2011-2012 University of Missouri- Columbia Application Thread

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Just got the acceptance e-mail! Good luck to everyone still waiting.
 
I interviewed recently and it was sort of anticlimactic ... The tour was lack luster and the day all too quick.to get a vibe about this school beyond internet research. What is it about this school i havent seen or heard that makes you guys excited to help me regenerate my enthusiasm.for this school?

Sorry to hear your tour was lackluster. I don't remember mine from interview day (tour was before interview). I'll list some things that make Mizzou med awesome and you may or not have heard all this. In no particular order:
1. Columbia is awesome. It has a great small-town feel but yet isn't a small town and there is plenty to do. If you wish to go to a bigger city on the weekends, STL is 1.5 hrs away and KC is 2 hrs away. Pretty nice. I've been in Columbia five years and still haven't experienced all of it.
2. Short drive to school. Most likely no matter where you live within Columbia, it's going to be a short drive to school (<20). Mine is a three minute drive and many students walk.Traffic usually isn't too heavy and parking is a breeze since parking structure is right next to the med school and we get a pass.
3. Students are normal. This is a plus. Mizzou med people like to go out (often) and have fun on the weekends. It's a college town and there's tons of ways to have fun. Everyone is incredibly smart and works hard but most students seem well-balanced. People generally don't seem too stressed out until week 6 of the block.
4. Lots of "free time." Two guaranteed half-days off a week allows plenty of study time or hang out time if that's your thing. You'll use some of the time to get PBL objectives done but it's so nice to have those afternoons to go home and study w/o interruption.
5. Very supportive professors, administrators and office staff. Haven't had any negative experiences yet and everyone is very friendly and wants to help you succeed. Strong communication between classes and administrators. We have town-hall meetings where we talk w/ the dean about concerns and they implement some of the stuff we suggest sometimes.
6. Undergrad campus next door which has great places to study, coffee shops, food court close by and the awesome rec center.
7. Mizzou football games....always a great time.
8. School is pass/fail. Awesome to me. Takes some pressure off.
9. Very nice anatomy lab and standardized patient rooms.
10. Get your own desk in the PBL labs where you can study
11. Exams every 8 weeks which means no quizzes, regular tests or mid-terms. Essentially exams are finals over all 8 weeks. Awesome.
12. Columbia has a strong apartment/rental house market so you'll be able to find a place to live easily. Lots of choices w/ many very nice places close by.
13. Columbia has low-cost of living and school isn't on the high end of tuition.

Hope that helps! Feel free to ask questions
 
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Sorry to hear your tour was lackluster. I don't remember mine from interview day (tour was before interview). I'll list some things that make Mizzou med awesome and you may or not have heard all this. In no particular order:
1. Columbia is awesome. It has a great small-town feel but yet isn't a small town and there is plenty to do. If you wish to go to a bigger city on the weekends, STL is 1.5 hrs away and KC is 2 hrs away. Pretty nice. I've been in Columbia five years and still haven't experienced all of it.
2. Short drive to school. Most likely no matter where you live within Columbia, it's going to be a short drive to school (<20). Mine is a three minute drive and many students walk.Traffic usually isn't too heavy and parking is a breeze since parking structure is right next to the med school and we get a pass.
3. Students are normal. This is a plus. Mizzou med people like to go out (often) and have fun on the weekends. It's a college town and there's tons of ways to have fun. Everyone is incredibly smart and works hard but most students seem well-balanced. People generally don't seem too stressed out until week 6 of the block.
4. Lots of "free time." Two guaranteed half-days off a week allows plenty of study time or hang out time if that's your thing. You'll use some of the time to get PBL objectives done but it's so nice to have those afternoons to go home and study w/o interruption.
5. Very supportive professors, administrators and office staff. Haven't had any negative experiences yet and everyone is very friendly and wants to help you succeed. Strong communication between classes and administrators. We have town-hall meetings where we talk w/ the dean about concerns and they implement some of the stuff we suggest sometimes.
6. Undergrad campus next door which has great places to study, coffee shops, food court close by and the awesome rec center.
7. Mizzou football games....always a great time.
8. School is pass/fail. Awesome to me. Takes some pressure off.
9. Very nice anatomy lab and standardized patient rooms.
10. Get your own desk in the PBL labs where you can study
11. Exams every 8 weeks which means no quizzes, regular tests or mid-terms. Essentially exams are finals over all 8 weeks. Awesome.
12. Columbia has a strong apartment/rental house market so you'll be able to find a place to live easily. Lots of choices w/ many very nice places close by.
13. Columbia has low-cost of living and school isn't on the high end of tuition.

