2017-2018 Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine - Georgia Campus

[BlueFeesh]

Interviewed in November, waitlisted in early January, and just checked my online status and the link for the deposit is there now! I hope this means what I think it means!

Pack your bags future doctor

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[Happy:)777]

Interviewed in November, waitlisted in early January, and just checked my online status and the link for the deposit is there now! I hope this means what I think it means!

Congrats!!!

 

[Happy:)777]

Where on the online summary page does the deposit link appear?
I'm a waitlist hopeful

 

[Hopefulmed57262]

Hey there, quick question. Is the acceptance letter a packet or just a small envelope with a 1 page letter? I know that's a weird question.

It’s a pretty pick packet with multiple sheets of paper in a folder

 

[jef5678]

II middle of last week for Friday, deciding on if I should attend or not.

 

[honeybakedsam]

II middle of last week for Friday, deciding on if I should attend or not.

I just interviewed last Friday and they told us there are still some spots left. She did say it would take 4-6 weeks to hear back though. We had a pretty big group with about 25+ candidates.

 

[naway]

FWIW, I think they tell everyone 4 to 6 weeks. I was accepted a little over a week after my interview.

 

[Dustydoctor]

Has anyone received the information for completing the background check?

 

[smurfin57]

Interviewed here recently... sim lab was very impressive but didn't get a feeling that the staff/students were proud to be there. I also didn't get vibes that OMM is super important here. We watched a boring 5-10 min video on OMM and that was about it. One of the students even said he didn't care about OMM because he wants to be a surgeon. At another school I interviewed at, they were very passionate about OMM and it showed through the way the professors, students, and staff talked about osteopathic medicine. The day started off with the 30 min writing assignment which was easy and is supposed to be what guides your interview. My interviewer asked me one question related to the writing assignment and then asked me a ton of ethical questions which I was not expecting. If I get accepted, I'll really have to think about my options!

 

[nxwx]

Accepted from waitlist! Interviewed in November, waitlisted in January!

 

[Eager4med]

Is there a trend to being pulled off of the waitlist? I wonder if they review applications in order as waitlist spots come available? Waitlist hopeful also

 

[ljk223]

Has anyone received the information for completing the background check?

On the same page. I haven’t received anythinng after technical standards.

Are we supposed to fill out vaccine requirements and background check in nucleus before the school sends one? Or do we just wait?

 

[lifeisharddood]

Do they send Pre II rejections

 

[nxwx]

Is there a trend to being pulled off of the waitlist? I wonder if they review applications in order as waitlist spots come available? Waitlist hopeful also

Hey! I actually called them to ask about this and I was told that the list isn't ranked. As spots become available, they review all the waitlist applicants. But I'm not entirely sure about the process. Hope that helps!

 

[Hasniii]

Interviewed here recently... sim lab was very impressive but didn't get a feeling that the staff/students were proud to be there. I also didn't get vibes that OMM is super important here. We watched a boring 5-10 min video on OMM and that was about it. One of the students even said he didn't care about OMM because he wants to be a surgeon. At another school I interviewed at, they were very passionate about OMM and it showed through the way the professors, students, and staff talked about osteopathic medicine. The day started off with the 30 min writing assignment which was easy and is supposed to be what guides your interview. My interviewer asked me one question related to the writing assignment and then asked me a ton of ethical questions which I was not expecting. If I get accepted, I'll really have to think about my options!

Yeah interview experience do differ depending on who was your interviewer, however during my interview both the faculty and the students claimed that their OMM program is one of the best thing about PCOM-GA.

 

[getfat]

didn't get a feeling that the staff/students were proud to be there

Hey sorry you didn't get a good vibe from the school on your interview day. Its a really busy time of the year. 1st years are starting their first system block (Neuro) and 2nd years are in the midst of boards studying. Personally, I didn't go to interviews this month because of neuro and multiple other extracurriculars going on in my life. If you want more details about our school don't hesitate to PM me!

I also didn't get vibes that OMM is super important here. We watched a boring 5-10 min video on OMM and that was about it. One of the students even said he didn't care about OMM because he wants to be a surgeon.

Can attest that OMM is really emphasized here compared to other schools. 6 hours per week dedicated to OMM is a lot more compared to other schools (compared to an average ~4). That can be a good thing or bad thing based on who you ask.

