So I am currently a 4th year at WFSOM and I just heard about what was being said in this forum from other students and spent a lot of time thinking about the earlier comments. As it is easy for some of the younger students to comment on things like clinical rotations and Step 1 and 2 when some have yet to experience them (obviously some have though). Being a 4th year and also having multiple friends in our class who had siblings graduate from WFSOM in previous years makes me think I can give a pretty good idea of what the experience and curriculum through the years has been like. Especially since I even reached out to one of the siblings.
Yes Winston Salem is not for everyone, but it does not claim to be a massive city or a super small rural town. If you want a middle of nowhere, rural town, or a massive city... then this might not be the place for you. I knew I did not want to end up in a big city with endless distractions because I know how I am (no self control lol) and I also know that I was going to be consistently busy to the point that I would never have time for endless stuff. So there's that. I chose Wake and so far it is not too big or small and just perfect for me.
About the curriculum and testing: The school has always been multiple points above the national average for Step 1 and Step 2. Our class actually had the best average as a class ever in Wakes history to my knowledge. The curriculum at the school is the exact same as it was for me, the year below us, and previous years of our classmate's siblings. So the curriculum has stayed the same, only the student's expectations of Step 1 have changed. I, like many of my classmates, spent like 7-8 hours studying every day for step 1 as is typical even though I have wanted to do Internal Medicine for years, not some awful surgery specialty (yes I am biased) that required an Einstein score. My friends who also wanted to do primary care studied like this too because that is what is expected of any medical student across the country. Many of my friends and I got in the mid 240s and beyond on Step 1. Many of us also ironically never used Anki, including me because I hated it, and only used in-house powerpoints during the school curriculum and switched to boards and beyond and pathoma for step 1. We did well on in-house stuff and on Step 1. Many people have this idiotic idea that you can either do well on in house tests or step 1, but not both. Just not true at all. While we did have some people who never watched lectures and do below average on in house tests just because they only studied for Step 1, that was not the majority of people. To say that the curriculum hasnt been great is an opinion obviously from some, but one that is not backed by the data of previous classes scores (in regards to how prepared they were). I know the class that just took step 1, like many classes that also just did across the country, had a harder time with it. I can promise you from my experience and some of the people who took it at Wake, it was not a curriculum problem at all. Some people decided to take it a few days before the cut-off of going pass fail and absolutely crushed it. If I would have gone into that test thinking "oh its pass fail now, so I do not need to study like I should be studying" mentality... It would have absolutely crushed me.
In regards to the rotations. You get to choose the order of your rotations. Almost every single person in our class got their first choice. You get an email before each major rotation asking if there was a subspecialty (like in surgery or internal med) that you wanted and they would "TRY" to get you into that. It worked out for most people. Though I was not a fan of the grading due to how biased some of it was, overall it makes sense. Your grade was distributed between your clinical score, Shelf Score, and professionalism. That way you cant just blow off clinicals and only study for the test or vise versa. Also, every single student is given UWORLD 1 and Uworld 2 for free by the school, which was unheard of for my friends at other schools. Each of us is guaranteed 4 weeks minimum to study for step 2. And if needed we can take an extra 4 weeks (8 weeks total) if needed without hurting us. Since I have taken both step tests, when some of the earlier people havent, this is the truth.
So all in all, I have enjoyed Wake and am very glad to have chosen Wake over the other schools I was considering. The curriculum has been backed with years of over-performing and beating the national average on Step Tests, despite what the earlier person was claiming. We had people in the class above us match into some of the best residency programs in the country (a ton did somehow) to the point that it actually shocked me