Current student here, just wanted to share a few words with you guys. I fell in love with this school on interview day. Having attended here, I can tell you it's not all what it's chopped up to be. I'm not saying it's a bad school, but don't just fall in love and tunnel vision in on one school. If it sounds too good to be true, it is. Here are some real pros and cons of this school when you are considering which to attend (disclaimer, I am one person, although I am confident I reflect the opinions of many, so take my opinions for what they're worth. And my motive for writing this is that I wish someone had told me these things when I was applying. Also, I apologize for being vague. I'm doing it to maintain anonymity.).
Pros:
The anatomy class has really developed and it will get better every year. The professors here are very qualified and helpful.
The admissions team is amazing and so is ~50-60% of faculty/staff.
The vision of the school is great and so is Dean Folberg (although sometimes the vision just feels like a lofty goal).
Beaumont is incredible. They are an established teaching hospital that knows what they're doing.
Cons:
You are given unbearable amounts of extraneous/borderline worthless assignmentson top of the large amount of material you'd expect from any medical school. Many classes are required and you'll wonder why you had to trek through 8 inches of freshly laid snow to listen to them. The extraneous assignments will affect your ability to study the material for the main classes or affect your ability to do anything else besides school.
OU is a commuter school and you can spend upwards of 30-40 minutes to find parking some days (average ~10-15 minutes)
Due to red tape, as students, we don't have much room to lead community engagement projects. Many of our ideas and projects are shut down before we can even begin to figure out how to do them. I feel like my passion for service has been effectively squashed.
It is touted that we spend 1 day a week at the hospital. And for most of us that's a 30-40 minutes drive for classes that we could just as easily had at OU.
Anyway, again. This is NOT a bad school. But it is definitely not the school I thought it was when I fell in love with it during interview day. Just saying make your choices carefully, as I wish I had.
If you have questions, I may respond, I may not. I'm really hoping to maintain anonymity here.
Also a current student. I just wanted to respond to this from a different perspective...
I saw this post and was really surprised to read the phrase "I am confident I reflect the opinions of many." I don't want to give the impression that there are no frustrations that come with being part of a new school because there definitely are, but I don't get the impression that many students here are overall dissatisfied with OUWB. And though I do think some of the things you listed are valid concerns, I personally think a lot of "pros" are missing from your evaluation.
I think zhartley already addressed a lot of this, so I'll try to add to what he said.
I specifically want to talk about community service. Yes, red tape exists. It sucks and it's everywhere. Some of this is due to us being a new school (a.k.a. walking on eggshells until the accreditation is official), some of it is due to that fact that we are working with actual people with real issues: medical, social, etc. You can't just walk in as a med student and do whatever you want - and I'm willing to bet that fact is ubiquitous. I had to learn that and go through those frustrations too with my Capstone project. What's amazing though is that there is still so much that we can do without overstepping those red tape boundaries. Volunteering and community service opportunities are never-ending here. From administering flu shots in the community, multiple awareness/fundraising/walk campaigns, to educational workshops, to mentoring underprivileged youth, there is always something in the works. Some weekends, the challenge for me has been deciding which of these events to attend. Most of these are student-led with the guidance and help of faculty. To take it one step further, Capstone is a great way to make an impact in the community. In fact, they encourage it. There are no less than 20 students in the Class of 2017 alone who are doing Capstone projects working with marginalized and disadvantaged groups to investigate things such as mental status, healthcare knowledge, quality of care, and how to improve such things.
I also want to address those "extraneous" assignments and classes. I assume you're talking about Medical Humanities and Clinical Bioethics, Art and Practice of Medicine, and Promotion and Maintenance of Health, and (maybe) Capstone. Especially before exams, I can see where you're coming from. No one likes to spend 2 hours in a non-tested lecture 4 days before the exam. We're stressed and we'd rather hole up in a library and bury ourselves in books. The stress never ends. However, much of the material in these classes can and will show up on boards. Probably more importantly, OUWB is trying to make us not only competent doctors but knowledgeable, caring, and ethical as well. They don't want us just to know anatomy, phys, and all the systems, but they also want us to understand the health problems facing our communities and be able to address them in effective ways. They want us to care about our patients and work well on a healthcare team. They want us to show up to rotations in M3 and know how to take a good history and PE without looking like complete fools. I guess my point is that there is a method to the madness and a bigger picture to take into consideration. I think this is the vision of the school that you listed as a pro. It's what Dean Folberg envisioned for the students.
Lastly, I want to say again that I don't discredit the frustrations you have. I've felt them all at one point or another as well. The beauty of OUWB is that the admissions staff have done such a great job of picking amazing people to fill their classes; we are all here to support each other through this stuff. We get frustrated together, trudge through IRB proposals together, barely pass the pelvis/perineum lab practical together, take Mario Party breaks in the lounge when are brains are hurting from studying too many consecutive hours. We organize volunteer projects and have meaningful out-of-class discussions on the ethics of advance directives. When one of us is struggling, we band together and get them through it. We have a facebook group dedicated to sharing notes, books, online learning tools, and reminding each other when papers are coming up. We also have a facebook group dedicated to sharing memes and other lolz. We are 100% a family.
That being said, I hope you don't remain completely anonymous. You have 3 classes full of students and a whole building full of faculty who I'm sure would love to talk with you and help make your time at OUWB amazing.