Dr. E (head of OMM) was one of the first OMM residents in history. Guy knows his stuff.

 

[Dustydoctor]

On the same page. I haven’t received anythinng after technical standards.

Are we supposed to fill out vaccine requirements and background check in nucleus before the school sends one? Or do we just wait?

In nucleas there's a new student link for the DO program. There are links to the list of forms or other things that need to be done. These included the tech standards, MHQ form, background check, sending your final transcripts directly to pcom, financial aid (FAFSA, scholarship app, loan apps(later)), etc.

But I can't seem to figure out the background check yet

 

[ljk223]

In nucleas there's a new student link for the DO program. There are links to the list of forms or other things that need to be done. These included the tech standards, MHQ form, background check, sending your final transcripts directly to pcom, financial aid (FAFSA, scholarship app, loan apps(later)), etc.

But I can't seem to figure out the background check yet

Did you get a confirmation or reply when you sent technical standards form?

 

[dream$girl]

Interviewed in November, waitlisted in early January, and just checked my online status and the link for the deposit is there now! I hope this means what I think it means!

Congrats! Pleas do you mind sharing your stats?

 

[Dustydoctor]

Did you get a confirmation or reply when you sent technical standards form?

No, I haven't yet

 

[BlueFeesh]

Did you get a confirmation or reply when you sent technical standards form?

No you do not. Check your nucleus daily. It could take 1-2 weeks according to what they told me when I asked about mine.

 

[ZatAnteater]

Current second year. For everyone accepted and planning to come here, a few warnings that you may want to consider:

There are a lot of mandatory lectures during second year that are not board relevant. A lot of it has to deal with third year rotation stuff. It might seem cool to you now, but when your primary focus is trying to do well on the boards, you'll despise how much time is wasted on non-board related material. There is NO dedicated study period. You still still have classes that you need to study for and tests that you need to pass up until the end of May. Starting in June or July (you can choose), you'll be taking a class called ACS that will be teaching you all the clinical things that you need to know before rotations. You'll be going in for the entire day just doing clinical stuff (so the classes you have to take during second year are superfluous).

Some of you have mentioned how the staff didn't seem happy to be there. That's not entirely false. We've lost a few faculty members since I've been here and from what I can tell, especially from today, the OMM department has a lot of internal conflict among faculty.

If you plan to take the USMLE, this school is not for you. They do not care if you want to take the USMLE and discourage most students from doing so. They cater only to the COMLEX. And I get that it is a DO school and it should be that way, but in reality most of us want to take the USMLE especially with the merger coming up in order to get into certain specialties. That being said, it's not impossible but this school will make it exceedingly hard. It's especially frustrating when many of your other colleagues are finished with classes as early as February and have 3 dedicated months to study while you have none.

That being said, there have been a lot of successful students from our school. A lot. We have alumni who have trained and matched in some of the best hospitals like Hopkins, Emory, UCLA, etc. If this is your only acceptance, or if your other options aren't as good, then by all means come here. This is just for those who are on the fence about attending here. It hasn't been a great fit for me and I'm doing relatively well.

 

[nxwx]

Where is the technical standards form? Is it somewhere on the portal? My mail is going to my parents house since I'm out of state currently and wasn't sure if it came with the letter?

 

[tammyp]

Where is the technical standards form? Is it somewhere on the portal? My mail is going to my parents house since I'm out of state currently and wasn't sure if it came with the letter?

Comes with you letter, you can find it online too.

 

[tammyp]

Comes with you letter, you can find it online too.

You also don't have to mail/fax it in, you can send it via email at [email protected]

 

[nxwx]

You also don't have to mail/fax it in, you can send it via email at [email protected]

Thanks! Found it!

 

[Neopolymath]

Current second year. For everyone accepted and planning to come here, a few warnings that you may want to consider:

There are a lot of mandatory lectures during second year that are not board relevant. A lot of it has to deal with third year rotation stuff. It might seem cool to you now, but when your primary focus is trying to do well on the boards, you'll despise how much time is wasted on non-board related material. There is NO dedicated study period. You still still have classes that you need to study for and tests that you need to pass up until the end of May. Starting in June or July (you can choose), you'll be taking a class called ACS that will be teaching you all the clinical things that you need to know before rotations. You'll be going in for the entire day just doing clinical stuff (so the classes you have to take during second year are superfluous).

