UTCOMLS Med School Review
Hey all, current UT med student here with some insights about Toledo. Since interviews are mostly done, and now you're hearing back and making your final decisions, hopefully you can find this information helpful. My goal really isn't to advertise UT to you, but just to try to talk about it as objectively as I can from the perspective of a student. At the end of the day, it really doesn't matter to me if some random people on the internet who read my post went to my school or not, Toledo's going to fill it class either way. But I do want to make sure that the people who have to choose between medical schools have all the information they need to make an informed decision. Why am I doing this? A combination of trying to provide value and having some time on my hands. Grab some popcorn because this is a long, but hopefully useful, read. (TLDR at the bottom)
School ranking/prestige =
Toledo's ranked somewhere from #90-#120 if you listen to US News. But outside the top 40, the difference in the quality of schools really become quite small that the decision to attend one school over the other can be easily offset by one of the many other factors below (i.e. #41 vs #100 offer very similar resources but #10 vs #100 have differences in quality of school that may stand by itself as a strong reason to choose #10). Plus these rankings are essentially a popularity contest separating the popular vs not popular (according to academic programs and research output), and not to separate WITHIN the popular vs not-popular group. I was fortunate enough to get into a ~#50 ranked school but chose UT primarily because of the tuition (Will save me ~160k in the long run, counting interest) and curriculum style. Some may say with step 1 being p/f, students from a lower ranking school may be disadvantaged, but we can't say for sure until at least 2026 (three cycles of applicants with p/f grades for residency). I think it's just the anxiety talk that naturally happens with every big change. I think step 2 will just replace step 1.
Home programs =
We have all except: child neurology, dermatology, interventional radiology (I believe we'll have one soon), ophthalmology, otolaryngology, neurosurgery, plastic surgery, vascular surgery. This means it is harder to find mentors/research if you're aiming to go into one of these specialties. So if let's say you really want to do ophtho, and you get into another school that has an ophtho home program, I would maybe advise you to go to that other school and not UT. Though, just because it's harder doesn't mean it's impossible. UT students every year match into great programs in these specialties. But UT does have faculty in these fields where they don't have a home program. For example, though we don't have a derm program, our derm faculty seem like they're quite renowned and really do help students who want to match into derm to actually match. Using derm again as an example, a few years back, five students applied derm and all five matched. We also have plastic surgeons and neurosurgeons who actively help willing students get involved in research to beef up their resume. I also heard from current M4s that anyone who wanted plastics from Toledo has matched in it, at least in the past several years. As step 1 becomes p/f, some say networking becomes much more important, and having a home program with connected academic physicians makes networking easier. But this is all just speculation, even residencies themselves won't know the effect of step 1 p/f. So keep that in mind too.
Residency matching =
You don't go to med school to just stay a med student. Med school is just the beginning of the long road. You go to med school to get to choose a specialty to do for your life, so it's an important consideration. Like mentioned above, people do match all over the US in various specialties. You'll see in the match list that most people stay in the midwest, but that's self selection bias. People who are from the midwest are more likely to be accepted and attend midwest med schools, and the same people will more likely stay here for their careers. Here's the previous years' match lists for you to browse through:
2018:
https://www.utoledo.edu/med/studentaffairs/events/commencement/pdfs/UTCOMLS-Program-2018-web.pdf
2019:
https://www.utoledo.edu/med/studentaffairs/events/commencement/pdfs/UTCOMLS-Program-2019-web.pdf
2020:
https://www.utoledo.edu/med/student...pdfs/UToledoMed-2020-Commencement-Program.pdf
2021: Where specifically students have matched this year have not been released, they only released which specialties students matched into and other general statistics-
Match Day Results: 2021
To compare Toledo to other schools you might also be considering, check this out:
OFFICIAL - 2021 Match Lists
Curriculum =
Honestly pretty standard. First two years, you go through body systems (renal, cardio, endocrine, etc). You focus on one topic like GI, and you go through the physiology, pathophysiology, and pharmacology all in that block (4-7 weeks). Third year you rotate in clinics, like almost every other medical school. Usually we have 2-4 hours of daily "watch-at-your-own-time" medical lectures before noon, then maybe twice a week, we have other stuff in the afternoon like dissections, clinical skills training, online modules, and extra lectures (biostats, IRB, ethics, business of medicine, drug creation process, etc). But you learn at your own pace, use whatever external resource you want, and so it allows for great flexibility. Lecturer quality is a mix, some do a great job at teaching and some read straight from their compact slides, but this is mostly common at other schools too.
