I think this week was the first week of interviews right? Has anyone interviewed yet and have anything to say about interview day (about how many interviewees, any interesting questions answered about the school, how was lunch, etc)?
I interviewed this week, so I can ramble about the school for a little bit. I won't discuss any part of the actual interview to ensure that I'm not violating the NDA. I applied stating interest in Internal Medicine. Complete 3/7. II on 3/13.
Campus (research building-did not have chance to tour hospital):
The building with classrooms/lecture halls is literally brand new. The student lounge and study area were still under construction and projected to be finished in about 2 months. If for some reason the project is delayed, there is already enough rooms/study space to accommodate the incoming class of 24. There's a small clinic located in the building dedicated to clinical trials and a floor which is pretty much exclusively wet lab space, so if you were interested in clinical or wet lab research, there are opportunities to go through the school.
Lunch:
They brought in some attendings and residents to talk about the hospital during lunch as they have no students at this time. I had the chance to chat with some pediatrics and IM residents. A recurring theme between the residents was that Winthrop was a very nice place to do residency. Both the IM and peds residents seemed to be enjoying their time there.
Curriculum:
So the curriculum is a 3 year program. The major difference that I picked up on is that you begin your clerkships during your second year along with classes. They emphasized that they are aiming to move away from lecture and do classroom learning in focused small groups which will rotate every few months so you interact with your entire class. As for timing of board exams, you are scheduled to take Step 1 at the end of your second year with a 1 month structured preparation with the school. You then have a summer break before coming back and taking Step 2 at the start of your third year after 3 weeks of structured preparation with the school.
Random note: They plan on teaching anatomy with plastinated models instead of cadavers.
Admissions logistics:
There were 20 people in my interview group, which means if they keep up the current volume there will be 600 total interviews handed out. (30 interview days from 4/1-5/10*20 interviewees=600) I would expect this to slow down in the later weeks, but that's just speculation on my part. In terms of number of acceptances, Dr. Barlev mentioned that they had no set number in mind at this time. He mentioned that they would be sending them out conservatively starting around the 3rd week of May and then increasing/decreasing based on initial response.
That's all I can think of for now. If anyone has other questions, I'll try to see if I can answer them.