2009-2010 Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences Application Thread

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
Status
Not open for further replies.
Also, unless there is a new rule this year or USUHS specifically stated 16 Oct, you may receive a call on 15 Oct -- that's when I received my call along with some of my classmates. I interviewed on 25 Sep, the second interview group.
 
Last edited:
I believe that they specifically told us Friday Oct 16, but it would be a nice surprise to get the call a day earlier than expected.

And as for my use of mechanical face adjustment to manipulate the levels of neurotransmitters to induce euphoria as a means of reducing stress during times of uncertainty, well if that makes me weird than a proud weirdo be I😀

By the way, I did not come up with that, it was taught to me by my psychology professor who told me about a study that found that smiling helped improve moods and general happiness even in clinically depressed individuals. Through personal observation did I notice that it was also a very effective method of dealing with acute stress.
 
Last edited:
On a completely different point, could someone who has done the DODMERB physical please tell me how long it takes? I have to schedule some other appointments that day and I way overestimated how long the optometry exam would take.
It is a physical. It takes as long as any other physical takes.
 
Teacherman are you applying HPSP as well? What branch?

I know that USUHS does not accept MEPS and my Army med recruiter has verified that DODMERB will cover HPSP.
 
My buddy and I ran into similar problems with physicals. He had just completed his flight physical and I had done a special commissioning physical, but those were not accepted for USUHS. Apparently, the problem is that the military physicals use forms DD 2207 and DD 2808. These forms are only used by the military and are not used for civilian applicants. USUHS (or maybe DODMERB) wants all the forms to be identical so they use different forms, DD 2351 and DD 2492. The military forms are actually more in depth, including a whole bunch of lab tests, EKG etc. I believe MEPS uses the military physical forms, which would explain both the extended time and the fact that USUHS does not accept the physical results.
 
Teacherman are you applying HPSP as well? What branch?

I know that USUHS does not accept MEPS and my Army med recruiter has verified that DODMERB will cover HPSP.

I would imagine anyone desiring to go to USUHS and willing to commit to the military for 7 years would be applying HPSP as well.

But yes, I am indeed applying HPSP but with the AF. Though Navy clearly has the best looking uniforms, I come from a family of 4 generations seriving in the AF and my wife, also a multigenerational AF brat, would probably refuse to let me apply to any other branch even if I wanted to.

I am aware that MEPS will not work for USUHS but seeing as I have yet to get an invitation from them I went ahead and went to MEPS so my HPSP package would be good to go.
 
I am aware that MEPS will not work for USUHS but seeing as I have yet to get an invitation from them I went ahead and went to MEPS so my HPSP package would be good to go.

That's probably not a bad thing. For me (Navy) my DoDMERB physical didn't work for HPSP, but I didn't know this (and neither did my recruiter) until the spring. So I ended up doing a MEPS physical and almost didn't make the deadline. 🙁
 
So, I intend to apply HPSP, but my recruiter has basically said that he wants to wait until I get an acceptance. However, he has given me the security paperwork for HPSP.

When I got an interview invite from USUHS, the email mentioned that HPSP security paperwork could be submitted at the interview.

Does anyone have experience with this? Basically, my questions are:

(1) Has anyone submitted HPSP security paperwork at the USUHS interview?

(2) Is your HPSP recruiter making you wait to apply after you get an acceptance? It makes sense, because obviously I can't get HPSP if I don't have a program that I am matriculating into, however, I was wondering if people had started HPSP paperwork prior to a firm acceptance.

Thanks guys. Hope the 1st interviewers get some good new soon!
 
I believe that they changed it this year so that you couldn't apply until you had an acceptance, at least the Air Force is doing it that way. I think it is so they dont end up short if they give it someone on a WL or who dosn't end up getting in. I have already been picked up by the Navy for HPSP, but I have kind of a weird story there so I don't know how they are doing it. Just got medically qualified today too.
 
My army med recruiter told me that there is no problem completing my application without an acceptance, but this may be because I qualify for an automatic acceptance.