Hope that helps! Feel free to ask questions

Thanks for your post. Could you elaborate on the pass/fail curriculum? Is it truly pass/fail or does it have some sort of internal ranking? I thought someone told me that it is pass/fail, but they rank you based on percentiles, with the top percentile being in the top 20%, and so on.

It may have been the beautiful day, but something felt great about Missouri that I did not even feel at the Mayo Clinic. If I have the fortunate choice of Missouri, it will be a tough decision between Missouri and Cincinnati. Both have their advantages for entirely different reasons.

Again, thank you!
 
The pass/fail is still a little unclear to me as well. It really is pass/fail in the sense that we dont get any letter grades. Either S=Satisfactory or U=Unsatisfactory. We do know our percentage on the exam and I do believe we are ranked in fourths or 3rds later on. You also are able to see how other students did and how you compare. From what I understand, since its a P/F school, more emphasis will be placed on Step 1, clinical grades and LORs (i think). Passing is 65% on the knowledge exams and 70% on PBl exams. For our deans letter, I dont believe the percentages are viewable. Only if you ever fail anything. We've been told just to pass and not sweat the percentages. Very few fail. Maybe an older MU student will get on here and clear it up for both of us.
 
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Sorry to hear your tour was lackluster. I don't remember mine from interview day (tour was before interview). I'll list some things that make Mizzou med awesome and you may or not have heard all this. In no particular order:
1. Columbia is awesome. It has a great small-town feel but yet isn't a small town and there is plenty to do. If you wish to go to a bigger city on the weekends, STL is 1.5 hrs away and KC is 2 hrs away. Pretty nice. I've been in Columbia five years and still haven't experienced all of it.
2. Short drive to school. Most likely no matter where you live within Columbia, it's going to be a short drive to school (<20). Mine is a three minute drive and many students walk.Traffic usually isn't too heavy and parking is a breeze since parking structure is right next to the med school and we get a pass.
3. Students are normal. This is a plus. Mizzou med people like to go out (often) and have fun on the weekends. It's a college town and there's tons of ways to have fun. Everyone is incredibly smart and works hard but most students seem well-balanced. People generally don't seem too stressed out until week 6 of the block.
4. Lots of "free time." Two guaranteed half-days off a week allows plenty of study time or hang out time if that's your thing. You'll use some of the time to get PBL objectives done but it's so nice to have those afternoons to go home and study w/o interruption.
5. Very supportive professors, administrators and office staff. Haven't had any negative experiences yet and everyone is very friendly and wants to help you succeed. Strong communication between classes and administrators. We have town-hall meetings where we talk w/ the dean about concerns and they implement some of the stuff we suggest sometimes.
6. Undergrad campus next door which has great places to study, coffee shops, food court close by and the awesome rec center.
7. Mizzou football games....always a great time.
8. School is pass/fail. Awesome to me. Takes some pressure off.
9. Very nice anatomy lab and standardized patient rooms.
10. Get your own desk in the PBL labs where you can study
11. Exams every 8 weeks which means no quizzes, regular tests or mid-terms. Essentially exams are finals over all 8 weeks. Awesome.
12. Columbia has a strong apartment/rental house market so you'll be able to find a place to live easily. Lots of choices w/ many very nice places close by.
13. Columbia has low-cost of living and school isn't on the high end of tuition.

Hope that helps! Feel free to ask questions


Seeing this makes me incredibly happy/blessed that I just received an interview invite to the school. OOS with stats slightly below average but I do have some ECs that I think make up for it. I look forward for the chance to interview here 🙂🙂
 
Seeing this makes me incredibly happy/blessed that I just received an interview invite to the school. OOS with stats slightly below average but I do have some ECs that I think make up for it. I look forward for the chance to interview here 🙂🙂

Yay! I'm so excited you got an interview invite 😀
 
So is there a chance that somebody who interviewed earlier could be accepted randomly anytime in February if they were at the top of the list? Could somebody clarify that for me? Will we still get a "status unchanged" email for Feb, or will they just wait till March?
 
