Hey, thanks for doing this! I have a few questions.
What would your overall impression (admin, classmates, quality of education, etc.) of your time at CMS be? Did you feel well-supported over your 4 years?
Sense that I got from a M1 here earlier and the student session is that the environment is pretty supportive within classmates but the admin may be a bit out of touch.
This is a mid to low tier US MD school, i.e. it meets all the minimums and turns out ~200 fairly well qualified docs each year. Are they gonna hold your hand and pat you on the head all the way through? No.
For the average to above average student, there will be sufficient support for whatever you need. The flaws in this school show up for those who are below average or have some specific issue that pops up, and then you see everyone from the admin on down drop the ball and not give them the extra help they need. Most of those make it through anyway (whether by spite, help from classmates, or other support systems) but some do not.
Extending on the question about the administration. From the outside, at least it seems the AdCom may be a bit all over the place (last year's letter saying they rejected applications without reading them, this year switching to VITA only, etc.), is the overall admin also like this? Are the other departments notably better, worse, or about what you would expect for a med school?
I don't interact with the AdCom at all and procedures have changed a bit since I was in your shoes, so can't speak to that directly, but they did just hire a new Dean of Admissions, who looks promising.
This last year of COVID confusion has, like in many other arenas, highlighted the problem areas pretty strongly. Before this year I would have said "about what you would expect from a med school" and it wouldn't have been a lie at all. Every school has their issues and admin that are better or worse. But I've spent a lot of time this past year talking with friends at other schools and comparing the responses of their admin in the face of pandemic upheaval to ours does not reflect well on CMS. Most of this comes out in ways that are more annoying than harmful, but the admin here have a real head-in-the-sand approach to real crisis that has negatively affected a number of students in serious ways.
How was your experience with rotations given that CMS doesn't have a teaching hospital? Was it difficult to secure rotations for the specialties you wanted? How were the quality of the sites that you rotated at?
Thanks again for your time.
Personally I liked going around the city and seeing different approaches/different populations. Some sites are better, some are worse, but this (as opposed to a mothership hospital) is not going to affect education and opportunities for the majority of students. Where it becomes a difficulty is if you want to go into something super specialized/competitive, since you have to find those mentors/rotations yourself.
As far as securing rotations, for M3 year they are assigned/guaranteed for you, you don't have to arrange those yourself. For M4, this past year was widely variable, between what you were looking for and what was available in the midst of a pandemic, but that is not an issue that was isolated to CMS. In the past, and likely in the future, people are generally able to get the rotations they want/need.
All that said, if this ends up being your one acceptance, then you're gonna take it, no discussion.
If you have other options to choose from, then it's time to start weighing pros v cons, and at the CMS price point you can probably find a more supportive/better ranked/better admin school for equal or less money.
And as with all responses here, I am one salty M4, so take any opinions with that in mind.
