advantage to have more personal study time. I'm curious about your experience with this program, would you personally recommend it? Is the admissions office helpful through the application process?

Thanks again

Hey guys. I started getting bombarded with PMs, so I figure I’ll post some of the stuff I’ve been telling people to save some effort (yes, I’m a 4th year with nothing to do, but I still have a busy schedule of GTA V, Counterstrike, and Netflix for the next couple months!). A lot of this will sound familiar if I’ve replied to you.


Overall thoughts:

I think it’s a great program for the right sort of applicant. It’s really only a silver bullet for fixing a low undergraduate GPA; you still need to have a competitive MCAT, extracurriculars, LORs, etc., to have any shot at applying to med schools afterward. It also matters what the reason for the low GPA was. If you did great some of the time but had some really bad semesters (illness, depression, death in the family, financial issues, whatever the cause), and you honestly think you have the potential to perform well when you're giving it your all, then go ahead. The workload is like nothing you’ll believe until you get there. Honestly, even looking back from the vantage of fourth year, it was probably the most stressful time in my academic life (or maybe a close second, compared to the month or two at the end of second year before beginning dedicated Step 1 studying). I had never needed to pull all-nighters for an exam ever before (papers, yes, but that’s just the story of procrastination), but I got way too familiar with the 24hr study room at Hahnemann. It was exciting too, though, and knowing that I was learning things that would matter for my ultimate career made it a lot more palatable than putting that much work into anything else would have been. Plus, it’s not *hard* material, per se – it was actually easier than some of my upper level coursework in college. There’s just a lot of it, with the pressure of needing to succeed on every exam because you’re still worried about getting an acceptance. Everyone is different, but I went from basically never studying in college (except the night before exams), to needing to read an hour or two a day (every day), ramped up to full 9-5 plus lectures a week before an exam, and then two full long/late study days right before an exam. So you probably won’t be crazily busy full-time, but you really should until the first exam block when you can step back and titrate your effort up or down depending on how you performed.

Will it help you get into med school? Absolutely, if you do well and have the rest of your application otherwise in order. You shouldn’t bank on getting into Drexel unless you’re really at the top end of the IMS class since all of IMS/MMS/DPMS are competing for the same 25 slots (I think people who stay for MMS get more preference). More than half the class ended up at Drexel, Rutgers, some other state schools, or DO schools far and wide. The rest of them? Honestly, a lot of people had no business wasting their money there to begin with, because they had a sub-30 MCAT, other red flags on their applications, or were just unable to even get close to the exam averages for whatever reason (they didn’t take the studying seriously, or let things pile up until exam time).

Did it help me once I was *in* medical school? You bet. It will make 1st year a lot easier no matter where you end up, and if you go to Drexel they don’t even make you re-take the classes if you don’t want (me, I opted out of doing microanatomy and nutrition again, because they were just annoying).

Other stuff that gets asked all the time:

Financial Stuff
Yeah it’s not the cheapest way to spend a year, but fortunately (??) it’s only 28k for the year, compared to 50k at Drexel Med. Looking back at my vast pool of loans, it’s a drop in the bucket. Also, I’m pretty sure that if the first semester isn’t going well (and it’s clear things won’t be turning around), you don’t need to stay for the second semester, so that number will be half. As for after IMS year, DO schools are pretty expensive too, and hey Drexel’s not even in the top 10 for tuition/fees nationwide anymore!

In terms of living expenses, you can get federal loans for tuition, plus your entire estimated cost of living. I’m pretty sure that comes out to at least $25k for room/board/travel/etc if you want to borrow the entire amount (don’t though -- most of it will be GradPLUS loans at 7.9% interest!)

Housing
You can really be wherever. I actually lived in Mt. Airy, a further out neighborhood that is like 10-15min drive from the Queen Lane campus, and I took the SEPTA regional rail downtown (or drove to QL and took the shuttle if I was going in super early). The train is a great way to study without distraction! Most people lived downtown or around QL (the neighborhood is East Falls) and took the shuttle. I’m not a big fan of East Falls just because it’s mostly residential but without grocery stores, restaurants, etc nearby, so you have to drive to everything. It’s also really close to some dodgy parts of the city, so vehicle break-ins aren’t uncommon and you don’t have to go many blocks before it’s fairly high crime. I didn’t really hear about anybody having any issues, however. [Oh wait, yes I did! Somebody had all their tires stolen during a hurricane! They found it sitting on cinder blocks, lol] People tended to live in the cluster of apartments up the street from Queen Lane, on Wissahickon Ave (Alden Park apartments, and some others that I don’t remember the name of).

