I am a student from the last class of the Northwest Track. That means I did my first two years in Pomona, and I am currently in my third year up North. The following review applies to both schools.
Curriculum: I like the way the curriculum is structured for the first two years. You begin with anatomy and biochem/genetics first semester, then after a month of immunology/pharmacology, you enter the systems curriculum. Each system (Neuro, Blood and Lymph, Cardio, GI etc.) are arranged with a half-day of lectures about background anatomy/physiology, then a half-day for small group work to diagnose and describe the pathophysiology/workup/treatment etc. for a group of 4-8 related clinical cases. The next session will be a lecture going over the cases and the specifics of each disease. Attendance is mandatory for the small groups (enforcement varies based on the course director), and the lectures usually have quizzes attached, which are sometimes obnoxious but usually helpful for your final grade. Tests are usually every other week, and contain their fair share of ridiculous questions, but for the most part you're given what you need to pass.
Currently, lectures are given in either Pomona or Lebanon, and simulcast to the other campus, I believe at a 50/50 split. It seems reasonably easy to ask questions from the non-lecture campus, but I've only seen a few of these lectures. It's about as obnoxious as it sounds, but the classes below me seem to have gotten used to it. COMP-NW is working toward its own independent accreditation, at which point it would have a faculty entirely to itself, so if you're reading this review a few years after it's posted, you might want to check with the school(s) for the status of that. On the whole, the administration seems to respond (slowly) to feedback about the curriculum, and while they're willing to launch into grand experiments that might or might not work, they do tweak things from year to year, so the general trend is toward improvement.
The OMM curriculum is solid. As a first year, you have two students per table (one treating, one guinea-pigging) with a second-year TA for every pair of tables. Each section of 8-10 tables has a 3rd-5th year teaching fellowship (which is a sweet gig if you can get it), and faculty are roaming, so you get good hands-on teaching experience and can get your questions answered when you have them. The lab is well-equipped, with good tables and numerous video screens so that you can easily view the lecture no matter where in the room you're located. The lab is generally available for after-hours practice or just for treating your classmates. They bring in great DOs from all over the West Coast for cranial week, so if you want to learn cranial and/or network that's a great opportunity to do so. This is one of the best schools for OMM, but there's a good chunk of the class that doesn't really care for it, and that makes me sad. My advice: if you're not interested in OMM, go somewhere else.
The other courses you take may or may not be helpful. The best of this bunch is the Essentials of Clinical Medicine course, which gives you practice in doing a history and physical, dressing professionally, writing a patient note, and figuring out how to use all that fancy medical equipment you bought at the start of the year (pro-tip: get a nice stethscope, but don't worry about the rest). You'll start that class right from the get-go, which is nice. Others include the Physician and Society (mildly informative) and the Basic Life Support/Advanced Cardiac Life Support classes at the end of second year (definitely important). The Interprofessional Education course with the other 8 colleges at Western is probably going to be your least favorite thing ever, unless you really like agreeing with Vet students about how awesome humanism is.
Location: Pomona is a really impoverished city and is probably about 50% Spanish-speaking. This may be a plus or a minus for you. For me, it was a plus, as it's a great opportunity to begin working with the underserved. Numerous clubs (Pomona Homeless Outreach Program, Latino Medical Student Association, Pomona Community Health Action Team, Pipeline etc.) put on clinics and other volunteer opportunities that give you a great chance to work with people in the community. Speaking Spanish is incredibly helpful, and the LMSA puts on a medical Spanish class in the Spring. On the downside, it's not the safest neighborhood, and students have their cars broken into on a near-weekly basis, so be careful. As a heads-up for those of you not from SoCal, Pomona is technically in LA county, but it's the way-East, crappy part of LA and is nowhere near the beach. It is only half an hour from Disneyland, though. =)
Cost: It's expensive. Tuition is about $46k a year, with living expenses adding another $30-35k. They recently hiked tuition about $2000 a year, and we worry about their willingness to do that. A tuition freeze at matriculation would have been nice.
Faculty: This one is really hit or miss for me. There were very few faculty who I felt were really spectacular, and a number of them that were either disorganized, uncommunicative, nauseatingly detailed or just plain bad. During the Molecular and Cellular Basis of Medicine, we had several guest lecturers from UCLA come in, and wow, were they better. I know these were probably the best of the best from over there, but our professors rarely even came close to the level they consistently delivered. I don't know if this is a Western U problem or just a DO problem, but regardless the teaching is usually nothing to write home about.
