2017-2018 Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine - Carolinas Campus

[ncstate23]

is it too late to submit a secondary?

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[mabemo]

is it too late to submit a secondary?

If your stats are on point and you have great EC's I don't think it's too late! ....and also VCOM is slower with their application cycles. YOU MISS 100 PERCENT OF THE SHOTS YOU DON'T TAKE!

 

[kmd.exe]

I received the "application complete" status in the portal on 8/22 and have heard nothing since. Is this normal? Probably a bad sign I'm guessing.

 

[Aquarius9017]

I received the "application complete" status in the portal on 8/22 and have heard nothing since. Is this normal? Probably a bad sign I'm guessing.

I'm on the same boat as you. I was complete since 09/08 but haven't heard anything since then.

 

[SCdallas]

I received the "application complete" status in the portal on 8/22 and have heard nothing since. Is this normal? Probably a bad sign I'm guessing.

Complete 8/9/17 - I haven't heard anything either. I'm just trying to keep the faith. It says "Applications will be reviewed for interviews periodically throughout the application process. If you are not granted an interview during the first review, please be advised that your application will stay active and will be eligible for review at subsequent sessions."

 

[ncstate23]

Question- So on the secondary, you have to list a DO and a professor who is writing your recommendation for you. If I already submitted my letters to AAOMCAS, will my recommenders have to submit the recommendation to VCOM separately?

 

[brywigh]

Question- So on the secondary, you have to list a DO and a professor who is writing your recommendation for you. If I already submitted my letters to AAOMCAS, will my recommenders have to submit the recommendation to VCOM separately?

I don't think so. IIRC, they are able to get the letters directly from AACOMAS.

 

[treasure_yourself]

Accepted here a while ago but going to withdraw my application. Hope it goes to one of you guys!

 

[ssq]

Accepted here a while ago but going to withdraw my application. Hope it goes to one of you guys!

Congrats, but why withdraw? U must got accepted somewhere else u like better?

 

[treasure_yourself]

Congrats, but why withdraw? U must got accepted somewhere else u like better?

Yeah I got accepted somewhere else. Also, I didn't like how VCOM-CC has mandatory attendance, dress code, and Spartanburg is too suburban white town for me.

 

[brywigh]

VCOM-CC had their annual open house yesterday and I felt that they did a great job with the event. They gave us some swag bags when we walked in then they had some first and second year students come through and speak to each prospective student to answer questions and share their experiences with VCOM. Dean Kowalski did a brief introductory presentation about the history of osteopathic medicine, then we separated into groups and went to the OMM Lab, the gross anatomy lab, and the Sim Center. Overall it was a great experience and even if I had not already committed, I think I would have been persuaded to anyway after yesterday. Happy to answer any questions about what they specifically said.

 

[AHUUM]

Going to be declining my acceptance tomorrow. Good luck to everyone

 

[hayisferhorses]

Received a phone call from a very nice lady regarding a II today. Respectfully declined because I will be attending another school. Was complete mid July. There's still hope for all of you who submitted early apps!!!

 

[lsnowfuturedo]

Thought my interview went great but was rejected a few days later. Good luck to everyone else! Hopefully you have what they're looking for!

 

[southerngirl7899]

II this morning, but I'll be declining, complete email Sept 1

 

[lksmith17]

11/13 Interviewees- Were we supposed to hear back today? Have any of you heard anything?

 

[Maverick2023]

11/13 Interviewees- Were we supposed to hear back today? Have any of you heard anything?

Interviewed 11/13. Got an email that I’m waitlisted today .

 

[Vrachika]

Hey all, just wanted to come on here and say I am a current student here and I am open to answer any questions you may have about the school or the interview process.

Feel free to PM me but if you feel comfortable posting your questions here please do as others may have similar questions. I usually check SDN daily.

Good luck with the process! I remember how stressful it can be and don't envy your plight, but your hard work WILL pay off! Hope to see some of y'all next year!

 

[Mike Nana]

Lots of problems with this school. PM for details.

