Yep! Classes are 4 days a week, 1-5pm if the whole four hours is used for lecture. Wednesdays are used for skills training and clinical exposure. So already you have your mornings free to study or do whatever you want if you prefer to study in the evening. It's also pass/fail with a 70% requirement to pass, so it's not a huge deal if you need to put other things in your life ahead of a test every once in a while. In general, I got the impression that there was enough time to live your own life if you manage your time well. Perhaps some current medical students can speak more to this!
I'll give some of my personal experience about this!
First here is what our schedule looks like:
M mornings 9-11:30: exams (this changes every block)
M, T, Th, F non-mandatory class 1:30-5:20 (there are evening electives you can choose to take)
W (biweekly): workshops to get you more ready for clinic (ie. we will have a workshop on geriatrics soon)
Hospital mornings (biweekly): people are split into colleges and with mentors to go to clinic from 8/10-11:30 to see patients and do oral case presentations. Depending on which mentor you have, you could have this T, W, Th, F
For me, let's say my hospital morning was W, I usually have T, Th, F morning off either studying, gym, volunteering or sleeping in.
A lot of us came into school thinking, wow! yay! I get the morning off! But you need to start balancing very quickly how much you study, want to volunteer, workout, have your life, etc.
People study in the mornings or evenings, or both. This first block class that we have is a lot compared to others, so people and definitely myself are still trying to adjust and figure out how to study best.
Yes, 70% is passing. Yes, most people are above 70%. But it still definitely requires a lot of time and effort to score above 70. I try to force myself to do absolutely nothing on friday evening and most of my weekends are just cramming/reviewing for monday's test. I think that will change when we don't have monday exams every week.
No matter which medical school you choose, you will have an adjustment period to how you study, how much time you spend with your SO/family, etc. so I wouldn't weigh so much on how current students balance between work/life to choose a school over the other. TLDR: For sure you have time to be yourself. And don't stop being who you are, because med school shouldn't change that.
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