For those who already go to MU or those who are accepted:
How does housing work out? I am an OOS applicant and I was wondering if there is on-campus housing available for medical students? what you recommend I do to ease into moving into Columbia? Also, how about buying a used car?

Thanks for your input,
 
So is there a chance that somebody who interviewed earlier could be accepted randomly anytime in February if they were at the top of the list? Could somebody clarify that for me? Will we still get a "status unchanged" email for Feb, or will they just wait till March?


Yeah, I believe so. Very few students are accepted each month and I imagine if they don't meet the months quota based on interviews from that month they'll look at the rankings from students who interviewed in previous months. So if you're way up at the top you might be one of those people who is accepted in the months earlier interviews. Otherwise, you'll keep getting status-unchanged in February. Come March though, they'll do alot of acceptances once all the potential candidates have interviewed. At that point, you'll get the Accepted, Wait-List or Denial email. It would be difficult to judge if someone was at the top or not. I don't think they tell you that until the waitlist is assembled. They let you know where you stand on that but otherwise you have no idea.
 
Yeah, I believe so. Very few students are accepted each month and I imagine if they don't meet the months quota based on interviews from that month they'll look at the rankings from students who interviewed in previous months. So if you're way up at the top you might be one of those people who is accepted in the months earlier interviews. Otherwise, you'll keep getting status-unchanged in February. Come March though, they'll do alot of acceptances once all the potential candidates have interviewed. At that point, you'll get the Accepted, Wait-List or Denial email. It would be difficult to judge if someone was at the top or not. I don't think they tell you that until the waitlist is assembled. They let you know where you stand on that but otherwise you have no idea.

As always, the insight is appreciated. Not that it matters much at this point... but do you happen to know if any post-interview rejections or waitlist designations are made prior to March? Or does everyone just remain in a "non-accepted" pool?
 
For those who already go to MU or those who are accepted:
How does housing work out? I am an OOS applicant and I was wondering if there is on-campus housing available for medical students? what you recommend I do to ease into moving into Columbia? Also, how about buying a used car?

Thanks for your input,

Housing: Tons of apartments in Columbia. You shouldn't have trouble finding a place unless you're accepted in June or July. Slim pickings that late. That said, if you know you're attending school here, I'd try to set up an apartment now.
Good places w/in walking distance: The Ashwood Apartments, Ashley Ridge and Tara Apartments. Ashwood has undergrads, Ashley Ridge is grad-only and Tara is mostly grad-only and university-owned.
Typical college undergrad apartments: Copper Beech, Campus Lodge, The Reserve, Brookside Townhomes, Gateway Apartments and Grindstone Canyon.
Nice/Adult/Grad-only: Deer Valley Apartments, Countryclub Apartments, Katy Place, Kelly's Ridge and the hill.

There's a ton more. Check out www.apartmentfinder.com and search in Columbia.

I don't know of any medical students that live on campus. I don't believe there is any dedicated space for medical students or professionals that I know of. There are dorms almost next door the med school. There is also a dorm for junior/senior undergrads nearby. Definitely call the Mizzou Med Office and ask them for a definite answer. Most people live in apartments, duplexes, some still live at home, some roomate w/ other med students, etc.

As far as moving in to Columbia, get an apartment very soon as soon as you're accepted. Hopefully that's before Mayish. Leasing season is getting geared up here in Columbia. I wouldn't bring much with you coming from out of state. Like furniture and big stuff. There are some furnished apartments here in columbia so that might be a good option. The Links/The Greens apartments come furnished but that's a heck of a drive to school. I think The Reserve has furnished as well and Copper Beech does.

For the car..that's your call and where you end up living. You could live within walking distance to school and walk everyday but there's not really any grocery stores nearby or laundry facilities. A car would definitely be helpful.

My overall advice for moving would be 1. Get an apartment early 2. live close to school 3. dont bring furniture 4. dont worry if it's nice or crappy (you'll be mostly living at the med school come M1 year anyway) 5. when you're accepted, join the FB group and post about roomates if you want one (other people are probably looking for roomates as well) and 6. find a place that includes internet, cable and the like.