Cadaver groups are 10 per cadaver (but you only work as a group of 5 at any given time), and you get the opportunity to do the very first cut on your cadaver, and stick with your cadaver as you learn about other parts of the body. You take turn teaching the other group of 5 what each group dissected.
Toledo also recently introduced the integrated clinical experience, where you are assigned a doctor to help out/shadow in the clinic with during your first two years. This is good to develop the skills needed to be comfortable in your third year and explore various specialties in a more hands on, formal way.
We also have interprofessional education where we work with other people in nursing, pharmacy, etc. to learn about teamwork in a small group session.
Every month or so, you will have this thing called team based learning where you will take a test with your assigned group and work through clinical cases together.
Global health opportunities are present as well, allowing students to go to underserved countries from all around the world-
Global Electives.
In your preclinical years, you can take additional elective courses to further tailor your medical education. Full list of electives here:
Preclinical Electives.
You also have a required rural rotation and alumni have said great things about this, most people seem to enjoy seeing medicine practiced beyond the traditional academic medical center in a more relaxed and "friendly" setting.
I believe the admin are also in the process of setting up a centralized shadowing method, and the flexible curriculum does allow for things like shadowing, volunteering, research, relaxing, etc.
In your fourth year, it's also very flexible, allowing you to pursue additional training in whatever you want, research, do medical missions, chill, etc. One of the primary reason I chose UT was for its curriculum. One of the other schools I was accepted to, though it was ranked much higher, was focused on getting up every morning to meet with your teams at 8 AM-11 AM to work through stuff together. No thank you, that's just not my learning style, I also sometimes want to sleep in and do things at my own time.
Daily schedule =
Obviously this differs greatly from person to person, and it might take a semester or two to figure out what works best for you. The schedule that worked for me is:
8-11: Do/review practice questions + review previous lectures.
12-5: Very Flexible. In the order of descending general time allotment: learn from external resources, research, relax, start the assigned lectures for the day, podcasts/reading, chores, mandatory classes.
6-8: Finish the assigned lectures for the day.
I do it this way because in the morning the brain is the freshest and that's when you challenge yourself with questions to get that active learning. The afternoons usually I get into a slump so I do things that require less brain power. After dinner I watch lectures (in 2x speed, as most people do) because it's passive learning and easily digestible. Although it's an 8 AM - 8 PM schedule, it doesn't feel like I'm working for 12 hours since I chunk out my time and give myself occasional breaks. Plus, I'm doing something I enjoy and find meaningful, whether that's schoolwork, research, or other projects. I feel mostly productive and self-satisfied at the end of the day. Time sort of just flies by. From 8-12 I just usually chill around and relax.
Tests =
Usually given either every week or every other week depending on the course. I think they are fair, the class average is usually around ~85%, with a standard deviation of ~7%. However, these numbers do change according to the exam. The average can get up to the high 80s or even the high 70s. The exams are more geared towards what was taught in class rather than what's on the NBME (step 1 level board questions taken at the end of every semester). Furthermore, I think there are much less 2nd and 3rd order questions in school exams, compared to the NBME step exams making the school exams easier in comparison. I believe you can get by not worrying about school exams and focusing more on NBME-relevant topics using external resources. From my personal experience, I usually score slightly above average in the exams, but was fortunate enough to do beyond the standard deviation in my first standardized end-of-semester NBME (because I studied primarily with external resources and not lectures). The point is, the exams are low stress because doing "bad" on them doesn't necessarily mean you will do bad in the NBME, which is the more important exam. And that since the preclinical curriculum is a true pass/fail (will talk more about this below), a 71% and a 100% scorer will be viewed the same. Tests are just used to make sure you're on top of things and are not a source of anxiety as it was in undergrad. Also this system reduces gunner-ish behaviors.
