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yes. if I had gotten into my cheaper state school I would have gone there though lol
2020-2021 Chicago Med at Rosalind Franklin
- Thread starter TheDataKing
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yes. if I had gotten into my cheaper state school I would have gone there though lol
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Just received a complete email! Submitted secondary 8/4
Melanated_Otaku981
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Just got my complete email as well. Submitted 8/4
Went to get on the portal (after having logged in multiple times previously), and it says no account exists under that email. Anyone else have this issue? Should I give it a few days in case it's a technology issue and then contact admissions?
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Also a current M2 here. Feel free to PM me with questions or quote this post
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Email Zach about your situation and what you specifically have done before.
Last year they did not
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Zach who...
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deleted1067657
[email protected] He's the assistant director of admissions and enrollment for the school. He's nice and prompt and will help you out.
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Hey guys! My application is marked as complete on my portal but I have not received a complete email. How long did it take to receive a complete email once your application was marked complete?
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received the email same day for me
This is happening to me as well. Were you able to find out what happened?
Nope, I messaged Zach and he said that it was the first time they had ever had that issue. He verified that I did have an account and then sent me a link to reset my password. He was very nice about it and responded quickly!
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I would call just to clear the air and for your own peace of mind
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application marked complete today, submitted 8/20
Nope. Dying from the silence.
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They've said VITA will be the only tool they use for interviews. Has anyone asked admissions if they send school specific II or if you've submitted VITA already, does that count as your interview?
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Is anyone else aware that Rosalind Franklin apparently sent people rejections without reviewing their applications last year? Is anyone concerned about this? I am considering not applying if they might just reject me without fully reviewing my app.
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deleted1058452
Yeah there was a conversation about that earlier in the thread. If I knew all the negatives about this place back then I definitely would’ve saved my money and not applied
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I’m assuming that was for people who applied very late (could be wrong though) Still unacceptable but possibly avoided by applying early...
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deleted1058452
That’s certainly true but a school that has no issues taking your money and not even looking at your app... man that just ain’t right. Also they’re exclusively using VITA and nothing else for the interview I believe. That shows a lack of effort on their part
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I’m pretty sure that the reddit post about it said he was complete in August...
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Honestly... how is that even legal? I mean their secondary cost is around $120. Paying that much money for them to just not look at your application almost seems like theft. I wonder if there is a legal course of action that could be taken there?
wtf? If they're done reviewing apps, why are they still taking money??? That's insane.
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This happened to me last year. They sent an email at the end of the cycle basically saying, "we had >15k apps. sorry we didn't get to yours. better luck never. peace out, dawg." and then an hour or two later sent an apology email.
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deleted1067657
What did the apology say?
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I don't remember. It was to my university email address which I no longer have access to. Probably something along that lines of, "sorry for being big dummies. that was a whoopsie email. that was maybe not the most professional thing we could have done. please still apply next year, PLZ."
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Calling it an apology is a stretch tbh. Original email was posted on reddit if you search for Rosalind Franklin
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deleted1067657
Anyone receive a VITA invite from this school yet?
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Thank you both for helping us premeds with our questions and helping us with understanding the school a bit more
If one or both of you are still lurking...
1) How would you describe North Chicago, the Rosalind Franklin community, and the campus itself? Given the controversies on reddit around RFU's discrimination as well as the emails in which RFU sent applicants last year, I'd love to know more about your administration and if you feel your administration is ultimately supportive?
2) Do you feel your curriculum has adequately prepared you for residency/clerkships? What do you feel are the benefits and drawbacks of RFU overall? On a similar note, how is RFU at promoting research/service?
3) If you could redo your time as a premed student or as a medical student at RFU, what would you change?
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Removed 982794
lol was applying late august too late for this school?
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Thank you both for helping us premeds with our questions and helping us with understanding the school a bit more
If one or both of you are still lurking...
1) How would you describe North Chicago, the Rosalind Franklin community, and the campus itself? Given the controversies on reddit around RFU's discrimination as well as the emails in which RFU sent applicants last year, I'd love to know more about your administration and if you feel your administration is ultimately supportive?
2) Do you feel your curriculum has adequately prepared you for residency/clerkships? What do you feel are the benefits and drawbacks of RFU overall? On a similar note, how is RFU at promoting research/service?
3) If you could redo your time as a premed student or as a medical student at RFU, what would you change?
For sure, Obviously I can only speak to my personal experience at RFU so far, but I have had a good one....
1) north Chicago itself is pretty boring tbh not gonna lie. Enough pretty places by the lake and in surrounding areas to do cool stuff though. And obviously Chicago itself is amazing and isn’t too far.You will be studying a ton during the week anyways.