That should help. Let me know if you have more questions.
 
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As always, the insight is appreciated. Not that it matters much at this point... but do you happen to know if any post-interview rejections or waitlist designations are made prior to March? Or does everyone just remain in a "non-accepted" pool?

No problem. Glad to help everyone out on here as much as I can. Wait-list definitely not. They don't put it together until March. They wait until everyone has interviewed. As far as rejections, as long as my memory serves me correctly they do rejections before March. When they do the rankings each month they assign some numerical score to each applicant and total hypothesis here but maybe if the applicant falls below some determined numerical score they send them the rejection letter prior to March. People who are in the gray-zone likely keep getting the status-unchanged until March when they accept, wait-list or reject. The top people each month are the ones who get accepted in the early months and that is very few people. Something on the order of less than 10. Most of what I know is here-say and talking with the admissions person when I was accepted. The whole admissions process is still very unknown even once a med student.
 
I wonder how much of the class comes from of the wait list. Not to set myself up for failure 🙂 I also noticed that there is no EM residency in columbia. Has anyone heard anything about future plans to start one?
 
Quick ?: does it still hold true that oos-ers get in-state tuition after a year? Thanks.
 
Quick ?: does it still hold true that oos-ers get in-state tuition after a year? Thanks.

Yep. During our financial aid presentation, we were told that OOS matriculants seeking in-state status for second year have a 100% success rate 🙂. Be prepared to get a new driver's license and register as a Missouri voter, or do whatever else it may take.
 
Bank on ~20-30% of class being wait-listers. The top third usually gets in for sure. Middle third is a gamble although some people do get in. Bottom third definitely no. Correct on no EM residency. I believe there are plans for a future EM residency but dont know the timeline.

For OOSers, you have to make $2000 in MO. You can do that by research at the school, externships in the hospital, student orientation leader or mini med school counsler. Or you can obviously work another job in town.
 
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Housing: Tons of apartments in Columbia. You shouldn't have trouble finding a place unless you're accepted in June or July. Slim pickings that late. That said, if you know you're attending school here, I'd try to set up an apartment now.
Good places w/in walking distance: The Ashwood Apartments, Ashley Ridge and Tara Apartments. Ashwood has undergrads, Ashley Ridge is grad-only and Tara is mostly grad-only and university-owned.
Typical college undergrad apartments: Copper Beech, Campus Lodge, The Reserve, Brookside Townhomes, Gateway Apartments and Grindstone Canyon.
Nice/Adult/Grad-only: Deer Valley Apartments, Countryclub Apartments, Katy Place, Kelly's Ridge and the hill.

There's a ton more. Check out www.apartmentfinder.com and search in Columbia.

I don't know of any medical students that live on campus. I don't believe there is any dedicated space for medical students or professionals that I know of. There are dorms almost next door the med school. There is also a dorm for junior/senior undergrads nearby. Definitely call the Mizzou Med Office and ask them for a definite answer. Most people live in apartments, duplexes, some still live at home, some roomate w/ other med students, etc.

As far as moving in to Columbia, get an apartment very soon as soon as you're accepted. Hopefully that's before Mayish. Leasing season is getting geared up here in Columbia. I wouldn't bring much with you coming from out of state. Like furniture and big stuff. There are some furnished apartments here in columbia so that might be a good option. The Links/The Greens apartments come furnished but that's a heck of a drive to school. I think The Reserve has furnished as well and Copper Beech does.

For the car..that's your call and where you end up living. You could live within walking distance to school and walk everyday but there's not really any grocery stores nearby or laundry facilities. A car would definitely be helpful.

My overall advice for moving would be 1. Get an apartment early 2. live close to school 3. dont bring furniture 4. dont worry if it's nice or crappy (you'll be mostly living at the med school come M1 year anyway) 5. when you're accepted, join the FB group and post about roomates if you want one (other people are probably looking for roomates as well) and 6. find a place that includes internet, cable and the like.

That should help...haha. Let me know if you have more questions. I'm obviously full of information.

Thank you so much for your reply. I truly appreciate it. This is very helpful indeed. I will be there at Second Look Day March 24th. I am very excited to meet future classmates and check Columbia out.
 
