2021-2022 Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine (Harlem Campus)

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Anyone current students hear of MaryMount Manhattan Post bacc Linkage to Touro?
 
To whom should I send the letter of update/interest? is it to the admissions office email or is there a specific person we can send it to?
 
Also accepted! Pissed my pants at work when I got the email. URM 506 MCAT 4.41 cGPA and lots of clinical experience, mostly in my 7 months out of undergrad.

I can't find an accepted student FB page. Trying to look for housing already, probably across the hudson lol
 
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Hey everyone! OMS-1 ( Harlem) here, and I am taking my time to write this message and tell my experience in TouroCOM thus far. Couple things to keep in mind: 1) you have to come to class to get credit, and not only come in but be ready for the class ( it’s flipped classroom). So you are expected to watch and understand 10 hours of videos before coming to class. Which is not that bad, unless you have multiple exams. 2) the exam schedule is crazy, we had 7 exams in two weeks this semester.. in addition to regular test and quizzes schedule. It’s very stressful and hard to do well. 3) we get grades- and it’s A B C D system, no -/+.. and for you to get an A you have to score over 91 in basically everything. 4) rotation sites are terrible. 5) very small school, limited resources in everything. 6) if you are not from the area- it will take to adjust to NYC and to Harlem. 7) the administration is terrible in this school . 8) ppl who score well in the class are mainly past master students (the have bridge program to medical school).

The only pluses in this school- the students are nice, and will try to help. Some of the teachers are really great and will go out of their way to help out.

Honestly, I regret coming to this school - not a good fit for me personally ( I much rather have the option of staying home rather then coming to class, have normal class schedule, have pass/fail classes etc). If you have an option to choose location, I would go with Middletown- it’s better school ( better professors) but in middle of nowhere.

If you have anymore specific questions, please reach out!! At the end of the day, if this is the only school that accepted you- go for it, but just be ready to study every single day, until 1 or 2 am. ( I have friends at different schools that study way less and doing well).
 
Alice_11234 said:
Hey everyone! OMS-1 ( Harlem) here, and I am taking my time to write this message and tell my experience in TouroCOM thus far. Couple things to keep in mind: 1) you have to come to class to get credit, and not only come in but be ready for the class ( it’s flipped classroom). So you are expected to watch and understand 10 hours of videos before coming to class. Which is not that bad, unless you have multiple exams. 2) the exam schedule is crazy, we had 7 exams in two weeks this semester.. in addition to regular test and quizzes schedule. It’s very stressful and hard to do well. 3) we get grades- and it’s A B C D system, no -/+.. and for you to get an A you have to score over 91 in basically everything. 4) rotation sites are terrible. 5) very small school, limited resources in everything. 6) if you are not from the area- it will take to adjust to NYC and to Harlem. 7) the administration is terrible in this school . 8) ppl who score well in the class are mainly past master students (the have bridge program to medical school).

The only pluses in this school- the students are nice, and will try to help. Some of the teachers are really great and will go out of their way to help out.

Honestly, I regret coming to this school - not a good fit for me personally ( I much rather have the option of staying home rather then coming to class, have normal class schedule, have pass/fail classes etc). If you have an option to choose location, I would go with Middletown- it’s better school ( better professors) but in middle of nowhere.

If you have anymore specific questions, please reach out!! At the end of the day, if this is the only school that accepted you- go for it, but just be ready to study every single day, until 1 or 2 am. ( I have friends at different schools that study way less and doing well).
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Sheeesshhhhh, where are you from? I used to live in east Harlem and I know the area pretty well. A lot of homelessness, pollution, and sketchy crap happening. The Brownstone landlords seemingly own multiple homes and are wealthy but on the next street over there are public project housing and public hospitals without adequate funding. Harlem is a microcosm of NYC.

Anyways I was really surprised that Touro Harlem existed in that small building. I want to get into a med school in NY but I have my doubts about this medical school.

I honestly just want to know the likeliness of getting into decent surgery residency
 
A majority of the DO schools are in rural areas, compared to that TouroCom-Harlem is sunshine (minus the exterior of the bldg its in) !