I told him that I was applying to USUHS early on and he told me that wasn't a problem and we got the process rolling. After my USUHS interviews went well I considered not completing the application, (its 53 pages) until I heard from USUHS on the 16th, but I decided that it was better safe than sorry and wanted to have all my paperwork done for HPSP just in case USUHS rejects me.
 
(2) Is your HPSP recruiter making you wait to apply after you get an acceptance? It makes sense, because obviously I can't get HPSP if I don't have a program that I am matriculating into, however, I was wondering if people had started HPSP paperwork prior to a firm acceptance.

Nope, my recruiter told me that we can do all the paperwork and physical stuff and have it squared away so as soon as I get an acceptance, the packet is already complete...it is a long process of paperwork, getting medical records squared away, etc. Why not have everything done ahead of time? I would question your recruiter on this.

I believe that they changed it this year so that you couldn't apply until you had an acceptance, at least the Air Force is doing it that way. I think it is so they dont end up short if they give it someone on a WL or who dosn't end up getting in. I have already been picked up by the Navy for HPSP, but I have kind of a weird story there so I don't know how they are doing it. Just got medically qualified today too.

I am doing AF and I have everything done. You dont get offered a scholarship until your file is reviewed so there is no harm in having it done ahead of time.

My army med recruiter told me that there is no problem completing my application without an acceptance, but this may be because I qualify for an automatic acceptance.

I did not qualify for automatic acceptance and still got it all done.
 
Got my interview invite today! 👍

Ready to get this ball roll'n... 🙂

edit: I have another interview at another school scheduled for the same (the SAME) day that USUHS offered. I know it's not a big deal to push the date back from an administrative perspective, but I wonder if it would hurt my chances of getting in, or more likely hurt my chances of getting my branch of choice (AF)...?

The conflict date is Nov. 5th, my USUHS rescheduled date would be Nov. 16th. I'd push the other school back, but I've done that to them once already for another interview... >_<
 
Last edited:
Got my interview invite today! 👍

Ready to get this ball roll'n... 🙂

edit: I have another interview at another school scheduled for the same (the SAME) day that USUHS offered. I know it's not a big deal to push the date back from an administrative perspective, but I wonder if it would hurt my chances of getting in, or more likely hurt my chances of getting my branch of choice (AF)...?

The conflict date is Nov. 5th, my USUHS rescheduled date would be Nov. 16th. I'd push the other school back, but I've done that to them once already for another interview... >_<
A tough call, but if you're serious about the other school I'd go ahead and reschedule USUHS. With that said, early interviewing really does help your chances at USUHS; so you've gotta weigh your options. Plenty of people interview even during the spring and get accepted.
 
It all depends on three things:

1. How much do you want to go to USUHS?
2. How much do you want to do the AF program?
3. How much do you want to go to this other school?

Though Nov 16 is not "late" anywhere, AF is the most competative program at USUHS, (other than PHS of course which only has 4 spots) and so getting in as early as possible is always a good idea.

Congrats on the invite and good luck.
 
A tough call, but if you're serious about the other school I'd go ahead and reschedule USUHS. With that said, early interviewing really does help your chances at USUHS; so you've gotta weigh your options. Plenty of people interview even during the spring and get accepted.

I don't want to stress you out, but last year later november and december interviews lead to waitlist spots. This included very qualified service academy students and priors as well as civilians. Historically, the USUHS waitlist moves pretty well but it is a complex system because of the service selection and medical qualifications that are needed - for example, if you apply for Navy and the Navy waitlist is long, then you might be in trouble. If you are on the waitlist and you have issues with DoDMERB or clearance, then you might be in trouble.

My suggestion would be that unless you are a prior and have a service commitment already, with a late interview you need to leave your options open (Army #1 because it has the most slots or no preference) for service selection and have your ducks in a row in regards to security and medical.
 
Grotto! Welcome back, man and congratulations.
 
Grotto! Welcome back, man and congratulations.

Thanks man. Back from an exciting weekend and now superglued to my desk grading tests, running admin, and dispensing my god-like wisdom on the interwebs.