Yeah, I believe so. Very few students are accepted each month and I imagine if they don't meet the months quota based on interviews from that month they'll look at the rankings from students who interviewed in previous months. So if you're way up at the top you might be one of those people who is accepted in the months earlier interviews. Otherwise, you'll keep getting status-unchanged in February. Come March though, they'll do alot of acceptances once all the potential candidates have interviewed. At that point, you'll get the Accepted, Wait-List or Denial email. It would be difficult to judge if someone was at the top or not. I don't think they tell you that until the waitlist is assembled. They let you know where you stand on that but otherwise you have no idea.

Is it generally early or late march for acceptances/waitlists?
 
Is it generally early or late march for acceptances/waitlists?

The end of March is when the final acceptances are sent out, final denials and the wait-listees are notified. April and May are slow months regarding waitlist movement. Last year there was a lot of movement in June and July. Wait-listers can be accepted right up to orientation week (the week before school) and maybe even during orientation so there's still hope if some unlucky soul on these boards doesn't have an acceptance in July but is on the wait-list for Mizzou.
 
Is it generally early or late march for acceptances/waitlists?

They have to let you know Accepted, Waitlisted, or Rejected by March 15th. So mid March, looking at last year's thread it was about the 11th I believe. Don't know if they are on the same schedule as last year, but guess about the same time period. If you are waitlisted can call and see what third of the waitlist you are in once you find out you are waitlisted.
 
Cancelled my interview here. Good luck to everyone else 🙂.
 
I wonder how much of the class comes from of the wait list. Not to set myself up for failure 🙂 I also noticed that there is no EM residency in columbia. Has anyone heard anything about future plans to start one?

Hi, I'm an M2 here and recently spoke with Dr. Bornstein who is working on setting up an EM residency. He said the residency program "might" be up and running by the time my class graduates but should definitely be ready for the class of 2015.
 
If you are accepted and know that you will be going here at Mizzou, pm me if you are looking for a male roomate for the upcoming school year. I am going to be an M1 and I put my name for a graduate housing place which is 5 minutes away from the school. I am an OOS applicant from California and I will be there during Second Look Day on March 24th to check out the school and the housing place.
 
Thanks for your post. Could you elaborate on the pass/fail curriculum? Is it truly pass/fail or does it have some sort of internal ranking? I thought someone told me that it is pass/fail, but they rank you based on percentiles, with the top percentile being in the top 20%, and so on.

Again, thank you!

Okay, here's the dealio on the grading system...

M1: Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory
M2: Honors/Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory
M3: Honors/Letter of Commendation/Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory
M4: Honors/Letter of Commendation/Satisfactory/Unsatisfactory

No school can truly have a simple pass-fail system for all four years. The hitch is the Medical Student Performance Evaluation (MSPE, formerly known as the "Dean's Letter"). The AAMC/LCME requires medical schools produce the MSPE on all graduating medical students. The guidelines for the MSPE require a summary of the student's comparative performance in medical school, relative to his/her peers, including information about any school-specific categories used in differentiating among levels of student performance.

Or simply put, the school has to compare your performance to your peers at the end of the day.

Let's dive into the grading system a little deeper shall we?

M1: Collaboration is an essential part of PBL. Hiding references or making objectives with incorrect information to 86 your fellow-classmates' chances at doing well runs opposite of what PBL is about. To help foster an environment of working together, you are graded "pass/fail." Passing with a 71% is weighted exactly the same as passing with a 98%. The only officially recorded (transcript, etc.) grade is the "satisfactory." (Or if you fail and then pass on remediation..."U/S".) This holds true throughout medical school. (Got it jtdMU2010?)

M2: After a year of PBL, collaboration is well engrained and it's time for students to start distinguishing themselves. "Honors" is added to the scale. It's not easy to get honors. You must score high enough on ALL the exams and receive the subjective grade of "honors" from your PBL/IPC faculty facilitator. Only a handful of students will get honors each block.

M3: Welcome to a whole new ballgame. Subjective evaluations from residents and attendings play a larger part of your grade. Home-grown exams are replaced with the NBME Subject (Shelf) exams. Each of the core clerkships sets the criteria for honors/letters/pass/fail for their block. The good news is that if you just show-up you will pass 3rd year. Letters requires some effort. Honors requires scoring well in all aspects of the rotation.