You'll have put in long hours wherever you go !
But when you have any downtime at all -- remember you're in Manhattan, lot's to do !
tourocom.touro.edu

Harlem Match Results

Harlem Match Results
tourocom.touro.edu tourocom.touro.edu
tourocom.touro.edu

COMLEX-USA

Overview Students take the COMLEX-USA Level 1 exam between their second and third year. COMLEX-USA Level 1 is a problem- and symptom-based assessment, administe
tourocom.touro.edu tourocom.touro.edu
 
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RN-2-Medicine said:
Sheeesshhhhh, where are you from? I used to live in east Harlem and I know the area pretty well. A lot of homelessness, pollution, and sketchy crap happening. The Brownstone landlords seemingly own multiple homes and are wealthy but on the next street over there are public project housing and public hospitals without adequate funding. Harlem is a microcosm of NYC.

Anyways I was really surprised that Touro Harlem existed in that small building. I want to get into a med school in NY but I have my doubts about this medical school.

I honestly just want to know the likeliness of getting into decent surgery residency
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I am from Brooklyn, so I didn’t mind the area ( it got a little bit worse after COVID honestly).. and the building is small, we have really only two regular classrooms, and two OMM classes and one anatomy lab. The rest of the building is for pharm folks.

The match rate from last year was actually very good, 100%! The locations were okay, nothing spectacular.
 
RN-2-Medicine said:
Sheeesshhhhh, where are you from? I used to live in east Harlem and I know the area pretty well. A lot of homelessness, pollution, and sketchy crap happening. The Brownstone landlords seemingly own multiple homes and are wealthy but on the next street over there are public project housing and public hospitals without adequate funding. Harlem is a microcosm of NYC.

Anyways I was really surprised that Touro Harlem existed in that small building. I want to get into a med school in NY but I have my doubts about this medical school.

I honestly just want to know the likeliness of getting into decent surgery residency
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Actually we also had decent amount of surgery matches, I want to say maybe 10 or so? So definitely double, but very hard!
 
I have been through the secondary and interview process. Recently was accepted and paid the deposit. If anyone has any questions about the process so far I would be happy to help. If anyone else is planning on attending I would love to connect. Slightly apprehensive about the flipped classroom model but both COMLEX pass rates and a residency placement of 100% for the last graduating class are highly encouraging.
 
aspiring_md22 said:
do they accept post-submission application update letters?
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Yes, they do. During my interview, we discussed an experience that I left off my primary application and both interviewers urged me to write up an essay about it and send it to admissions to be included with my application.
 
MadeForSunnyDaze said:
Second year here, just floating the knowledge that there are people in my class who got in literally the week before/week of orientation. If anyone has any questions, feel free to send them my way, but be warned that my response time may be a little slow. Wishing all of you successful cycles!
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How do students handle the flipped classroom model? Do you feel like you learn the material better?
 
NonTrad001 said:
I have been through the secondary and interview process. Recently was accepted and paid the deposit. If anyone has any questions about the process so far I would be happy to help. If anyone else is planning on attending I would love to connect. Slightly apprehensive about the flipped classroom model but both COMLEX pass rates and a residency placement of 100% for the last graduating class are highly encouraging.
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Congrats on the acceptance!! Mind sharing complete date and stats? 🙂
 
elrm257 said:
will tmr be the day since it's been 4 weeks post-interview? stay tuned 🤔
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kiwi10 said:
Congrats on the acceptance!! Mind sharing complete date and stats? 🙂
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Secondary submission on 8/13
Interview on 10/4
Acceptance email came in on 11/5
cGPA was a 3.5 and sGPA around 3.6 with a 501 MCAT
I think my experiences played a huge role considering my actual MCAT score was 8-10 points lower than any of my AAMC practice exams.
 