Some of you have mentioned how the staff didn't seem happy to be there. That's not entirely false. We've lost a few faculty members since I've been here and from what I can tell, especially from today, the OMM department has a lot of internal conflict among faculty.

If you plan to take the USMLE, this school is not for you. They do not care if you want to take the USMLE and discourage most students from doing so. They cater only to the COMLEX. And I get that it is a DO school and it should be that way, but in reality most of us want to take the USMLE especially with the merger coming up in order to get into certain specialties. That being said, it's not impossible but this school will make it exceedingly hard. It's especially frustrating when many of your other colleagues are finished with classes as early as February and have 3 dedicated months to study while you have none.

That being said, there have been a lot of successful students from our school. A lot. We have alumni who have trained and matched in some of the best hospitals like Hopkins, Emory, UCLA, etc. If this is your only acceptance, or if your other options aren't as good, then by all means come here. This is just for those who are on the fence about attending here. It hasn't been a great fit for me and I'm doing relatively well.

Couldn't agree more. This is a school you should only go to if you know the above and have a specific reason to choose it (family etc). I think the reason most people are upset is because of how little transparency there is about this school before you are actually IN school here. I had to speak to people in 4th year or graduated already to get someone to tell me the truth about this program before I matriculated. If you go in eyes wide open, it won't be as irritating and you will likely do as well as you would anywhere else, frankly.

The awful end of second year structure and very blah rotations seem to be the main issues that you can't just shrug off with thick skin.

 

[abbsmeddoc]

Couldn't agree more. This is a school you should only go to if you know the above and have a specific reason to choose it (family etc). I think the reason most people are upset is because of how little transparency there is about this school before you are actually IN school here. I had to speak to people in 4th year or graduated already to get someone to tell me the truth about this program before I matriculated. If you go in eyes wide open, it won't be as irritating and you will likely do as well as you would anywhere else, frankly.

The awful end of second year structure and very blah rotations seem to be the main issues that you can't just shrug off with thick skin.

Wait so how many weeks do you actually get free time to just study for boards considering you have to do ACS during that summer and you have classes until May??

 

[Neopolymath]

Wait so how many weeks do you actually get free time to just study for boards considering you have to do ACS during that summer and you have classes until May??

0000.000000

 

[abbsmeddoc]

0000.000000

When I was looking through other sdn threads, I found this comment from a previous student: "For my class, we got 2 weeks of time after our finals. Then you can take another month to study, but it uses up your vacation month in 4th year (so 4th year will be extended til graduation time (May)). Don't forget about ACS - it's a month of basically half-days and you get the afternoons to study/do whatever you want.

TLDR - 2 weeks minimum. 6 weeks if you use vacation time. 10 weeks if you use vacation time + ACS month.

PS. I've had classmates who did the 2 weeks minimum, cause they wanted their vacation time at the end of 4th year. Several of them regret it, since their Step 1 scores were below average. Just a word of caution!" ~ by mashimaroinc

Is this not relevant anymore? That post was from 2015. Did they take away this provision or can you still use vacation time?

 

[yungDO]

Is there another forum/group where people are selling things, other than the "GA-PCOM Exchange" group on Nucleus? Looks like the last time someone posted in the Exchange group was 2011

 

[954SoFlo]

WL'ed.

 

[honeybakedsam]

WL'ed.

When did you interview?

 

[954SoFlo]

When did you interview?

Early March

 

[smurfin57]

Early March

3/9 by chance?

 

[honeybakedsam]

3/9 by chance?

I was in 3/9, but haven't heard anything yet

 

[bears1992]

I was in 3/9, but haven't heard anything yet

Me too. My interviewer told me (in a roundabout way) that even though they have seats, they are only waitlisting and not outright accepting. I guess that means they are pulling only from the waitlist now.

 

[954SoFlo]

I was in 3/9, but haven't heard anything yet

3/9 by chance?

Yes sir, 3/9. Looks like a lot of people interviewed here 3/9. I got it by snail mail. I think I heard back early because it takes less time for mail to travel from Atlanta to where I live, compared to the other distances people had to come from.

Me too. My interviewer told me (in a roundabout way) that even though they have seats, they are only waitlisting and not outright accepting. I guess that means they are pulling only from the waitlist now.