M4: No exams. Just subjective evals from residents and attendings. This is how the rest of your professional life works, so might as well embrace it. The good news is, pretty much everyone honors everything 4th year. The bad new is, pretty much everyone honors everything 4th year so it doesn't help distinguish you from everyone else in the end.

MSPE: Finally, in your 4th year, since the school has to compare your performance, they take a look at all the honors, letters, passes, and failures and split the class into a few major categories like "Exceptional, Outstanding, Excellent, Strong, Satisfactory." There are no strict percentages on how many students end up in each group. Extracurriculars (leadership, research, volunteering, etc.) can help bump you up a group if it looks like you're close to the cut-off.

But...does all this matter? In my experience, not really. Getting into a residency is multifaceted. The actual grading system at your school doesn't matter since you are compared to the other students at YOUR school in the MSPE. If you are the kind-of students that does well, you'll do well. If you'll struggle, then you'll struggle regardless of whether the system you're in is strictly ranked or more loosely categorized.

A much more important thing to consider is the type of learning environment you will thrive in. If you have multiple acceptances, go to the school that has the best "fit." For some, PBL is awesome. For others, it's torture. Vice-versa for a lecture based curriculum. Step 1 is important, so, if you have a choice go somewhere that maximizes the fit and minimizes the cost.

After that, you should be asking about the 3rd year. This is where you get to "play doctor" and "try on" different specialties. I know you think you know what kind of doctor you want to be, but there are certain realities you don't know about yet and you'll get a better view 3rd year. This is where you'll start to get your letters of recommendations for residency. Many, many people change their mind and match into a different specialty based on their 3rd year experiences. A bad 3rd year where you don't get to see patients independently and present your plans or where attendings don't challenge you and allow you to prove yourself makes it hard to set-up a chip-shot into the residency of your choice. (BTW, great 3rd and 4th year at Mizzou).

Whew! Way more than you wanted to know, but I'm feeling chatty tonight. Good luck on the rest of your application season. Maybe I'll see you somewhere on the other side!
 
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Thanks for the very informative post Captain and clearing it all up. Wish I would have known all this the last two blocks.
 
Thanks Captain, your post was, well, fantastic 😛
 
My two cents for those who are considering MU:

You'll see lots of PBL bashing here on SDN. I'm not precisely sure why, although one could argue that the most efficient way of going through medical school (in terms of grades and Step 1) would be to have no PBL, lectures, anatomy lab, or clinical experiences, and just read through review books to take exams, though this sounds awful to me.

That being said, PBL is basically the kind of curriculum I've always wanted but no school I've ever gone to has had the balls or trust in its students to pull off. I love PBL. Every week I look forward to tackling a complex and usually interesting case (even if no one in the PBL group knows exactly what's going on) and thinking. Lots of medical school is rote memorization, so the PBL cases enable the material to be relevant and engaging. They also break up the monotony by sometimes having video or live simulated patient interviews as parts of the cases.

With few exceptions, most all of the students at Mizzou have drunk the PBL Kool Aid (and I mean that very positively). This makes all the difference and PBL sessions are usually productive, insightful, and genuinely exciting (even though it's pretend, it's still fun to have the "patient" in your case have a bizarre constellation of symptoms you have to figure out). I would dislike having PBL with many of the anti-PBLers on this forum. At Mizzou, most everyone takes the process seriously.

Best of luck to all the interviewees!
 
It'd be sweet to get good news tomorrow

So I know the email said that the admissions committee would "finish up" by late February...when do you think that puts us getting final emails? Mid March?
 
So I know the email said that the admissions committee would "finish up" by late February...when do you think that puts us getting final emails? Mid March?

Nevermind! I just answered my own question...! sorry guys
 
Does anyone know if they are still doing update emails today? Also I think March 15th is the deadline where they send everyone updates?
 
I got nothing yesterday. Also yeah, we will know sometime before March 15th.
 
I didn't either. Im guessing they are just gonna skip this month and wait a few more weeks for the big one.
 
I am going to be going to Mizzou next year as an M1. Are there any males here looking for a roommate? Email me at [email protected] if you are interested and we can talk about some things.
 
I can't believe the wait is almost over! Unless we get waitlisted... and then the waiting begins again :scared:
 
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