Pass/fail curriculum =
Toledo's one of the unique schools that offer a TRUE P/F system (no class quartiles, no internal rankings, no mention in the final dean's letter) for the first two years. This definitely helped me transition at my own pace to medical school, and not remain worried about my performance but focus on things I also care about beyond academics such as spending time with friends, volunteering, and other projects. Without this p/f system, students feel the strong pressure to memorize every single molecule, regulator, and enzyme in the cholesterol metabolism cycle and this only increases anxiety, though there is really no need for it (you're already in med school! Don't need to prove yourself more). There is also more collaboration between students, since we're not graded against each other. Like I touched on earlier, with a p/f system, students also have more time to use board prep materials instead of class resources, which I cannot overstate the importance of. But then, how are students quantitatively assessed for residency purposes? Students are evaluated in their third year rotations instead, which I prefer, since that's only one (necessary) year of neuroticism versus three. We have Honors, High pass, and Pass for our third year evals. Your evals, shelf exams at the end of every rotation, and some rotation-specific requirements will constitute your final class ranking. Admin is currently unsure if step 2 will factor into the final ranking, but most likely it will though. We still have AOA (top 25-30 of 170 students), and you can still distinguish yourselves that way. So the key takeaway is that with a true p/f, in your first two years, you can work on other things that will strengthen your app for residency like volunteering, research, networking, etc, and/or take a breather (work out, chill, netflix, etc.) so you're not just a studying robot. I mean, yes, to some extent you need to have discipline and be a "studying robot", but not to the extent of physical/mental fatigue every day. Plus, even if we have a ranking system, residency program directors don't put a lot of weight in your ranking due to inter-school variability in student's testing abilities and grading methods. More and more schools also seem to be moving to a p/f system.
Clinical sites =
Toledo has its own dedicated teaching hospital, outpatient clinic on campus, and has access to the large promedica network. So you will get to experience different kinds of medicine and see the diversity of different types of practice. We have level 1 trauma centers and a lot of high-quality clinical facilities and physicians in promedica. With the promedica network, there are also a lot of various physicians from many specialties and subspecialties to contact if you want to be their mentee or do research with them. Though, I can't really say much more than this about our clinical training (M3/M4 years) as I'm currently in the preclinical years.
Class size =
We have around 170 students in a cohort. Some other schools have less than 50, or all the way in the 300s. I think that's a good size to get to know people to expand your future network, and even in covid times, I was able to find good friends through our formally assigned student teams, clubs, and other social events. I like the larger class size because it's easier to find people who are interested in the same things you are, and can work together towards the same goals. Compare this to for example, Virginia Tech with <50 students per class. If you're interested in plastic surgery research there, well you might be the only one who are and are more likely to have to find your way alone. It's also not too big where there won't be enough support staff to support all of us or there won't be enough places for us to rotate in. However, I have to also note that with a class size this big, there sometimes isn't enough research opportunities going around. Our paid summer research opportunities I believe only accepts 30-50 ppl per year (varies because of PI availability).
Class culture =
While interviewing I heard the "great class culture" being echoed and I was like "yeah, okay, I've heard this a lot from many other schools so it doesn't really stand out. It seems just like another standard checkbox". But I was able to experience it better when I became a med student here. It seems like people in our class are quite supportive of one another and have a genuine desire to help each other out. This may be because of the pass/fail curriculum, admin role models, smaller class size (compared to undergrad), or just that people from the midwest are nicer (lol). Either way, there's a good sense of camaraderie and support within our class. Most seem to be chill people you can hang out with. But then again, I assume that Toledo's not the only school you can find this.
Dont need to travel for step =
This is huge. You can just take step 1 and step 2 on campus, while most students from other medical schools may have to fly here or elsewhere to take these exams. So that relieves some financial and mental pressure leading up to these big exams.