DOstudent2 said:
The campus is a bit smaller than I expected but still great nonetheless! The school's building is right in the middle of Harlem so there is plenty to do and see when you're not busy studying. The school itself does have a good amount of study spaces and has lots of measures in place for student and staff safety. I absolutely love the school so far. The faculty is amazing and the school really does care about its students by making sure we have the tools to succeed. Our grading system is a little different from other schools and really supports the collaboration aspect of med school that I feel can be lost when trying to perform your best academically. All-in-all, I'm very glad I picked the school out of my other choices!
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How are the classroom sessions? Do you feel like you learn the material well with the flipped model? I recently reserved my seat for the class of 2026 and looking to get better insight on what to expect.
 
hey guys! any advice for CASPer? just got an email that my app is complete but put on hold.. pending my december 7th CASPer scores.
 
diddy3 said:
hey guys! any advice for CASPer? just got an email that my app is complete but put on hold.. pending my december 7th CASPer scores.
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I know there are a handful of key competencies that the CASPer graders look for in responses. I would look those up and practice some questions with your answers trying to incorporate as many of them as possible. I think I scored in the 2nd Quartile but I only took two days to prepare (not recommended).
 
Hey humans, current second-year at TouroCOM here. Wanted to offer my inbox in case y'all have any questions about the school. I know applying and being in limbo about the next 4+ years is super hard and I'll do what I can to provide prompt information that helps you make decisions. Good luck with the app cycle!

Protip: the admissions office is super receptive to emails asking about status updates. When I applied I emailed them to give an update on my activities and grades for my MS program and responded by offering me an interview. Also, they do good cop/bad cop style for interviews so be prepared for that. I felt like I completely bombed my interview but here I am. Remember they wouldn't be interviewing you if you didn't have something they want. Acknowledge your weaknesses in your application when they come up and try not to make excuses (I've heard from faculty that they specifically don't like that, barring COVID extenuating circumstances).

The curriculum is definitely tough since we aren't systems-based in the first year but it mellows out a bit in the second year. Obviously medical school isn't easy but the way it's designed does put extra pressure on students. We are letter-graded, as one of my peers has already mentioned in this thread - although it's hard for residency PDs to rank grades against strictly P/F curriculum. Unless you decide on a super competitive specialty it shouldn't affect your shot at residencies.

The students are the big plus for the school (I'll admit I'm biased there) but you'll find the majority of us will do what we can to help others succeed. The school does a good job for the most part of selecting people who are genuine and actually care about others and their community.
 
Does anyone remember how they sent their CASPer scores in? I'm looking at the takealtus casper site, and I'm only seeing an option to send for Touro Nevada.
 
FueledByCoffee said:
Hey humans, current second-year at TouroCOM here. Wanted to offer my inbox in case y'all have any questions about the school. I know applying and being in limbo about the next 4+ years is super hard and I'll do what I can to provide prompt information that helps you make decisions. Good luck with the app cycle!

Protip: the admissions office is super receptive to emails asking about status updates. When I applied I emailed them to give an update on my activities and grades for my MS program and responded by offering me an interview. Also, they do good cop/bad cop style for interviews so be prepared for that. I felt like I completely bombed my interview but here I am. Remember they wouldn't be interviewing you if you didn't have something they want. Acknowledge your weaknesses in your application when they come up and try not to make excuses (I've heard from faculty that they specifically don't like that, barring COVID extenuating circumstances).

The curriculum is definitely tough since we aren't systems-based in the first year but it mellows out a bit in the second year. Obviously medical school isn't easy but the way it's designed does put extra pressure on students. We are letter-graded, as one of my peers has already mentioned in this thread - although it's hard for residency PDs to rank grades against strictly P/F curriculum. Unless you decide on a super competitive specialty it shouldn't affect your shot at residencies.

The students are the big plus for the school (I'll admit I'm biased there) but you'll find the majority of us will do what we can to help others succeed. The school does a good job for the most part of selecting people who are genuine and actually care about others and their community.
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What was your first-year experience like? I am a non-trad having graduated back in 2014 but will be starting with the class of 2026 next Fall. Any advice or insight would be greatly appreciated! Thank you for reaching out in the forum.
 
NonTrad001 said:
What was your first-year experience like? I am a non-trad having graduated back in 2014 but will be starting with the class of 2026 next Fall. Any advice or insight would be greatly appreciated! Thank you for reaching out in the forum.
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No problem, here to help. First year was definitely rough. To give you a little background I graduated with an engineering degree in 2018 and completed a non-science master's in 2020 before matriculating. I was also an EMT for several 911 services and did disaster response. I took on a bunch of leadership positions in the first year which sucked a lot of my time away, so my experience may not exactly reflect the general student body. I know a current first year in the thread said that they stayed up until 1-2 AM studying every day but that was definitely not the case for me (I'm an in-bed by 11, wake up at 7 type of person) and I still finished the year with a competitive GPA (I think that individual also had kids and was a couple of years out of school based on their post Hx).