If you want to live downtown, there are tons of options, though it’s more expensive. A fair number of people lived in Stiles Hall, which is right by the hospital, but I think it’s for singles only. You can live in Fairmount, the Art Museum district, Chinatown, Rittenhouse Square, Logan Square [Google maps will recognize the borders of any of those neighborhoods]… really anywhere that is in walking distance of Hahnemann is safe and there’s plenty of stuff to do. My classmates are all spamming the facebook group with places that they’re leaving to go to residency, and they’re really all over the place in Center City.

Books
I got the histology textbook and atlas, the nutrition book, Lippincott’s biochem (written by the biochem course director), and the Medicine & Society book (it’s the only one you really need, but they have copies in the library; I don’t remember whether I owned it or not). They’re all in the library really, but for stuff like histo, it’s nice to have actual copies to have with you at the microscope. If they’re even using microscopes anymore… I seem to think they might have gone online for micro lab (I didn’t retake it as an MS1, so I’m not sure). Some people found the physio textbook useful, I never bothered. Forget about the rest of the “required” or “recommended” books – totally unnecessary. The provided notes/syllabi cover everything, unless otherwise noted (like a handful of independent study things that you have to research on your own, or the readings from the Nutrition book). All the classes provide some amount of practice questions to get into the mindset of what the exams will be like.

Oh, and the class behind me at DUCOM went all digital with iPads, so I’m not sure what that means for IMS, but regardless of what they tell you, you can use whatever kind of computer or tablet you want. They also tried to convince us that buying an otoscope & ophthalmoscope was mandatory for 2nd year, and it definitely wasn’t.

Exams/Grading
There are usually quizzes every week or two, and exams between every couple modules (say, every month maybe). It ends up being that you have an exam or quiz almost every week -- there were only 5 weeks without an exam or quiz in the entire first semester, and 6 in the second.

Yeah, it's true that you have to beat most of the med students to get an A in any given class. The good news is that they have more classes to worry about and less time to devote to studying, so all else being equal it should be easier for an IMS student to get a given score. Also, since they don't have as much to prove (b/c grades in the pre-clinical years don't mean much), there's less pressure for them to go all-out in every class. That said, the med student average on most tests and quizzes was usually near (and generally higher than, by a few percent) the IMS average. The bad news is that the medical Honors grade encompasses both the A and the A- grades in IMS, so a gunner med student can get top marks with around (for example) a 90% but that would only be an A- for IMS -- you have to strive for a few more percentage points to get the A. Also, the B+ range (which would be High Satisfactory for the med students) was typically very small, only 1-2%.

Studying
I would say to focus on the module notes, and really go over them a lot of times – at least 3 passes even before you start hardcore studying before an exam. The lectures don't always bring much to the table (though Ferrier's are very good), but they can help reinforce concepts if you've already read through the notes. Also, they almost never give you information during lecture that isn't in the module, so it's safe to stick to the printed notes when studying. The practice questions on the Biochem website are really good to give you an idea of the level of detail they want on various subjects, too. There aren't any back exams unfortunately, because they're all "return" booklets that they keep a pretty tight leash on. Microanatomy, Physio, and Neuro have back exams/quizzes floating around online though -- I posted some of the links from the TAs on the IMS 2010-2011 thread.

Can I just stay home every day and watch the videos?
I would have preferred to stay home most days, but usually there are at least 2-3 days per week of required things, and often 4. The primary offender is Med & Society, which has a small-group and a large-group on different days every week. There's also Microanatomy lab (though if you and your lab partner decided to do it another time, or online, you wouldn't have to go except for scavenger hunts). I generally just found it easiest to plan to be downtown every day. Plus, even if I’m just streaming the videos anyway, it’s on a computer that has a lot fewer distractions than at home [Note that MS1 is even more obnoxious in regard to having stuff almost every day that you need to be there in person, even though the lectures are recorded most places]