Controversy-There have been some issues recently with our PMP/underserved program and administration.I am not educated on this and am not a URM so can’t speak much on it and don’t feel qualified to. I stay away from admin as much as possible as admin in any field only exist to make your life harder. I am sure some of the discrimination stories are true cause where there is smoke there’s fire. Discrimination and racism exist everywhere unfortunately. It is sad and shouldn’t exist but there is a huge push for change from the student body and others. Overall I think the environment is nice. Most students here were fringe MD/DO applicants and this was there only acceptance so they are happy to be here. Lots of collaboration. I feel supported I guess? My personality is kinda do my own thing and stay in my lane so I guess I may not be the best person to ask about this type of thing
Emails to applicants last year? Not sure what that is referring to.
2)something a lot of premeds don’t understand is that a schools “curriculum” is oft overrated. Most med students I know here and at different schools across the country use outside resources like , anki, boards and beyond, sketchy, etc. to study for boards. Every schools curriculum sucks because it is taught by PHDs who don’t know how to teach for STEP 1 and explain their overly detailed research. Go to a school with a p/f curriculum, non mandatory attendance, and NBME exams that allow you to ditch your curriculum and use outside resources to prepare for boards and study in an easier way than pouring over thousands of PowerPoints. RFU checks all those boxes. Med school is the big leagues and preparing for boards is on you
drawbacks of rfu:
Small school without name recognition
Not as many big research opportunities
No central teaching hospital
Low tier
Expensive
It’s Cold as s$&@ here in the winter
benefits
Accepts lower stat applicants and a lot of nontrads
MD school.
Non mandatory attendance,nbme, p/f Curriculum I.e. the holy trinity
Good match list
School does work well to get you research despite not being a big name school. Even with COVID there were plenty of opportunities
Chill vibe and supportive class
Rotations are good despite no central hospital.
3) premed—> gotten a better gpa to maybe get accepted to my cheaper state school lmao. Explored more specialties through shadowing, that’s hard as a premed though. Done more research to get posters and pubs. You can mention those when applying to residency as well.
med student—> ditched class stuff from day 1 and kept up with anki. Have to relearn biochem now
overall I am happy at rfu and so are the majority of the students I know.it is not perfect by any means and certain things need to improve.but is a US MD school that will let you become a physician.
let me know if anyone has any follow-up
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deleted1054719
Thanks for the very detailed insight! Not gonna lie, this has seriously made me consider withdrawing my app from RFU hahah
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deleted785419
Bro please if RFU was the only school I got into my ass is attending like it or not
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deleted1054719
Oh absolutely, I agree. In evaluating my specific case and app though, hearing that the things that have been said about RFU are largely founded is giving me a lot of hesitation.
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Thank you both for helping us premeds with our questions and helping us with understanding the school a bit more
If one or both of you are still lurking...
1) How would you describe North Chicago, the Rosalind Franklin community, and the campus itself? Given the controversies on reddit around RFU's discrimination as well as the emails in which RFU sent applicants last year, I'd love to know more about your administration and if you feel your administration is ultimately supportive?
2) Do you feel your curriculum has adequately prepared you for residency/clerkships? What do you feel are the benefits and drawbacks of RFU overall? On a similar note, how is RFU at promoting research/service?
3) If you could redo your time as a premed student or as a medical student at RFU, what would you change?
1) North Chicago is a distant suburb of Chicago. There's nothing special nor bad about it. If you want a medical school in the middle of a medical district (insert Rush or UIC) then North Chicago wouldn't be ideal for you. However, being in the middle of a medical district doesn't really matter your first 2 years (actually I would say doesn't matter, like, at all those first two years). Then for years 3 and 4 you WILL be in the city and neighboring nearby suburbs (i.e. most suburbs closer to the city than North Chicago) for your rotations. The RFU community seems really supportive. I have had no problems with other programs at the school (pharmacy, nurse anesthesia, podiatry, PA). I would say, it really does feel like Chicago Medical School is the favorite child of the university itself so if you think it having other graduate programs is a drawback I would rethink that. The campus itself is good - I like the library (basic, plenty of silent study areas) and the DNA cafe for lunch. Classrooms are aplenty and there's big/small ones for different things which is cool. There's a sand volleyball court, a soccer field, an outside basketball court, and a tennis court for recreations. There's a sleep nook too if you like cat naps in the middle of the day and are on campus.
1 (continued): Controversies on reddit about RFU discrimination. I have seen none of this. I don't really know the details of it, but what I do know is that the PMP debacle that happened and spawned all of this is not a "RFU bad! RFU don't let x student in and instead picked y student because of Z race!" The PMP program was designed for students of disadvantaged status and low SES to try and pave their way into the rigors of a graduate program. Nothing about the PMP guaranteed entry into the medical school. Based on what the program says online, it only guaranteed an interview for the medical school if you did well in the program (very similar to the BMS program - does NOT guarantee acceptance, only an interview).
