I got a phone call from the Dean.
2013-2014 Washington University in St. Louis Application Thread
- Thread starter gettheleadout
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I got a phone call from the Dean.
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What time?
So my call came in on Wednesday at about 1230PM EST. Oh and thanks for the link PlumAzul - I got into the group and have been perusing to my heart's content.. seems to be a pretty cool class.
Hey guys! Just got accepted yesterday and very, very excited. But, this does make for some difficult decisions in the next four days. For current students, I have a few questions:
- Why WashU? What drew you here and have you found those things to remain true?
- How do you feel about the change from P/F to H/HP/P/F? And, I hear the second year is very lecture-heavy. Good or bad?
- International/Global Health is a very important focus for me. What sorts of things have you or other students done? Is anyone involved with FIHTM and able to give me a bit more insight on what goes on with that?
- I wanted to learn a bit more about the possibility of an MPH, but the link on the website appears to be broken. Help?
- How do you feel about the city of St. Louis? Although I'm from the Midwest, I know very little about STL, which makes it difficult to picture spending four years there.
- Anything else you deem important when making this decision!
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- Excellent academic reputation. Abundant financial resources for tuition aid, research, and student organizations.
- I feel somewhat negatively. Second year is lecture-heavy. The complaints students have is not with the 'lecture' part, but the 'heavy' part. All complaints are typical of any traditional curriculum.
- I'm not involved with FIHTM so I'll defer to someone else. All I know is that plenty of people go to other countries with adequate funding and do things of interest.
- An MPH will likely be a possibility when you're ready to do it. The integrated program is not ready for primetime. If you absolutely need a top-ranked MPH to go with that MD, get it elsewhere.
- St. Louis is adequate and familiar to people from the Midwest. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/21/st-louis-reasons-to-love_n_4993763.html
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Has WashU released info on what computers to buy?
So I have a couple of questions now - how happy are any current students out there with the curriculum? Can you talk about the specifics of the mix of learning methodologies - like how much time do you spend in small group/team-based learning groups, lab groups, clinical skills and POM groups? Are all these different groups? How well done is it / how much do you like them? Do you have more/closer faculty contact during these groups? And knowing from prev. posts that the curriculum is in general lecture-heavy, how well are they done / what's the student engagement like?
Also, I have some questions about student life: How's the sense of community within the school and each individual class? Do people spend a lot of time with a good deal of their class, or do people spend more time hanging out with small groups of friends?
What's the food situation like - is the food on or practically on campus good? Are there good restaurants and groceries nearby school and the most common areas for students to live?
And most importantly lol, what's the dating scene for students like? Are there a lot of within-class or within-school relationships? Is there a lot of interaction with PT and OT students (they're on the same campus right?) Do med students hang out in areas that Wash U undergrads or other grad students, or other 20-somethings in general hang out? Is there even enough time for all the aforementioned socializing lol?
Also, I have some questions about student life: How's the sense of community within the school and each individual class? Do people spend a lot of time with a good deal of their class, or do people spend more time hanging out with small groups of friends?
What's the food situation like - is the food on or practically on campus good? Are there good restaurants and groceries nearby school and the most common areas for students to live?
And most importantly lol, what's the dating scene for students like? Are there a lot of within-class or within-school relationships? Is there a lot of interaction with PT and OT students (they're on the same campus right?) Do med students hang out in areas that Wash U undergrads or other grad students, or other 20-somethings in general hang out? Is there even enough time for all the aforementioned socializing lol?
I'll field a couple of these. There are probably about 16-20 hours of lecture a week with about 5 hours of small group. While I'm sure there are some that don't like this, I really loved it. All of the lectures are recorded and podcasts so you can watch the lectures whenever and wherever you'd like. This gave me the flexibility to spend a significant amount of time in the first two years taking short road trips and visiting friends and family in the area. Others use the flexibility to do a lot of shadowing or get involved in lots of research. This flexibility is enhanced by the fact that there are tests only about every 6-8 wks, so there is a considerable amount of variability of work that you must get done in any given week. You can pretty much always make time for something that you want to do, which is not always possibility in a small-group, PBL, or required lecture system.