 

[calivianya]

Just interviewed here, and man, is it beautiful - gorgeous campus with brand-new facilities. It was definitely the most conversational interview I've had - all three of my interviewers were extremely friendly and tried to make me feel welcome, which they did. After the first five minutes of the first interview, I wasn't even nervous anymore.

I wasn't super excited about the school before I interviewed, but I am now. Hoping they give me some love!

 

[Mike Nana]

Got a lot of PMs asking me what I found wrong with the school, so ill just go ahead and post the issues here:
Now these aren't huge problems that can't be fixed, but they are problems that the faculty and staff are all well aware of yet do nothing to fix.

As first years we have had several professors who seemingly 1.) don't care about actually conveying information 2.) are flat out not great at their jobs, and there seems to be a high turn over rate of professors which can't be a good thing 3) An extreme lack of organization

There are many, many problems here but just to name a few that I have seen myself: very poorly written exams (spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, font/highlighting mistakes, questions being thrown out all the time), you don't get access to your exams (no right to argue poor questions either). The Number 1 biggest problem with this school is the way the exams are written, they recycle questions from the last 5/6 years so while they did just start holding "exam review sessions" you are not allowed to ever write down questions, it is with 150 other people (goodluck getting an explanation on a question you have), and many times this means the questions were written by Professors that haven't actually lectured to you or even written your powerpoint, so you can see where problems of miscommunication begin to occur. Our last Clinical Medicine exam average was a 63%, and this is perfectly fine its medical school it should be hard. But what is not fine is we can't see what we did wrong or get an explanation as to why this was a bad answer choice. Many times questions and the answers truly are wrong and you can't do much about it (there are exceptions to this such as the brilliant anatomy department who does ensure we can review, argue and learn from our mistakes). It is not very conducive to learning in the long run.

other problems: 80% required attendance but there are pop quizzes (thus 100% required attendance), the exam schedule is very very poor and not well thought out, there are several poor professors who either can't lecture, don't care to lecture, or flat out just don't lecture and the class becomes self learning (pathology is nearly 80-90% no lectures, learn yourself at home), the library is closed maybe 2-3 times a week (knocking out of more than half the study areas).

Overall many of the professors are great, but there some important ones that are not.

My biggest advice? Talk to a student who goes here currently, hear what they have to say and ask them about these things. We are all very frustrated.

 

[Vrachika]

I have also been getting a lot of PMs that ask similar questions so I will post here as well. I am also a current student here (OMS 1) though I don't share the same level of frustration with the above poster.

Cons:
-80% mandatory attendance (so if you know that is something you will absolutely hate obviously consider attending elsewhere)
-Spartanburg is meh but there are schools in a lot worse places...the good news is you won't have tons of distractions for school, but my biggest complaint is lack of diverse cuisine.
-traditional grades (A,B,C, etc). I think I would have preferred pass/fail
-I also agree with the above poster that some professors aren't so great and there are occasionally poorly written exam questions
-6 persons to a cadaver, and we dissect in groups of 3 (within your group of 6), so not everyone does every dissection, we switch off (could be a pro if you hate dissecting, but i def see it as a con) however with that said we still have an awesome anatomy department and I feel I am learning anatomy probably above and beyond what others are getting at other schools...still wish I got to do every dissection tho

Pros:
-responsive/supportive administration
-people seem to be aware of the realities of the merger/taking boards/USMLE
-library has all required textbooks (I haven't bought a single book)
-lots of opportunity for volunteering
-international volunteering during preclinical and the ability to do international rotations
-we do have some opportunities for research if you want to do that
-school has bought us a couple Q banks to use, so I'm glad they spent my tuition dollars on something besides grass lol
-awesome anatomy department/lab (even though we are six to a cadaver), new building, pretty campus (see above comment about grass)

In response to what the above postures said (and please understand I have no intention of starting an arguement here, just want to clear a few things up and give my point of view as well)

-we no longer have pop quizzes. This was announced last week I believe. The quizzes must be scheduled or be online, so you can indeed miss 20% of classes with ease now. In fact I have not been back to lecture since this announcement This was in response to feedback from students, hence my including responsive/supportive administration in my pro list. They also aren't very good at taking attendance so you can def get away with less attendance than 80%, I know I do. I agree that the pop quizzes were VERY frustrating prior to their abolishment.