Adminstration support =
Great faculty. It seems like all of them are approachable, friendly, and seem genuinely invested in the education and well-being of students. Will listen to student feedback and actually implement things to meet the student needs. These guys seem like they are really on your side. I've heard horror stories about other admin-student relationships at other med schools and feel fortunate UT isn't like that. Without doxxing myself, I'm working with faculty and so I get to see the behind-the-scenes of how things are carefully thought out and are done in our best interest when planning the med school curriculum and other initiatives.
Research =
Toledo's definitely not a research powerhouse like some other schools. Students might end up with 1-2 publications by the end of their four years, with a portion ending up with none at all. But I think the students who choose to come to Toledo also have a role to play on that, as the students coming to Toledo aren't as research-driven as someone going to Stanford for example (doesn't mean UT students are "valued" less, just that in general, these two groups of students have different career goals). But opportunities are out there if you want. Various labs in various specialties are on campus. There's also a paid summer research program between your first and second year. But otherwise, no strict research requirements for graduation (like thesis, longitudinal projects, etc.) and that can either be a pro or a con for you. If you want to go to a competitive specialty, you might want to find research outside of Toledo during your time as a student here, like in UMich, OSU, Cleveland, Cincy, etc. But I've seen a lot of upperclassmen do well in this route and were able to network and match to competitive specialties. In fact, they used the argument of Toledo's lack of research when reaching out to other institutions to their advantage. It's like they're saying, "I'm not given much in this institution to help achieve my research goals, but I'm still very passionate about it and have a strong initiative, that's why I'm reaching out to you for help and guidance". Faculty from other institutions like to see that determination. Personally speaking, as someone looking to get several pubs under my belt, I'm not too worried. Though I do agree, it would have been nicer to have more research opportunities locally in the first place. To see what's being published/how productive UT faculty are, check out the recent pubs page:
Research Publications (most recent data is Jan 2021, needs to be updated)
Campus =
Big lecture halls that are the standard for almost all medical schools. Dedicated studying lounges for students, though it can get quite full at certain times during the day. High ceiling library with natural lighting, so studying there isn't claustrophobic. Hospital connects directly to the medical school. Campus isn't too hard to navigate within. We also have a fancy high-tech sim center on campus with big VR auditoriums (first of its kind in Ohio), surgical skills center, clinical simulation center, and 3D printing opportunities. The campus is located sort of in the South-West of Toledo, and commuting generally takes 10-20 minutes, depending on where students live but I believe most are in this range. I do wish they have more private studying rooms for group work though, especially ones that have large screens to go through slides/questions on with friends. 30 min tour here =
Extracurriculars =
It feels like at every medical school, there is a club for everything you can think of. I believe UT is similar to that, given its larger class size too. Though I think there are other medical schools with much more opportunities extracurricular-wise (and some schools with less), I don't think that necessarily makes UT's selection of ECs objectively bad. If anything, you can have the initiative to start something on campus and that can be something fun to do. Personally, I haven't found the options offered here limiting to my own interests.
Community Care Clinic (CCC) =
People say it's the largest student run clinic in the US, but who really keeps a record right? Either way, it's a big thing at UT. The CCC has several mini branches that serve different populations and areas. So there are a lot of opportunities to volunteer, learn clinical skills, engage with the community, learn teamwork, and maybe even publish some research on community health if you want to. A good portion of students are involved in this and most find it fulfilling. As medical students you play an active role in triaging the patient and interviewing them with a team consisting of a doctor and other medical students, among many other possible roles through the CCC.
Toledo city =
It's 1 hour to Ann Arbor and Detroit, and 2 hours to Columbus and Cincinnati if you want to plan a short weekend trip. Toledo's a "simple" city, with its suburban richer areas, and some crime-ridden downtown areas. The city's biggest draw include our zoo, our art museum, and park systems. Nothing much going on compared to the bigger cities tbh. Food is nothing spectacular, infrastructure is okay, and the views are average. Coming from living in the West Coast and in Chicago, for me, this was a bit of a step down.
