2019-2020 Des Moines University College of Osteopathic Medicine (DMU-COM)

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Congrats to everyone accepted today! Interviewed today and I will post interview feedback on the SDN page for that, but thought I’d write a little bit here too.

Awesome school. Seemed like a really chill place to go to med school (as chill as med school can be). The students said everyone is very collaborative. I interviewed with a current professor, a DO that works in the DMU clinic, and a 2nd year student in an open file 3 on 1 interview.

My biggest concern with DMU (as with most DO schools), is what does 3rd and 4th year look like? It sounds like about 50% of students stay in Des Moines and the rest rotate at various sites around the country. DMU has really good relationships with various hospitals and clinics around the state at the very least. Probably my only concern with this school though. They routinely match a lot into competitive specialties with a 50/50 split between primary care and specialities in residency matches.

The interview itself was alright. This is my first interview so I was expecting it to be more of a conversation. One of the panel would ask a question, I would respond, they would move on. It was fine, but they didn’t ask about any ECs or ask for more info on anything. Lots of team related questions. Why DO? But no why DMU?

Looking forward to hearing back in a few weeks!
 
Does DMU offer scholarships to the accepted folks later or was it supposed to be in the acceptance email ?
 
Cornfed101 said:
Congrats to everyone accepted today! Interviewed today and I will post interview feedback on the SDN page for that, but thought I’d write a little bit here too.

Awesome school. Seemed like a really chill place to go to med school (as chill as med school can be). The students said everyone is very collaborative. I interviewed with a current professor, a DO that works in the DMU clinic, and a 2nd year student in an open file 3 on 1 interview.

My biggest concern with DMU (as with most DO schools), is what does 3rd and 4th year look like? It sounds like about 50% of students stay in Des Moines and the rest rotate at various sites around the country. DMU has really good relationships with various hospitals and clinics around the state at the very least. Probably my only concern with this school though. They routinely match a lot into competitive specialties with a 50/50 split between primary care and specialities in residency matches.

The interview itself was alright. This is my first interview so I was expecting it to be more of a conversation. One of the panel would ask a question, I would respond, they would move on. It was fine, but they didn’t ask about any ECs or ask for more info on anything. Lots of team related questions. Why DO? But no why DMU?

Looking forward to hearing back in a few weeks!
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Can you explain more on your concerns about rotations and residency placement?
 
CryptoMed said:
Can you explain more on your concerns about rotations and residency placement?
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Based on what they are saying, 3rd and 4th years aren't guaranteed to stay in Des Moines, which seems to be the case for most DO programs. Additionally, most DO programs have the mission of training Primary Care physicians, so it's not too surprising to see that 50% of the students end up in Primary Care residencies. Don't necessarily see any concern, just do well in school, create professional relationships for excellent LORs, and life afterwards shouldn't be all too different.

If anyone has more experience, please correct me if I'm wrong!
 
bdjay said:
Based on what they are saying, 3rd and 4th years aren't guaranteed to stay in Des Moines, which seems to be the case for most DO programs. Additionally, most DO programs have the mission of training Primary Care physicians, so it's not too surprising to see that 50% of the students end up in Primary Care residencies. Don't necessarily see any concern, just do well in school, create professional relationships for excellent LORs, and life afterwards shouldn't be all too different.

If anyone has more experience, please correct me if I'm wrong!
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Okay, that's what I was thinking. Those reasons are pretty standard among all DO schools. I personally want to go into surgery and Des Moines is one of my top schools because about 10% match into residency which is actually on the higher end for DO programs. Pretty much every DO school has >45% go into primary care every year.
 
bdjay said:
Based on what they are saying, 3rd and 4th years aren't guaranteed to stay in Des Moines, which seems to be the case for most DO programs. Additionally, most DO programs have the mission of training Primary Care physicians, so it's not too surprising to see that 50% of the students end up in Primary Care residencies. Don't necessarily see any concern, just do well in school, create professional relationships for excellent LORs, and life afterwards shouldn't be all too different.

If anyone has more experience, please correct me if I'm wrong!
Click to expand...

CryptoMed said:
Okay, that's what I was thinking. Those reasons are pretty standard among all DO schools. I personally want to go into surgery and Des Moines is one of my top schools because about 10% match into residency which is actually on the higher end for DO programs. Pretty much every DO school has >45% go into primary care every year.
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Yep, but it seems like DMU is better than most DO schools for rotations because there is a big hospital there, although it is not specifically affiliated with the school.