-there were some issues with the library I agree. We were under staffed so if anyone was sick, etc it was closed. This is now being addressed by the administration by hiring some students for "work study" at the library, so that's pretty cool too. However I do wish the library opened earlier during the week and on weekends in general, so if you are a big morning person who loves the library you could add that to cons (I think hours are 7am-12am, and a little less on weekends)

-I like the self guided path lectures but I guess that's just me.. makes for less mandatory class time, and the professor does hold review sessions for his lectures sometimes.

-I do agree that there are some iffy professors, a few poorly worded test questions per test, and I do hate we aren't allowed to have our tests back. HOWEVER I've heard of stuff like this at nearly every school, even MD schools so idk how much weight I would put on that.

I thought that CM test average was a 73% But maybe I heard wrong. Also just wondering what you mean by poorly scheduled tests? Just wondering.

School is not perfect for sure, but I don't feel frustrated, and I would choose this school again. I would echo the advice of the above poster to talk to as many current students as you can, see what they all have to say, to get a well rounded look of the school.

 

[calivianya]

Accepted today after interviewing Tuesday!

I'll see you guys next year!

 

[blizzard9]

Anybody here back from the 12/6 interviews?

 

[ncstate23]

Anybody here back from the 12/6 interviews?

Interviewed earlier this week and have not. We were told that we would this afternoon but not sure if thats happening...

 

[blizzard9]

Interviewed earlier this week and have not. We were told that we would this afternoon but not sure if thats happening...

Yeah I've been checking nonstop today really losing my mind over here ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[kelminak]

Hey all, just wanted to come on here and say I am a current student here and I am open to answer any questions you may have about the school or the interview process.

Feel free to PM me but if you feel comfortable posting your questions here please do as others may have similar questions. I usually check SDN daily.

Good luck with the process! I remember how stressful it can be and don't envy your plight, but your hard work WILL pay off! Hope to see some of y'all next year!

Got a lot of PMs asking me what I found wrong with the school, so ill just go ahead and post the issues here:
Now these aren't huge problems that can't be fixed, but they are problems that the faculty and staff are all well aware of yet do nothing to fix.

As first years we have had several professors who seemingly 1.) don't care about actually conveying information 2.) are flat out not great at their jobs, and there seems to be a high turn over rate of professors which can't be a good thing 3) An extreme lack of organization

There are many, many problems here but just to name a few that I have seen myself: very poorly written exams (spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, font/highlighting mistakes, questions being thrown out all the time), you don't get access to your exams (no right to argue poor questions either). The Number 1 biggest problem with this school is the way the exams are written, they recycle questions from the last 5/6 years so while they did just start holding "exam review sessions" you are not allowed to ever write down questions, it is with 150 other people (goodluck getting an explanation on a question you have), and many times this means the questions were written by Professors that haven't actually lectured to you or even written your powerpoint, so you can see where problems of miscommunication begin to occur. Our last Clinical Medicine exam average was a 63%, and this is perfectly fine its medical school it should be hard. But what is not fine is we can't see what we did wrong or get an explanation as to why this was a bad answer choice. Many times questions and the answers truly are wrong and you can't do much about it (there are exceptions to this such as the brilliant anatomy department who does ensure we can review, argue and learn from our mistakes). It is not very conducive to learning in the long run.

other problems: 80% required attendance but there are pop quizzes (thus 100% required attendance), the exam schedule is very very poor and not well thought out, there are several poor professors who either can't lecture, don't care to lecture, or flat out just don't lecture and the class becomes self learning (pathology is nearly 80-90% no lectures, learn yourself at home), the library is closed maybe 2-3 times a week (knocking out of more than half the study areas).

Overall many of the professors are great, but there some important ones that are not.

My biggest advice? Talk to a student who goes here currently, hear what they have to say and ask them about these things. We are all very frustrated.