I might try to take a nooner under my desk, that would probably be more productive. God, I really miss having a rack in my office.
 
Last edited:
I am doing AF and I have everything done. You dont get offered a scholarship until your file is reviewed so there is no harm in having it done ahead of time.

Yeah but before you could actually have a spot held for you without an acceptance letter, obviously on the condition that you get in. That is the difference this year, you have everything in but like you said they wont offer anymore without a straight up letter. That is how it was explained to me by my recruiter and my experience through HPSP so far.
 
I'm with you on that one. The rack in the office was key except I always felt mine was taunting me. Every time I crawled in it, I swear there was some sort of alarm sent out notifying the entire ship to call me repeatedly. I don't know about you, but the blue magnet kind of reminds me of a horror movie villian. You know you saw him die, but somehow you can still hear him calling you every day at noon.
 
I have been out of the loop for awhile.... I refuse to believe that you are a real person XMRS. When I read the description of your interview day a little pee came out....You keep it up big guy! If we end up in the same class there will never be a dull moment.....Are there any other "priors" interviewing on the 29th?

"....whether or not you get a call just smile a big goofy grin and laugh."

If that is how you really are I am going to have to wear an adult diaper to class LOL.
 
You get an interview date yet teacherman?​
 
I have been out of the loop for awhile.... I refuse to believe that you are a real person XMRS.

If that is how you really are I am going to have to wear an adult diaper to class LOL.


hahaha. He is in fact a real person. From now on, when you read his posts do it in a british accent. Its more like the real thing
 
I have been out of the loop for awhile.... I refuse to believe that you are a real person XMRS. When I read the description of your interview day a little pee came out....You keep it up big guy! If we end up in the same class there will never be a dull moment.....Are there any other "priors" interviewing on the 29th?

"....whether or not you get a call just smile a big goofy grin and laugh."

If that is how you really are I am going to have to wear an adult diaper to class LOL.

Yeah, XMR is the man. He is the optimistic ying to my pessimistic yang.

I am prior Navy enlisted and interviewing on the 29th. What branch were you in?
 
I am sorry to hear that Teach, I am pulling for you man. You seem to have a good, down-to-earth attitude and we could always use more of that in the military.

Segovia- I am currently on active duty status in the Army. You seem to have a lot of shipmates on this forum. I am not really seeing any other ground pounders running around here. What was your job?
 
If we end up going to the same school RLTW were probably going to get into a fight because there can only be one Captain America and its me brotha.
 
I am sorry to hear that Teach, I am pulling for you man. You seem to have a good, down-to-earth attitude and we could always use more of that in the military.

Segovia- I am currently on active duty status in the Army. You seem to have a lot of shipmates on this forum. I am not really seeing any other ground pounders running around here. What was your job?

I was in avionics while in the Navy and I repaired radar jammers and soldered circuit boards, but the last couple of years I was on a ship and my job morphed into firefighting and cleaning toilets.

So I imagine there are a few more hoops you have to go through being active duty, right? I am on IRR, but it really hasn't affected the application process. It would have been hard for me to apply for this program when I was active duty.

I have tons of respect for you guys; one of my best friends is a truck driver in the Army Reserve and does some work out of Camp Pendelton in San Diego. He just got activated and is about to head out to Afghanistan. I just hope he gets back here safe.
 
Well I am off for my DODMERB physical and this morning I weighted in at 209.2 in my clothes. I needed 212 so I made it, now nothing left to do but relax and get pumped for tomorrow!

Good luck everyone.
 
I am not really noticing any "additional" steps due to my active duty-ness. Then again I have never applied as a civilian or IRR so I may be doing a lot more than the rest of you.

I am curious for those of you who are already attending USUHS, what uniform are you going to class in and how is the schedule arranged? Organized PT in the morning? Chow? etc.
 
Also, unless there is a new rule this year or USUHS specifically stated 16 Oct, you may receive a call on 15 Oct -- that's when I received my call along with some of my classmates. I interviewed on 25 Sep, the second interview group.