Tuition/COL =
One of the unique things Toledo offers for OOS applicants is the ability to be in state after their first year, which saves you ~20k per year (OOS vs IS cost). That's ~60k over the span of three years, and with how much the interest is and how long it usually takes to pay off loans, that 60k will definitely go much much higher depending on your repayment plan. So in the long run, you'll be saving a lot of money. I would much rather save ~90k in the long run and work just a bit harder to overcome any career-specific drawbacks of choosing Toledo (primarily talking about research and netwokring opportunities). The school admin will also work closely with you to ensure you switch in time one year into the program. The cost of living is also some of the cheapest in the US for a city like Toledo. I have a 950 sqft 2 bedroom, 1 bath in a nice suburban part of Toledo and it's only $425 per person per month with utilities. Gas is cheap here too (~$2.6).
Diversity =
In terms of student diversity, I think Toledo's standard, relative to other medical schools. There is a decent mix of people from different cultures and ethnicities, trads and non-trads, people who already have kids, various past experiences (as in not everyone was in a research lab, but had interesting and unique backgrounds), religion, racial background, etc. But then again, because of COVID, I feel like I only can recognize 50% of my class for now. Much less the number of classmates I actually talked to and have gotten to actually know. So take my opinion with a grain of salt.
Extra =
- Winters are not too bad (at least this year it wasn't)
- Parking is very close and you'll always get good parking spots. This is unlike some other institutions where you park in the 5th story of another building, then either walk or take the shuttle to the main campus or its clinical sites.
- Traffic isn't bad at all even at rush hour, relative to the larger cities.
- Fancy plastination museum to see pathologies like a right sided heart, emphysema, Alzheimers, etc.
- Nice, big standing desks in library
- Formalized way for upperclassmen to pass down their books so we don't have to pay for these resources
- UT doesn't help subsidize external resources, plan to spend 1.5-2k for step 1 and step 2 external resources
- Assigned upperclass mentor (Rocket mentor)
- Assigned learning pod groups (where you discuss random life and professional stuff together with a faculty and do some activities together, both formally and informally). How effective this is is highly varied as some groups hang out in their faculty's house while some groups lost contact altogether.
- Pool table, ping pong table, piano in student lounge near library
- Dedicated student wellness coach. Weekly yoga, meditation, anonymous vent sessions, and other wellness opportunities.
- Weekly review sessions hosted by multiple upperclassmen at multiple various times
- Gym's decent (7/10), easy to access on campus
- Every other week, there's a mini-series led by upperclassmen for M1 students to explore all specialties
- Getting used to the blackboard website, where all educational materials are, can have a learning curve
- Formal way to get curricular support and planning through the academic enhancement center if you're struggling (I heard that they are very helpful)
- Need car to get around, very minimal public transport
- Dating scene is a 3/10 for a young professional, go to Ann Arbor or Columbus instead lmao
- On-campus student pantry, grab your mac & cheese, pasta, canned foods, cereal, and other non-perishable stuff for free.
- Campus/hospital food is a 4/10
- BUT...Taco bell is a 3-4 mins drive from campus
(TLDR) In summary =
Nothing particularly "world-class", but still an objectively-speaking high quality and affordable institution with various resources that doesn't strictly limit your future career options.
Toledo gets a 7.8/10 final rating for me (with 5/10 being average, so I'm not giving UT a C+).
Cons = mediocre research opportunities, Toledo city, and lack of home programs.
Pros = flexible curriculum style, admin support, true p/f, cheap tuition, class size, good match list, extracurricular options, and class camaraderie.
I tried to cover everything I can think of, but if you have any other questions or if I missed anything, ask them here so others can also see it (or DM if you prefer that, I'm cool with either way). We just finished finals so I have some time to spare. Looking forward to meeting some of you next year!
Disclaimer = This rating is influenced by my own personal career goals and priorities in med school. You might have different priorities, and that will affect your personal overall rating of Toledo. Also, these are all just the thoughts and observations of one person. I do my best to try to capture Toledo objectively, but I realize other med students may not share the same experience.
P.S. Please also read this, I think it's very important for you to keep this in mind:
Insight into Pre-Medical Decisions from a Resident (factors in choosing a school, life outlook, etc)