Do you guys have recommendations on the best places to live? Also thoughts on where someone with a bachelors degree could get a job? (any general job requiring any degree) Thanks!

Oh PS I'm accepted from the post-bacc and I'll be here next year.

 

[PolypFiction]

Hi Everyone! I'll be an OMS I this year! If anyone has any questions in which I can help with, please don't hesitate to reach out! I wish you all the best of luck!

Hey there! I've been accepted and will likely attend. I'm looking at places to live in Spartanburg, do you know where a lot of the students live? Also, I'd like to bike to school when possible. Are there showers on the campus?

 

[PolypFiction]

Hey this is a bit of a long shot, but will there be any current students in Spartanburg tomorrow that will be free? I'll be driving through and would love to talk with someone about their experience at VCOM so far. I'm accepted to start next year but would love more honest info. Hit me up if you want a free lunch!

 

[SirEatsAlot23]

Hey there! I've been accepted and will likely attend. I'm looking at places to live in Spartanburg, do you know where a lot of the students live? Also, I'd like to bike to school when possible. Are there showers on the campus?

My best friend lived at the Church Street Lofts for a year, and it seemed like several VCOM students lived there. I can't speak for every room there, but my friend had a pretty sweet little studio apartment. They look kinda modern after the renovation if you're into that.

 

[Vrachika]

My best friend lived at the Church Street Lofts for a year, and it seemed like several VCOM students lived there. I can't speak for every room there, but my friend had a pretty sweet little studio apartment. They look kinda modern after the renovation if you're into that.

Do you guys have recommendations on the best places to live? Also thoughts on where someone with a bachelors degree could get a job? (any general job requiring any degree) Thanks!

Oh PS I'm accepted from the post-bacc and I'll be here next year.

Hey sorry, haven’t been on here for a while, and have been out of town so couldn’t have met up anyway, we’re on Christmas break. As far as where to live depends on your situation. If you are married/attached, I would recommend looking for a house as most are going to be a better deal than the nicer apartments around. The school has a housing list they send out in the spring where you can find good houses/landlords to work with. They also advertise for apartments around if you want an apartment. There are plenty of decent apartment complexes but I personally found them to be a bit expensive especially for the area. If you are single and getting a roommate the nicer apartments would be the way to go I think. If you want your own place there are probably some cheaper apartments around. But I’m not sure, would highly suggest looking on the housing listerv the school will be making this spring.

As far as jobs for someone with a degree, I’m not sure as I didn’t have that situation to deal with myself, but I’m sure they could find something. Spartanburg is a decent size but if nothing else Greenville is close enough to commute if you live on the right side of town, and there would definitely be something there. I think it would really depend on the specific job they are looking for. Sorry I couldn’t be more helpful with that answer but that is definitely out of the scope of my knowledge.

 

[calivianya]

Hi guys!

I sent in my deposit and signed acceptance letter mid-December and the deposit hasn't been taken out of my account yet. It's due today. I know Christmas break probably screwed everything up, but I'm getting anxious.

Have you guys' deposits come out of your accounts yet, or are they just holding on to the checks? I'm probably going to call today to confirm they got it, but freaking out at 3:40 in the morning when it's way too early to call is one of the things I'm best at.

 

[kelminak]

Hi guys!

I sent in my deposit and signed acceptance letter mid-December and the deposit hasn't been taken out of my account yet. It's due today. I know Christmas break probably screwed everything up, but I'm getting anxious.

Have you guys' deposits come out of your accounts yet, or are they just holding on to the checks? I'm probably going to call today to confirm they got it, but freaking out at 3:40 in the morning when it's way too early to call is one of the things I'm best at.

I only sent mine 2 days after Christmas but it's due on the 15th for me and hasn't been taken out of my account yet. If your due date is today, I'd totally call them. Let us know what you find out because I'm wondering if I'll get a confirmation as well.

 

[calivianya]

I only sent mine 2 days after Christmas but it's due on the 15th for me and hasn't been taken out of my account yet. If your due date is today, I'd totally call them. Let us know what you find out because I'm wondering if I'll get a confirmation as well.