Now what happened with a contract or not, I don't have those details. But I don't think you should withdraw your application to this school because of this as the school historically was one of the first to enroll POC and women at the medical school in the early 20th century. They've always been kind to non-trad students too.
As far as the email to students regarding not reviewing their apps in its entirety. I get that it sucks to pay the secondary fee and not get your app completely reviewed. I feel like there were a few schools when I applied that did that to me. BUT, there are a lot of reasons why that happens. For one, this school gets over 15,000 applicants each year for ~190 student slots. In recent years, around 40-50 students from the BMS program (which starts off with 100 or so IIRC) get admitted. So really, there's about 14,900 applications for 145ish seats. The infrastructure in place for admissions is not designed to handle all of those applications with a fine-tooth comb. If you aren't an excellent applicant with unique stories/ECs/Research/Volunteer etc., and if you applied later relative to the applicant pool, you won't get your app viewed initially. That means your app may get passed over until November. Then November comes around, and then admissions has thousands of files to still look at for <145 seats at that point. So they offer interviews to students in terms of strength of application again and what they are looking for at that given time of the year (e.g. more traditional students, more non-trad students, more LGTBQ+ or POC, more research heavy or more volunteer heavy, whatever that may be).
So if you hate the idea of paying 100 bucks (or whatever the secondary fee is) and not having your application completely reviewed - don't blame RFU. There are a lot variables that go into it that are not all within the power of RFU's admissions team to control.
Finally, number 2.
2) Can't say about our curriculum specifically preparing us for residency. I feel like the curriculum sets you up for you personally to succeed. I wish MORE of our exams were NBME, but there are a lot of NBME exams with professor, in-house exams as well. However, it is up to you to decide how important it is to perform on those in-house exams (if it is important, you watch/listen/skim the lectures; if it is not important, you just use outside resources and take a hit on the minutia from lecture that come up in exams questions).
Benefits of RFU - I think they are extremely open to communicating with the student body and changing the curriculum on the fly to accomodate. They displayed that during the pandemic in the spring (changed exam formats, requirements, etc.) for M1s through M4s. Regarding rotations - you don't rotate at one hospital so you get to learn how to adapt to different EHRs and different settings (e.g. more procedural based, more community based, etc.). Historically, students at RFU match really well (you'll see competitive fields at university programs across the country, even on the coasts). M4 year is mostly electives, with one Sub-I that I believe is 4 weeks long. So you can travel as little or as much to different programs across the city and country to explore different fields (e.g.if you are aiming for Sports Medicine fellowhsip later in your career, maybe do another surgery rotation, FM rotation, PM&R rotation, Radiology rotation to learn how to read images better for residency, etc.)
Drawbacks of RFU - if you want to match into an uber specialty, and need research in that specific field, it will be harder. But that goes for a lot of private medical schools that don't have their own teaching hospital. You may have to drive more for rotations in the city, and with traffic it would be tough (e.g. compared to someone at Northwestern or Rush, where they essentially only have to stay at their own teaching hospital for all of 3rd year).
Promoting research - the university really promotes research. Even if you don't want to do it, they want you to and will help you get it set up in some sort of field so you have something on your residency applications. A lot of my friends had research set up over the summer but those plans changed with COVID - so not the fault of RFU, just so happened to be a tough break (but that goes for MANY students across the country).
3) Redo time as a premed - go to a cheaper undergrad and have less debt from that.
3) Redo time as a med student at RFU - I would start Anki sooner. Even in our SFoM class (e.g. genetics, biochem, molecular bio all jammed into a 12 week course) I wish I found related cards to that and unsuspended them as I went. I didn't start Anki until a couple months into school, so if I could've saved that time and started sooner I would've done that. Another thing I would redo as a med student at RFU is not be afraid to just start studying and tweaking those habits as I went; i was preoccupied with trying to find THE BEST way for me to study, instead of just trusting that the process will evolve over time (and boy it sure did evolve over time).
TL/DR --> RFU will give you a chance to be a doctor, and a doctor in ANY field so long as you put the work in. It won't close any doors for you. I don't see anything wrong at the university regarding any -isms, but again that could be n=1 and I essentially keep to my own schedule and am not particularly involved with clubs/campus/etc. If you get accepted to a cheaper MD school, go there because in the end mitigating debt should be your #1 as any MD will let you get into any field you want. If you get accepted to a better known MD school that is more expensive, but you want something really competitive, go there because with Step 1 going P/F RFU's name won't be as great as say University of Iowa.
Let me know if there are any other questions. Good luck everyone!
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PlzLetMeIntoMedSchool363
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deleted964256
II OOS LM 71, complete 7/22
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Does everyone get a VITA invitation? I can't tell if the VITA thing is the only thing they want us to do.
PatricktheSponge
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II! OOS ORM Complete 7/22, 3.91/515
buddyyyyyy
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II just now!! IS, ORM, complete 7/20, 3.42/516
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