Frazier,
1) MS1 have 20 hours/week + some activities (like clinical learning groups, various shadowings, etc). MS2 have 24 hours/week + many more activities. In the Spring MS1 have less lectures, but they spend 9 hours/week in a gross lab (mandatory) and 4 hours/week in a micro anatomy lab (optional).
1a) Lectures start at 8 a.m. However, their attendance is optional both years. All lectures are being recorded and posted online.
2) As far as I know, we are not obligated to do any research at any point during the entire 4 years. The only time when we do research is during our 1st summer break. I mean summer between the first and second years. Closer to the end of the 1st year, students get information about research positions and there are plenty of them. I didn't do any research, but I am 95% positive that there are more positions then willing students and you can find a position in any area of medicine you are interested in. Some OOS people contacted schools in their area and did research while also spending time with their families. I know two classmates who did research during summer at UC San Diego and Hopkins.
One caveat though. Many students after their first year are so beat up that they even don't want to hear about any research, externships and stuff like that
2a) As far as we are told by our school authorities: all opportunities at Morgantown = Charleston = Eastern division. Plus, even if you are scheduled to do your rotations at one place, you can still do a couple of them elsewhere.
3) Yes, our school gives us this information. I don't remember the exact number, but I am 99% confident that our average is between 225-230. A few people unfortunately always fail
🙁 but this year we had 15 students (out of a little over 100) who scored 250+ on Step 1
😱
We don't have any official prep course for Step 1. But we are given a little over a month to study for it. In terms of Step 1 philosophy it seems to me that WVU is somewhere in the middle but a little bit closer to "pride themselves in not teaching towards Step1".
I am MS2. I have signed up for DIT and Kaplan but decided not to study for Step 1 until at least the winter break.
4) Our IS tuition is ~ 23K/year, and OOS ~50K/year; and there is NO WAY for an OOS to become IS while in school. So I guess you can see the heaviness of the ball and shorness of the chain
😳
.
