Here is my review after the tour...
For people who aren't from Atlanta, or Georgia period, like myself, I pay attention to the highways. I'm from Dallas, so I'm use to operating on 3+ lane highways. I need to know how functional the city is, and how easy it is to navigate, if I had to move outside the city limits. I don't want to live 30 miles from the school, and it take me 2 hours to get there, as it did when I was in DC. The highways are 4+ lanes, and it's easy to navigate. The traffic was not bad at all, compared to DC, and I was there for 5 days.
I visited several different suburbs, and could find apartments within reasonable price range. Now, if you go to Buckhead just to say you live in Buckhead, then you'll run out of money quick. I looked for cities that had good school districts. Atlanta which is in fulton county, has good school districts, and Gwinnet county, which is Suwanee, and places like that have great school district. Now if you don't have kids then that doesn't matter, but I have a son, so that's important to me. I also toured PCOM (DO SCHOOL), which is in Suwanee, and it is a great great facility as well. Commuting from Suwannee to Atlanta is not advisable, that traffic is horrible, and that' s the only time I experienced traffic, where I sat for long periods of time.
Atlanta is relatively priced when it comes to food, gas, etc. Wouldn't be that much different from Dallas. The gas is right around 3.60, which is about 10cents higher than where I am now.
I would advise staying away from West Atlanta, because it's just ghetto, but Busy Bee's has really good food, that's about all I would go over there for. I was eating there and they closed at 7pm, and they had wire bars over the windows, so I asked, hey what's up with this, and they answered "well we were robbed once".. now understand you could get robbed anywhere, but I like to stay away from places where it's "known" to be an area of high crime rate. They had an on duty police officer the entire time.
Okay, now on to Morehouse. Where do I even begin? First off, 5 out of 5 stars. To recap, Howard 3.5/5, Meharry 4/5, and Morehouse, hit every single thing I was looking for. I will say that I was a little apprehensive pulling up to the location and area of the school because this part of Atlanta was a little "sketchy", in my opinion but I've noticed most HBCUs are in that part of town. My best friend made a really good point by saying, "you have to realize back in that time, that's where the majority of the black people lived, across the tracks"... point noted.
Well, first off let me say the school is absolutely beautiful. It's mostly decorated in blue décor. The people are EXTREMELY friendly and nice. The upkeep is nice, the landscaping is superb, so the actual outside is very eye catching. They have security gates, so not everyone can access the property, which is what I love. The medical school is a completely different establishment, which I 'm sure most know, but it is still relatively close to Clark, Spelman, and Morehouse College. They are all within walking distance. I didn't see a lot of undergrad traffic, as I did at Howard and Meharry, which I think is a plus.
I met with my tour guide, and we did a walk around the campus and pointed out several buildings. They have several research opportunities, which include The Cardiovascular Research Institute; The Center of Excellence on Health Disparities; The National Center for Primary Care; The Neuroscience Institute (NI); Prevention Research Center (PRC); Research Core Facility and The Satcher Health Leadership Institute (SHLI). They do offer early opportunities for research, but primary care is their baby as he spoke several time about the NCPC.
What I absolutely love is that they have the first female president now. YAY. Haha, I'm a feminist so I was sold after I heard this.
Okay lectures, 8-4 Monday-Friday. Grading scale A-F. The lecture hall is very close knit, small, but a good small. The current class has 78 students. I saw some students in the class room, they were chilling having lunch, and they looked to be close. Each student is provided with a computer, which I thought was nice. In Texas our class sizes are 230, and I honestly prefer a smaller class size.
We won't be a number here. Chances are you'll get an excellent education at Morehouse simply because of the amount of time and energy that the professors put into your education. We will all know the professors names, and they will know ours. They are more than willing to stay until 8 or 9pm one on one helping you with any questions. (If you are that type of student that needs to talk to professors).
The library is awesome. You can tell it is updated. They have 24 hour study rooms. They have a dry erase wall in each room. Not board but wall. Huge plus.
The curriculum is organ based which is what I love. 4 students to one cadaver, compared to Howard you have 6.
Every first year is paired with a 2nd year mentor. They offer several counseling options for people who need additional help.
Morehouse has a 100% Step 1 pass rate.
I love the set up for their OSCE exams, and the process of being recorded for feedback.
I asked about rotations, and the majority of MSM training occurs at Grady Memorial Hospital, which is like the Parkland of Georgia. If you don't know what Parkland is then shame on you.
Moving on.. I didn't find info about this 2014 match , but for 2013, According to Dr. Valerie Montgomery Rice, president 96% of MSM seniors received a match. Now I don't know how many people had to scramble etc
I literally have no complaints or cons. If I had to pick ONE con, it would be distance because I have a child and that's not everyone's situation, but other than nothing struck out as a red flag. Maybe the grading scale, but that's minor.
Side notes.. not everyone gets a secondary. I asked. 5000+ applicants, they interview 299.
First round of interviews goes out in September.
If you can think of any questions just ask me.
Out of the HBCUs I rank them Morehouse, Meharry, and then Howard.
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