Oh snap, awww. I wonder when they start WL movement.

 

[tswol]

Oh snap, awww. I wonder when they start WL movement.

There's a big non-refundable deposit due in mid-April for currently accepted students, so a lot of people with multiple acceptances may decline to pay that and give up their seats.

 

[smurfin57]

Yes sir, 3/9. Looks like a lot of people interviewed here 3/9. I got it by snail mail. I think I heard back early because it takes less time for mail to travel from Atlanta to where I live, compared to the other distances people had to come from.





Oh snap, awww. I wonder when they start WL movement.

I'm from SoFlo but haven't heard anything

 

[BlueFeesh]

Estimated Cost of Attendance has been updated for year one. The 2018-2019 budget tool is also up.

CoA: $76,137.00

Grad Plus Loan application opens up May 1st.

EDIT: Ah yes, and we have a date for orientation week as well

August 6th-10th

 

[laura.uf]

WL'ed; interviewed 3/9

 

[fifthcupofcoffee]

Estimated Cost of Attendance has been updated for year one. The 2018-2019 budget tool is also up.

CoA: $76,137.00

Grad Plus Loan application opens up May 1st.

EDIT: Ah yes, and we have a date for orientation week as well

August 6th-10th

where are you finding the COA breakdown and the budget tool? mine still isn’t available in the financial aid tab

 

[BlueFeesh]

where are you finding the COA breakdown and the budget tool? mine still isn’t available in the financial aid tab

I Googled the DO budget tool and it showed up.

Click download by program, then "Georgia" here and open it using Microsoft excel

Link: Budgeting Worksheets | Financial Aid at PCOM

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

 

[brandonwc1]

In the academic calendar for 2018-2019, does anyone understand for the winter/fall 2018 terms what it means by/what the distinction is between "break november 10-18", "term begins november 19", "thanksgiving holiday november 22-23", "classes resume november 26"? Like is the break actually from november 10-26 or do we have a random 3 days of class in there?

 

[MakeLifeHappen13]

In the academic calendar for 2018-2019, does anyone understand for the winter/fall 2018 terms what it means by/what the distinction is between "break november 10-18", "term begins november 19", "thanksgiving holiday november 22-23", "classes resume november 26"? Like is the break actually from november 10-26 or do we have a random 3 days of class in there?

That's exactly what it means. I wish they would just extend the term three extra days and give us the long break but nope. You will probably have to study during Thanksgiving break because you will fall behind if you ignore those 3 days of lecture.

 

[tammyp]

Anyone know the match list?

 

[ZatAnteater]

When I was looking through other sdn threads, I found this comment from a previous student: "For my class, we got 2 weeks of time after our finals. Then you can take another month to study, but it uses up your vacation month in 4th year (so 4th year will be extended til graduation time (May)). Don't forget about ACS - it's a month of basically half-days and you get the afternoons to study/do whatever you want.

TLDR - 2 weeks minimum. 6 weeks if you use vacation time. 10 weeks if you use vacation time + ACS month.

PS. I've had classmates who did the 2 weeks minimum, cause they wanted their vacation time at the end of 4th year. Several of them regret it, since their Step 1 scores were below average. Just a word of caution!" ~ by mashimaroinc

Is this not relevant anymore? That post was from 2015. Did they take away this provision or can you still use vacation time?

You can still use your vacation time, but if you want to take both the USMLE and COMLEX it's more like 2-3 weeks of dedicated. We have classes up until the end of May. So your truly dedicated time starts on June 1st. You typically want to take your USMLE a week before COMLEX (so you have a week to cram OMM). So the latest you can take USMLE is the third week of June. Then you can take COMLEX the last week of June before you start your ACS rotation. ACS is not half-day. It is an actual job from 9-5pm. Some opt to take their boards at the end of July. Good luck studying after a long, draining day of clinical work/learning. Just sitting in mandatory classes is draining enough. When you have to do actual physical work on top of using your brain at a high capacity, you'll find it very difficult to study for boards. And I know many are probably thinking "this student doesn't know my ability, I can do it for sure." I was just like you. I thought the same way. Avoid my mistakes lol.

 

[fifthcupofcoffee]

has anyone heard any information about how we should go about doing the required background check etc? besides the deposit, that, and the MHQ form am i missing anything?

 

[smurfin57]

WL'd interviewed 3/9