Keep in mind that primary care is family med, internal med, obgyn, peds, and psychiatry (usually included). Doing a quick MSAR search 45% of Harvard med students match into primary care. So DMU doing 50/50 is on par with the best MD schools (as far as primary care/non-primary care matching). I'll probably get blasted for that, but the numbers speak for themselves. One of the students leading our tour chose DMU over multiple MD acceptances, which says a lot about the school. 4% of the class last year matched into Ortho. They always have students match into Ophtho, urology, and other competitive specialties as well.

In fact, last year there were more DMU students that matched into emergency med than family med. In other words, it doesn't seem like any real barrier as far as residency matching goes.
 
Blanky said:
DMU doesn’t push primary care on you at all. You have to remember that a decent amount of people go into this interested in primary care...
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That's a big reason that I'm very interested in DMU. Many DO schools seem like they push primary care even in how they word the secondaries. I want to be honest in my answers for secondaries and in future interviews, but I feel like saying that I'm more interested in specialty care could hurt my chances of receiving an interview invite because I wouldn't align with their mission.
 
Congrats to those accepted! How long did it take everyone to get their application complete? Mine has been saying 9/10 materials received for over a week now and I don't know if I should be worried.
 
Notified on 8/23 that my file was placed on hold. Best of luck to everyone interviewing!
 
AntCho said:
How do you guys have access to a portal?
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They send you an email. After creating your account on the portal, they gather your materials and once they've received everything, they will send you a complete email. Look for emails sent from "DMUEnrollment".
 
respectedmadman said:
Congrats to those accepted! How long did it take everyone to get their application complete? Mine has been saying 9/10 materials received for over a week now and I don't know if I should be worried.
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Don't sweat it. It took 2 weeks for my application to be completed.
 
Submitted late June. Silence from DMU. With acceptances going out, things not looking too good. Congrats to everyone with an acceptance!
 
Accepted folks, did any of y’all get an email or an update to your DMU account regarding the Outstanding Supplemental info?
 
red_tangoes said:
Accepted folks, did any of y’all get an email or an update to your DMU account regarding the Outstanding Supplemental info?
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I didn't get an email but I went on just now and the form was there. It just had the two $750 deposits, a background check, and a drug screen with the deadlines next to them.
 
morebro1 said:
I didn't get an email but I went on just now and the form was there. It just had the two $750 deposits, a background check, and a drug screen with the deadlines next to them.
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Awesome. Just found it on my page too. Thanks!
 
Interviewed at DMU today. Overall, the school really impressed me. The dean stated that the average step one score was 238, which seems very high considering DMU as a DO school. I noticed a collaborative vibe and everyone was super easy to talk to.

I loved my interviewers. We went from joking around a lot to talking about serious issues and back. They definitely like the team questions, so to prepare for this interview I would think up some times you’ve been a part of a team and had good and bad experiences with them. Overall very laid back, felt like they really cared and wanted to get to know me.

I’m optimistic for good news from DMU, but we’ll see in a week or two 🙂

(If anyone has any specific questions let me know! The SDN feedback is very helpful for the interview.)
 
I think the USMLE was 232 average.
I don't have any resources though with numbers. DMU is legit and they try and build you up and not make you a depressed, burned out physician.
 
I signed up for Oct 11! Can't wait to meet everyone!
 
Anybody receive an interview invite without completing the Casper? This is the only school I applied to that considers the test. Trying to decide if it’s worth taking or not.
 
LabDoxie said:
Anybody receive an interview invite without completing the Casper? This is the only school I applied to that considers the test. Trying to decide if it’s worth taking or not.
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I received one without having Casper, but I took it and sent them my score prior to my interview date since I had to take it for several of my schools.
 
Post interview alternate list, interviewed 8/26
 
urhen said:
Was it an outright rejection or did they place you on a waitlist? Good luck elsewhere!
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Outright rejection from my understanding and thank you! Lol what is annoying is I am thinking of all the little things that might have gone wrong... Did I make too little eye contact? Or too much? Did I talk to fast and appear hyper? I brought a water bottle into the interview, would they have preferred I was drinking something with more electrolytes to show my commitment to health and well-being? *shrugs* I'll hopefully do better at my interview next week 🙂
 
Cornfed101 said:
Post interview alternate list, interviewed 8/26
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+1, interviewed 8/29.

Bummed tbh, was super impressed with DMU and thought my interview went well enough.

I kinda wish the student ambassadors didn’t build us all up by saying, “if you’re interviewing this early it means we like you, you’re justhere to see if you’re human. Our post-interview acceptance rate is high.”

Oh well, unsubscribing from this thread for now. I’ll see y’all in May when WL movements starts.
 
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