I would appreciate your perspective on the student community at UTSW. I understand - from my experience at the interview day and from friends at UTSW - that the school is not really as cut throat and over-the-top competitive as it is often made out to be. I assume you would agree?
My more pressing concern, though, is whether or not there is a warm "student community" at UTSW. Is there a strong sense of comradery among students? Does the Colleges system work? Are you friends with the students in your College? Is the school "cliquish"? Do students regularly spend time together outside of school/studying?
Thanks in advance for your input!
The whole cut throat thing is BS. Don't get me wrong, any medical school is competitive (ask yourself this: When you go to medical school, will you not try to get the best grades possible?) but some of the stories being thrown out (some by interviewers at other schools (!)) are just crap. I don't have any first-hand, second-hand, third-hand, whatever knowledge of anybody thrying to sabotage anybody else -- quite the contrary. An example: We just finished Genetics. Right before our final, people were emailing, to the entire class, lists of practice problems that they had dug up. I ended up with far more practice problems that I had time to do, as a result.
There is a strong sense of community among the students here, but we are a class of ~240 people. Obviously, I don't know everybody else in the class. Naturally, because we are subdivided into colleges, and then sub-subdivided into small groups, you get to know your small groupmates and your collegemates a little better during schooltime (the carrels are organized by college,) but that doesn't cause people to form cliques. Most students spend a lot of time hanging out outside of school/studying (much more time than I do!) The de facto job of our class Vice Presidents seems to be setting up social events for the class.
I had heard all of the rumors of cutthroat-ness and ultra-competitiveness, but from where I am sitting, there is absolutely no truth to them all.
Oh yeah, before I forget (someone will ask): Biochemistry IS curved (20% As, 30% B+s, 30% Bs, 20% Cs.) I thought this was a big deal when I was a premed, but no one really cares once they start school. It is the only class that I have had so far that is curved, and I have no idea why the Biochemistry faculty do this. Quite honestly, if they used the standard UTSW grading scale (A = 93+, as is used in all of the other classes that I have taken so far) there would've been many fewer As then 20% of the class. Bottom line: Lots of people make a big deal about this as premeds, but it is not really a big deal.
I have to get some sleep (yes, they DO let us MS1s sleep if we want!) but I will check back periodically to answer any other questions that you all have.
Congrats again, and if it isn't obvious already, I think that UTSW is a great school. I am completely happy with my choice, and I think you all should come here too!