Academics/Curriculum: Overall, the exam schedule is tough. October is the worst month historically. In the first year, you have individual classes (physio, biochem, OMM, anatomy, etc.) and each class makes its own exams. Just because of the volume of material you end up having some exams a week apart and rarely an exam on Monday and one on Friday of the same week. It was really important to not fall behind or else you end up "exam-chasing," meaning that you just study for the next exam without doing material for any other class. Sometimes I had to take an L on an exam because life got busy, but you have 3 exams in most classes so it doesn't spell disaster if you do fine on the other two.

Classes are technically not required (except labs and special sessions), but there is a component of your grade assigned to in-person clickers. Usually, it's ~5-10% of your final grade in a class. I know a lot of people who didn't go to class because they felt that the extra self-study they did could offset the missed points, but I personally went to class to get the clicker points and just did other work while there if I felt like I was already solid on the material. Since a large portion of the student body went through Touro's M.S. program where they took 1st year classes it's easy to think you're doing poorly. I tried to remind myself that I'm comparing myself to people who are taking their second pass at the course and that helped my imposter syndrome/anxiety.

Living in NY: I'm not from NY so moving here was an adjustment, especially with the pandemic. I like where I'm living, although I'm not in Harlem. Commuting isn't such a big deal for me since I just do Anki on the subway. It was new not having a car but you can get anything you need in the city and most of the people I know didn't have trouble finding housing if they were realistic about the real estate market.

Extracurriculars: As I said, I took on leadership positions before I had my feet wet with classes. I wouldn't recommend doing this if you are looking into a hyper-competitive specialty since it definitely took time and affected how much of my mental energy could go to studying. There are plenty of clubs and opportunities to pad your resume in the second year. I know a lot of my classmates also did research around NY in the summer between M1/M2. It's a bit challenging to find research opportunities since we aren't affiliated with a particular hospital system or huge academic center, but it's there if you're willing to search for it.

Overall, I think I'm being prepared well for my career in medicine. We had great board scores this year and I'm not worried about Step 1 (since it's P/F now). There were lows for sure, but I think that I overextended myself and it would have happened regardless of where I went for school based on what my friends at other institutions have told me. Your question was very broad but I hope that I answered it adequately - let me know if you'd like to know more specifics!
 
@FueledByCoffee , thank you for being thorough and brutally honest !
That's what's needed to mentally prepare yourself for the 1st year.
 
So I'm just now submitting my secondary application. Am I too late or do you think I still have a chance? Btw I'm a Canadian applicant MCAT 51X, GPA 3.57.
 
NikeDunks said:
So I'm just now submitting my secondary application. Am I too late or do you think I still have a chance? Btw I'm a Canadian applicant MCAT 51X, GPA 3.57.
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Did you already submit your secondary ?
 
Could someone post the secondary questions to this thread? 🙂 I'm sorry if they've already been posted, I didn't see them if so.
 
Anyone get interviewed around the beginning of November? Have you heard back yet?
 
elijahR said:
Anyone get interviewed around the beginning of November? Have you heard back yet?
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Interviewed Nov 8th. No reply yet. They gave us a range of 4-6 weeks during the pre-interview info session.
 
DaOddOne said:
Could someone post the secondary questions to this thread? 🙂 I'm sorry if they've already been posted, I didn't see them if so.
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Personal Statement: This Personal Statement is different than the essay that had been submitted with your AACOMAS application. Although there is no specified length to this essay, please limit the length of this Personal Statement to the space available on this page.

Please discuss how your background, experience or academic program has prepared you for meeting Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine’s Mission, Goals, or Objectives. Consider addressing a few of the following areas: a) Why Osteopathic Medicine? b) Have you been exposed to a diverse environment and how did you contribute? c) How have your academic background and personal experiences prepared you for medical school? or d) How were you influenced by a shadowing experience?
 
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