Reputation: Solid (unless you're on SDN
). The school's been around about as long as Star Wars, and for a long time it was the only DO presence on the West Coast. Many in the osteopathic community out here are alumni, so it's helpful.
Clinical Rotations: While my personal experience has been hit or miss, my impression is that they're generally good. In any case, Western suffers from the same problem as the rest of the DO world- namely, the lack of a teaching hospital (though Arrowhead, a DO teaching hospital, seems to at least partially fill that role). Third year rotations are spread out across the Southern California area, from Santa Monica to San Bernardino, making it nearly impossible to live in one place for third year. There seems to be a similar variability in the quality of the rotations, though the result seems to be a tradeoff between learning and relaxation that many students use to their advantage (e.g. a student actually interested in surgery will go to Arrowhead, while a student who doesn't care will go to a less-intense program). All in all, it seems the majority of my classmates are getting what they want out of their third year.
Sites in the Northwest are a little more questionable. The rotations in Portland and Corvallis (SHS) seem to be more consistent, but the rotations in areas without residency programs (Medford, Roseburg) tend to be with programs that aren't used to having medical students and ultimately wind up being only a couple steps above shadowing. As COMP-NW gets more established in these areas, I feel like that should improve, but for the moment I'd say parts of the Northwest have some catching up to do. You are more likely to get a satisfying third-year experience down South as of right now.
Housing: Pomona, again, is rough. A good chunk of my class lived there, and I actually walked to school a lot, but it's not for everyone. Claremont is a nicer option for a slightly longer drive. You can live at the Met or the Helix if you like, just keep in mind the 'students only' picture they paint is a bunch of crap. I have a classmate at the Met who had the pleasure of living next to a drug dealer and his revolving door of a clientele- maybe not ideal for medical school. In the Northwest, Lebanon is tiny and doesn't have a lot going on, but Corvallis is a thriving college town and only 20-30 min away. I don't believe there is any designated student housing up there, either. The NW has the advantage of having more localized rotations, making it easier to live in one place for third year (though some of the smaller sites, particularly Roseburg, will make you go elsewhere for a rotation or two).
Study areas: The library is small, but nice. There are a lot of breakout rooms used for the small groups; after school hours, they are usually full until later in the evening (the HEC is open until 1 AM). Many students prefer to study at the Claremont Colleges library, which is bigger and nicer. The main problem is competition: there are 8 other colleges at Western, and three of them (Podiatry, Dental and Optometry) share the main classroom building with the DOs. Study in groups, and have someone stake out a spot for you right after class!
Social Scene: Usually a party after every exam. People get out to do the occasional night-life thing in various parts of LA (clubs, plays, movies, concerts, etc.). There are clubs for various social/interest groups. Large chunks of our class have turned out for flag football/powderpuff games, marathons/mud runs, and even an Olympics-style weekend competition with several other LA-area med schools. There's a little bit of coupling within the class, too- you haven't lived until someone asks where you met and you can say 'cadaver lab' with a straight face.
Local Hospitals: Like I said above, Arrowhead is the big one in LA. There's a very long list of places where students do rotations- if you're interested in specifics and you can't find them on the school website, feel free to PM me and I'll see what I can find out for you.
Board Prep: Nada. Rumor has it the class behind us all got year-long UWORLD subscriptions, but for us it was pretty much just the standard month vacation between 2nd and 3rd year to study. It did help that the classes at the end of third year (Peds, Geriatrics and EM) were relatively easy and consisted of a lot of review, as they each encompass multiple systems. For what it's worth, Western U students tend to do well on boards, but the extent to which that's due to Western students being smart in the first place (check the admission stats) is debatable.
Specialty: Match lists from previous years have been posted on this forum, so search for those particular threads if you're curious about something specific. I obviously haven't matched myself yet, but it seems like if you do what you're supposed to do and you don't waste your time with programs that won't take DOs, you'll be fine getting into whatever specialty you want. For what it's worth, COMP-NW is at least theoretically focused on people who want to do residency and/or practice in the Northwest, specifically in primary care.
And the report card:
Curriculum: A-
Location: A-
Cost: C
Financial Aid: B
Faculty: B
Reputation: A
Technology: B+
Study Space/Library: B-
Library technology/Resources: B
Rotations: B+
Social: A
Hospitals: B-
Post Grad: A-
Overall Grade: B+