Extracurriculars
Aside from academics, you really need to be doing other things during the IMS year, which they will mention in orientation. Since the med students have at least 30% more coursework -- with a lot less time during the day to do it -- volunteering is a good way to show that you have time management skills and a desire to help your fellow man and whatnot. There's a volunteer fair early in the year, and they'll occasionally send out e-mails about things too. Try to find something that you'll be doing weekly, as I'm not sure they're impressed with one-off stuff like the pediatric aids benefit concert, or park cleanup with Drexel Loves Philly. I helped teach science lessons in a middle school with PALS, and did asthma education at St. Christopher's Hospital for Children; both of those are always looking for people, and are pretty fun. You can also volunteer in one of the area hospitals (I was at HUP for about a year, which overlapped with my time in IMS).

How do the med school apps work w/ IMS?
I applied during the IMS year, and got accepted pretty late in the spring. They'll tell you how the process works during orientation, but basically you do your AMCAS and apply to schools (including Drexel) during the summer, with the IMS classes as "future coursework". The IMS office sends out a form-letter at some point to the schools you applied to, which discusses the program, grading scheme, and the fact that a LOR and grades will be forthcoming in the early spring (I think, I never really saw the letter). You meet with a faculty advisor once in the fall, and once after winter break, after which they write you a LOR; fall semester grades are also posted around then. In late Jan is the guaranteed interview for IMS people who make the grade/MCAT cut. Then, from early spring til early summer, they start giving acceptances to people they like. As for other schools, it totally varies as to whether they will interview before/after the fall grades are posted, or whether they want you to finish the entire program. Some people even had acceptances to other schools during the fall semester, but they were relatively stronger candidates to begin with.

I actually only applied to Drexel during the IMS year because that's the only one I knew for a fact would wait until the spring to consider me; I was going to broaden it for the next application cycle if Drexel didn't work out. I'm not actually sure which schools are best about accepting IMS people, but I think I heard that Temple and some of the UMDNJ's are pretty good, plus the DO schools of course. There might be something about it in one of the older IMS threads 5-6 years ago? maybe longer?)

 

[pinkpearl991]

Are people who are applying during the program waiting to fill out/submit AMCAS until the program gives us more information?

 

[say_rawr]

I just recently learned about this IMS program and I wanted to ask if anyone knows whether they are still reviewing applications. Their website has what I assume is a typo in the application cycle and says the deadline is July 18, 2014. Is it supposed to be 2015?

 

[crewb]

Yeah probably. I think they review year round. It takes them about two weeks to fully review your app starting from when you get them everything. You should just call their office and ask.

 

[DreamingBig]

Just got accepted to the 1 year IMS program! But I couldn't find the 2015-2016 academic calendar online. Does anyone happen to know when orientation and the first day of classes are? Or basically when we should be in Philadelphia?

 

[tomz1385]

You could start brushing up on biochem if so inclined -- credit-wise it's by far the largest course, and people tend to struggle with it. The module notes are fine, but I would recommend picking up the Lippincott book that Dr. Ferrier (the biochem course director) wrote.

Dr. Ferrier is retiring this year! We signed a card for her during 3rd year orientation. She was awesome for biochemistry. Dr. Jameson has been taking over the past few years and is doing a good job as well.

 

[hopeful 123]

this thread's gone quiet....
anyone else starting IMS in philly and staying in stiles hall?
also, has anyone gotten any more emails about the program?

 

[MAF3]

Hey guys, I'll be starting IMS in philly tomorrow. Unfortunately I wasn't able to attend orientation due to a family reunion. I know I have to go pick up my ID from the admissions office tomorrow morning but is there anything else you guys received during orientation that I should know about?
Also, I only see 2 of the classes on blackboard so I don't know our full schedule for tomorrow... Any idea when the first class/meeting is and where?
Any information is greatly appreciated!!
Also do we have a FB group for this class/program specifically?

 

[hopeful 123]

Hey @MAF3
Hopefully you found everything OK, but our full schedule can be found by going webcampus.drexelmed.edu and looking on the right-hand side under Pre-medical and Pre-health students, and then IMS - all of our classes so far seem to meeting in Lecture Hall B in New College Building
We had class this morning at 9, and we have a class coming up at 1 PM - in the same room!
I'm also curious about the FB group - would like to join if there is one!
hope this helps!