Hey all, I'm an incoming M1 this fall at Feinberg, and I just wanted to share some of my impressions of the school. Although I'm not currently a student, hopefully some of the points I make about Northwestern will help y'all when it comes down to applying, interviewing, and ultimately making a decision where to attend!
Some pros I found with the school:
1) Location/Clinical Opportunities: NU is located in downtown Chicago (a few blocks away from Michigan Avenue), which in my opinion, is the best location to live while in school (along with SF and NY). One critique many have about NU is that because of its location, it doesn't exactly cater to the underserved/uninsured population, but that simply is not the case. Feinberg has numerous free clinics associated with it (Chinatown, Devon, Community Health Clinic, etc), and numerous poorer patients are served by Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Furthermore, the hospital is absolutely BEAUTIFUL, and looks a lot like a hotel, and NU really tries to make sure the patients are provided as much as possible during their stay. A new Children's hospital was also recently built and will be ready to go in a year or two. So all in all, Northwestern Memorial really provides amazing clinical exposure to a diverse patient population (both in terms of financial and ethnic--it is Chicago after all).
2) Curriculum: Personally, I'm not a huge fan of long lectures, and thankfully, NU does a great job in cutting down lecture time, and incorporating PBL. Although some people are not particularly fond of PBL, from what I've been told, it really is more of a supplement for you to try to assess the basic sciences in a more clinical perspective/interact with your classmates. But I personally love the fact that I'd be done with class at noon on a few days of the week, giving me more time to do whatever I want. As for how well the curriculum works--the average board scores for the M3's for this year was ~240 (the highest in the country)--so it's your call.
3) Extracurriculars/Students: The thing that really sold Feinberg to me, however, was this part. During second look and my interview, I personally found the prospectives/current students to be the most social, outgoing, friendly, and fun students I met throughout the entire med school app process. It seems that Feinberg really does do a great job in selecting its classes, as there are SO many different groups to get involved with, and so many things outside of medicine to pursue especially in a city like Chicago. Everyone wants to have the work hard/play hard mentality, and I think FSM really embodies it.
4) MD/MPH: I don't know much about this program, as I'm not in it, but the MD/MPH program here seems amazing, and is one of the few schools that offers you to get both degrees in only 4 years!
5) Diversity and class size: NU is actually ranked within the top 10 for ethnic diversity in terms of medical schools. This was definitely a huge selling point for me. Furthermore, I love the class size that FSM aims for every year (~170). Think about it, you're spending 4 years with these guys, and I think a bigger class size is better in terms of finding new ppl every year to get close to and who share many of the same interests as you do.
I also wanted to address some concerns some ppl have about the school as well:
1) Cost: Yes, Feinberg is expensive, and so is living in downtown Chicago. The tuition is about $45K, but that is on par with most private medical schools. Also, as opposed to contrary belief, Feinberg does give out quite a bit of merit aid (I believe $5 million in merit scholarships per year). If you look at last year's thread, someone was offered a full tuition scholarship as well. Furthermore, most students decide to live in Streeterville, which definitely gets expensive (I'm paying $1040 a month next year to live in 420 East Ohio, which is on the cheap side). However, public transportation is obviously awesome in Chicago (and free for students), so living in Lincoln Park or other further down areas is an option, and considerably cheaper.
2) Patient population: I talked about this in #1 for pros.
3) Too many HPME's!: First off, some ppl find this annoying (I have no idea why as HPME kids are some of the brightest and funnest students I've met--does it really matter that they didn't take the MCAT?), and second off, not true. Usually there are only about 20-30 HPME kids (out of a class of ~170). For the incoming class, I think there are around 25.
Now as for the application process:
I'm not sure what the averages/medians are in terms of numbers for this year's incoming class, but I'm sure an MCAT of about 36 and a GPA of about 3.8 is what they want most of their students to be around. Of course, this is only an average, and many students below that range are accepted every year, depending on what you bring to the table. Like I said earlier, Feinberg is very good (in my opinion) of composing a class of students with a lot of interests outside of medicine and academia. Of course research is important (since...well, let's face it, rankings are about research), but they really wanna make sure that students they accept have a good social life outside of academia. For instance, the secondary is quite long, and has a question that specifically asks about what you've done outside of the classroom. Just make sure you show them that you're a well rounded person in terms of your essays, your EC's, and assuming your scores are somewhere around their averages, there's a great chance of getting an interview! Also, a great thing about NU is that they interview only about 700 students and end up accepting roughly 1/2 of those they interview..which really makes the interview trip worthwhile.
In terms of the interview, there is one individual interview (which lasts roughly 20-30 minutes), and a panel group interview (which lasts a little more than an hour). The individual interview is very laid back, and the interviewer generally asks some basic questions which should be expected, as well as any updates to your application (like if you've been doing anything recently that should be noted). The panel interview, although it may sound intimidating, is actually really low stress, and kinda entertaining in my opinion. Generally there are 3 interviewees, and 3 interviewers (2 faculty members and one M4), who go around asking a question one by one to each student. The first 45 mins consists of each interviewer asking each interviewee a specific question. What I did was not only answer it, but if one of my answers brought up something that was discussed earlier, definitely bring it up. I think they really wanna see that instead of just dicking around while someone else is answering their question, you're actually LISTENING to what they have to say. For example, an answer can be: blah blah blah, kinda like what Interviewee X said before. After that is a 15 minute group activitiy where they assign you a task. Remember it's 3 ppl working on the task--talk for 1/3 of the time, and don't be afraid to speak up or challenge what others say--just be polite.
All in all, I absolutely LOVED Feinberg and it was definitely the most fun out of all the schools I interviewed at. Good luck to everyone and feel free to ask any questions about the process!
Oh, and P.S. Another great reason to come to Chicago--the Bulls and D-Rose are SICK