For once, my paranoia was justified. Apparently my deposit got lost in the mail. I talked to Sarah Donnan on the phone, who said since I called and it was clearly not my fault it didn't make it there, it was fine, but to send it in as soon as possible.

I sent it Priority Mail overnight with signature confirmation. Not playing around this time!

She did confirm that you should receive an email when admissions gets your deposit.

 

[kelminak]

For once, my paranoia was justified. Apparently my deposit got lost in the mail. I talked to Sarah Donnan on the phone, who said since I called and it was clearly not my fault it didn't make it there, it was fine, but to send it in as soon as possible.

I sent it Priority Mail overnight with signature confirmation. Not playing around this time!

She did confirm that you should receive an email when admissions gets your deposit.

Yes! I'm so glad you checked. I did get an confirmation email myself yesterday.

 

[calivianya]

Yes! I'm so glad you checked. I did get an confirmation email myself yesterday.

Yep, got mine today. Whew. There were some heart palpitations for a minute there.

 

[dr.wieners]

Received an II today! SO excited to finally get to post this! Interviewing this Wednesday!

 

[jets46]

Congrats to everyone who's been accepted and/or has an interview invite! Looking forward to meeting you all next year!

 

[awesomejackjack]

II today!!! Interviewing next Wednesday. Submitted my secondary on November 27th. Looong turnaround but I'm excited!

 

[StarDoc']

II today!!! Interviewing next Wednesday. Submitted my secondary on November 27th. Looong turnaround but I'm excited!

Did you contact them at all before your II?

 

[awesomejackjack]

Did you contact them at all before your II?

I updated them on my grades from last semester and they confirmed it was added to my file before I got a call.

 

[StarDoc']

I updated them on my grades from last semester and they confirmed it was added to my file before I got a call.

Did you wait for AACOMAS to verify your grades? because I've been wanting to email them about mine but they haven't been verified yet

 

[kelminak]

Did you wait for AACOMAS to verify your grades? because I've been wanting to email them about mine but they haven't been verified yet

Emailing as little as possible is optimal. I would at least wait until you're verified and look at what your application looks like to them (you can view as a PDF).

 

[awesomejackjack]

Did you wait for AACOMAS to verify your grades? because I've been wanting to email them about mine but they haven't been verified yet

tbh i sent them the update before i realized i could update in aacomas lol

 

[GalacticDoc]

Interviewed on the 8th. They said we would hear back today..has anyone heard back. I have a bad feeling

 

[brywigh]

Interviewed on the 8th. They said we would hear back today..has anyone heard back. I have a bad feeling

We had a lot of snow here in Spartanburg on
Wednesday. The school was likely closed Wednesday and Thursday which I’m sure delayed the committee’s meetings. Hopefully this puts your mind at ease a little!

 

[cocoshreddies]

Interviewed on the 8th. They said we would hear back today..has anyone heard back. I have a bad feeling

I interviewed on the 8th as well and didn’t hear anything today either. They said the admissions committee would let us know either way, so no news is still good news!

 

[dr.wieners]

I am there with you GalacticDoc, I interviewed on the 10th and haven't heard back, along with the friends I made on interview day that I have chatted with (we were told we would hear back today as well). VCOM was indeed closed Wednesday and Thursday, and since they were supposed to have interviews Wednesday and today they were probably swamped with rescheduling and what not. So hang in there!

 

[Boone161822]

I am there with you GalacticDoc, I interviewed on the 10th and haven't heard back, along with the friends I made on interview day that I have chatted with (we were told we would hear back today as well). VCOM was indeed closed Wednesday and Thursday, and since they were supposed to have interviews Wednesday and today they were probably swamped with rescheduling and what not. So hang in there!

I also interviewed on the 10th. I called the admissions office and they said because of the weather, decisions are pushed back to this week, but they did not specify a date.

 

[dr.wieners]

ACCEPTED!!! So EXCITED! Whoop!!!