That would be amazing... but maybe they said the 16th since today's a Thursday and they are interviewing, maybe they are too busy to call us till tomorrow??

ps congrats on reaching your goal, xmsr3, I know you worked really hard!!
 
I am not really noticing any "additional" steps due to my active duty-ness. Then again I have never applied as a civilian or IRR so I may be doing a lot more than the rest of you.

I am curious for those of you who are already attending USUHS, what uniform are you going to class in and how is the schedule arranged? Organized PT in the morning? Chow? etc.

Other than the loa I think it is pretty much identical. For some the loa is an ordeal so I guess that is where the frustration of being active duty comes from.
 
I am not really noticing any "additional" steps due to my active duty-ness. Then again I have never applied as a civilian or IRR so I may be doing a lot more than the rest of you.

I am curious for those of you who are already attending USUHS, what uniform are you going to class in and how is the schedule arranged? Organized PT in the morning? Chow? etc.


Our uniform policy actually just changed - it used to be different for every service. Now, it's khaki's/classBs on Mondays, then your choice (BDU/ACU, khakis, SDBs) Tuesday thru Friday. However, most Wednesdays we have our ICM class which requires we be in khaki's/ClassBs.

There's only organized PT if you're put on remedial. They did just say that they're going to put "boarderline" people on remedial in addition to people who fail, but we have yet to get a definition of "boarderline"

That reminds me, xmsr3 they did just state that if you're boarderline in the weight, you'll get taped and if you're boarderline in the body fat then you'll be weighed weekly and may get placed on remedial PT. I'm not saying this to completely call you out specifically, this goes for anyone. You seem to have done well in the losing weight department, but not everyone can keep it off (again, not saying anything about you, I've seen some people very successfully keep it off), so be prepared to be weighed a lot and perhaps have to do remedial PT. 🙁 Just an FYI.

Class is generally 0730-1130 and then 1300-1500 with a couple times a week where we start at 0830 and a couple where we go until 1600 (today being one 🙁)
 
That reminds me, xmsr3 they did just state that if you're boarderline in the weight, you'll get taped and if you're boarderline in the body fat then you'll be weighed weekly and may get placed on remedial PT. I'm not saying this to completely call you out specifically, this goes for anyone. You seem to have done well in the losing weight department, but not everyone can keep it off (again, not saying anything about you, I've seen some people very successfully keep it off), so be prepared to be weighed a lot and perhaps have to do remedial PT. 🙁 Just an FYI.

I hope they take in to consideration your PRT performance. I have always been 1 or 2 pounds under the weight cut-off but score outstanding medium or outstanding high on the PRT. So being on remedial would be very useless for people like me.
 
I am curious for those of you who are already attending USUHS, what uniform are you going to class in and how is the schedule arranged? Organized PT in the morning? Chow? etc.

Think about everything associated with a regular military unit. USUHS is the opposite of that, aside from wearing a uniform.

Also, you are only required to attend labs and small group activities. You are required to sign in mon,wed,fri for accountability reasons, but this is soon being implemented online so that you can sign in from home. You will find that many people don't come to lecture because it's not most productive for them; they learn better via self-study versus having professors read slides to them.
 
Last edited:
Other than the loa I think it is pretty much identical. For some the loa is an ordeal so I guess that is where the frustration of being active duty comes from.

I'm one of the people for which it's an ordeal. The physical portion (getting signatures on paper) was not a big deal, but (in the AF anyways) the electronic portion is annoying. The system it's routed through tells you where your package is, but sometimes it will sit for days before moving to the next stage. Mine has currently been in "AFPC Officer Asgmts" (I'm enlisted) for 3 days. Makes me wonder if that person is on leave 😕
 
I'm one of the people for which it's an ordeal. The physical portion (getting signatures on paper) was not a big deal, but (in the AF anyways) the electronic portion is annoying. The system it's routed through tells you where your package is, but sometimes it will sit for days before moving to the next stage. Mine has currently been in "AFPC Officer Asgmts" (I'm enlisted) for 3 days. Makes me wonder if that person is on leave 😕

That sucks man. Glad I'm IRR and don't have to deal with that. Hopefully it goes through soon.
 