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Also, I like our system because I feel that it maximizes my efficiency. If I know something already, I can plow through that section on the video at 2.5x. If I'm struggling to understand something I can slow down and pause to figure it out. I find that in a live class, whether lecture or small group, we spend too much time on things I already know and too little on things I don't and I have to go spend extra time later figuring it out
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Students are satisfied with the vast majority of curricular areas at greater than national average levels. One thing that I think sets WashU apart is the depth of student representation in administrative committees of the school (one or two students vote on every committee that the dean of med student education has a vote on) and the amount of feedback students give (liaisons for each course write a report based on course surveys and meet with the course master during and after the course to discuss changes). While the curriculum is very traditional, it's been in "continuous quality improvement" mode for many many years.
There are many good restaurants in the central west end. There is one overpriced grocery store (straubs) and another (whole foods) to be built maybe two years from now. People typically drive for groceries.
There are opportunities to interact with PT/OT students at occasional campus-wide socials, parties, case simulations, ballroom dance class, yoga, speed dating, the gym, etc. You will certainly get spam from them asking you to attend their fundraising social or other events to support their service trip to Guatemala. Dating other med students or holding onto a long distance relationship is more common though.
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Any recent waitlist movement?
I withdrew today, so there's bound to be at least one! From what I know, WashU's waitlist usually goes on til July. 🙂
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Congratulations! Mind providing your stats? Did you send them any updates since the time you were wait listed?
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Thanks! I did send them two letters of interest, one right after I got waitlisted in Feb and one at the beginning of May. If you're serious about going, I would send them a letter now - a letter very late in the cycle probably means more than a letter earlier in the cycle because most people have gotten everything settled for whichever medical school they are holding that one acceptance, so the ADCOM knows accepting an offer off the waitlist at this point is a bigger decision. So really, it doesn't hurt to tell them you're still interested now because it shows them that if they accept you off the waitlist, you will definitely take the offer! 🙂
I'd rather not share my exact stats but my GPA was >3.8 and my MCAT was >35.
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You might want to check the roommate google doc that was posted on the facebook page ~1 month ago 👍
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I just happened upon this old thread and thought some comments were interesting. I would argue that the perceived difference between medical schools is probably less than people would think. Medical students are already from a very select population making differences very subtle. I have numerous anecdotes of the top schools such as wash u generating differential robots who have memorized books etc., but really struggle with the personal interaction necessary to be an outstanding physician. I generally combat these generalizations with counterexamples, but there probably is a grain of truth to be found here. As a student from a middle tier school, I performed likely in the top third of my class (no ranking divulged to us) but would still fall short of AOA. There are some truly outstanding students at the top of my class with Step scores in the 260-270+ range. My step score was probably a few points above the average wash u student (based on 15 points above national average stated on their admissions website), and I am by no means at the top of my class. My point is going to a "lesser tier" school will not guarantee an average wash u type student AOA status at that lesser tier school. In general, those students with AOA at lesser tier schools would probably have done well at top tier schools. Fewer people are given honors at lower tier schools, and the difference between honors and near honors is generally dependent on personal interaction with attendings, so basically you have to have a great personality on top of great test scores to perform well at lower tier scores. I would thus argue for anyone that has been accepted to a Wash U or Northwestern etc. to go despite fears of lower performance. The rec letters and name recognition of a really good school will carry you further than an above average performance at a middle tier school. If you don't believe me, look at the match lists between a middle tier and top tier school. Remember that the average person at a top tier school would probably perform around the 67-85% for a middle tier school. The numbers would likely show that a disproportionate amount of students at places like wash u end up at top residencies despite similar test scores to those in that above average category at the middle tier school.
TLDR: just go to the Ivy League if you can and don't look back