I'm having problems with my LOA too. This is actually the 3rd time I've applied to USUHS and the previous 2 times my LOA was denied. I should be ok this year, but it still takes forever to get the letters signed. I'm on week 11 right now and I don't have a LOA yet. It is with the SECNAVs staff so maybe it will get signed soon. For those of you applying in the future, the MILPERSMAN article says to submit your contingent resignation between Aug 1 and Nov 20 of the year prior to matriculation. Don't pay any attention to those dates. Send in your package much earlier in the summer (like May/June) so you don't get stuck waiting for a LOA. It will take at least 3 months and possibly more for the Navy to process and approve your package. Who would have guessed that following directions would get me in trouble?
 
I hope they take in to consideration your PRT performance. I have always been 1 or 2 pounds under the weight cut-off but score outstanding medium or outstanding high on the PRT. So being on remedial would be very useless for people like me.

From what I understood, they only tape you if you're a couple of pounds under the cut-off and then only if you're boarderline with the body fat would they put you on remedial. If you're usually doing that high I'm guessing you're not boarderline for the body fat, so you wouldn't have to get weighted weekly, just plan on being taped every time.

I could totally be wrong though. This just got implemented, so I'll know better after this next PRT (end of October for us; Army and AF have already done theirs, so they may know better).
 
From what I understood, they only tape you if you're a couple of pounds under the cut-off and then only if you're boarderline with the body fat would they put you on remedial. If you're usually doing that high I'm guessing you're not boarderline for the body fat, so you wouldn't have to get weighted weekly, just plan on being taped every time.

I could totally be wrong though. This just got implemented, so I'll know better after this next PRT (end of October for us; Army and AF have already done theirs, so they may know better).

Thanks. I don't know how I would do on body fat never been taped.

This page is quite busy today. I wonder if that is a reflection of our anxiety. I can certainly say it is for me lol.
 
Just got an interview invite.....19 Nov👍👍👍👍👍👍
 
Silverhorse, is the determination about how close you are to your cutoff made at the commissioning physical or the PFT that occurs at OBC?

The official weigh in at the DODMERB physical was 207, and my height was 6 foot 2.5 inches. According to army regs they will round my height to 6'3 and my cutoff is 212.

Either way it shouldn't be an issue as I plan to get down to 180 or so.
 
Last edited:
I am hoping the Army LOA isn't as much of an issue. I know getting a temp memorandum signed at the unit level will be an easy day but after that I have no idea. If there are any Army pax who have dealt with this let me know.
 
when i saw that xmsr just posted I SWEAR I thought he was going to have been accepted already!!

Remember he got the 9/17 interview invite like 2 weeks before everyone else?

and yeah dru, i'm super anxious too!!
 
I am still curious as to how the tears were received. I have met mil docs that would be put off by it, but then I have known some that might start crying just because he is crying. Maybe we should start a betting pool....Any takers?
 
And X, don't go getting your feelings hurt. If you can't take a little ribbing you are going to have a hard time in the military, especially if you choose ortho or EM since those specialties tend to attract the jockish, alpha-male types.
 
Silverhorse, is the determination about how close you are to your cutoff made at the commissioning physical or the PFT that occurs at OBC?

The official weigh in at the DODMERB physical was 207, and my height was 6 foot 2.5 inches. According to army regs they will round my height to 6'3 and my cutoff is 212.

Either way it shouldn't be an issue as I plan to get down to 180 or so.


What I'm talking about is only at USUHS. I can't speak for OBLC since I didn't go there, but at ODS they only cared if you were under/passing. They didn't do this whole boarderline thing that they're trying to implement here at USUHS. That's why I don't know much yet, we haven't had our first PRT here yet.

The commandant is new, our (Navy) company commander is new, and Col Wempe, while not new is very very very into being in good physical shape! I think the combination is leading to these new policies.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top