Come to ATSU-SOMA if you want the following:
✅A new dean almost every year - our previous Dean was in her position for a whopping 11 months
✅A brand new untested curriculum
✅Sudden curriculum changes in the middle of a course
✅High tuition for a curriculum where you essentially teach yourself medicine - when the school was asked why tuition was so high during the COVID-19 lockdown, their response was "Zoom is more expensive than having in-person classes" o m e g a l u l.
✅New faculty hired to replace the massive wave of professors who left the previous year
✅An administration that disregards feedback and complaints from students and even professors - force professors and deans out of their positions because they disagree with policies
✅Take exams that focus on minutiae from PhD professors’ research despite promises to 'teach to the boards' - you also can't review your exams when you get your grade back because they're too lazy to hold feedback sessions.
✅Multiple mandatory 8-hour Kaplan practice exams (which don't even reflect the boards) - you also can't review your exams when you get your grade back
✅Declining board pass rates – 10 students failed COMLEX last year (and board pass rates haven't been published recently 🤔)
✅No board dedicated time – instead go to class up to 5x a week, review OMM material for several hours
(because that's more important than anything else), and have school exams up until May. The school expects you to take boards at the end of May (lmao)
✅Being discouraged from taking USMLE step 1 'because primary care residencies don't need it' and 'you're a DO student'
✅Being threatened to take COMLEX level 1 before July 1 or else you have explain yourself to the Student Performance Committee - a negative mark goes onto your MSPE
✅Being forced to do a useless research project in second year on top of clinic, 3 classes, and board studying
✅Being a slave in a clinic in second year – shadow doctors for 8 hours per week for no grade while exams are around the corner
✅Take a useless epidemiology/biostats course for the entirety of second year in which the course contents can be summarized in an email
✅Feeling isolated and having no support from the school in year 2 and beyond
✅Laughable mental health services – being told they can’t help you because they’re unlicensed in your particular state
✅Receive threats of expulsion from the school for 1 poor quiz/exam performance
✅Participate in countless hours of stupid wellness meetings during critical periods (like right before an exam) because "yOuR mEnTaL hEaLtH iS iMpOrTaNt tO uS"
✅Have OMM shoved down your throats by professors who drank the osteopathy Kool-Aid
✅Have insecure rotation spots and living in fear that you may have to rotate 100’s of miles away because the school can't keep their end of the deal. The Texas CHC was shutdown in the midst of the pandemic because the school failed to take the necessary steps to get approved by the state and clinical sites. Luckily it was resolved months later. The NY CHC failed to renew their partnership with NYU Langone for rotation spots. They were forced to partner with Wyckoff Heights Medical Center as a last resort. Not long ago, Wyckoff severed ties with ATSU out of the blue, forcing the 3rd and 4th year students out of their rotations. ATSU considered sending students to other CHC locations across the country, but luckily that was resolved too. Who knows what's next?
✅Participate in meetings upon, meetings upon, meetings upon, meetings upon, meetings upon, meetings upon meetings
✅Have fear instilled in you and then participate in meetings about "speaking up" - those that actually speak up then sit in front a council for unprofessionalism
✅Being forced to move up to 3 times in less than 2 years with no support from the school - some students are paying 2 leases in very expensive cities (some have to take private loans to cover the cost of living)
✅Potentially live in poverty because the school will not adjust loans based on the cost-of-living and inflation. Imagine maxing out your loans, any only getting ~$35k to live in a major city like Chicago or NYC where annual rent cost is upwards of $30k.
✅Being forced to enroll in the school's crappy health insurance plan with ridiculous co-pays in 3rd and 4th year because "Medicaid doesn't provide enough coverage" and "Medicaid doesn't cross state-lines." The school insurance actually excludes mental health coverage (l m a o) which Medicaid covers (and a lot more). Here's a kicker - the school's insurance plan doesn't cover abortion unless it was due to rape or incest. That's just one of the asinine exclusions that the insurance plan has. The majority of students plan on doing their away rotations in a state where their Medicaid plan is valid, however the school still won't accept it for reasons unknown. For those who are actually going out-of-state for away rotations, the school forbids temporary coverage for those weeks. It's another $4000 per year going into the school's pockets on top of your increasing tuition fees.
✅Being forced to take a poorly written practice exam that has a notoriously bad predictive value just 2 weeks into your limited "dedicated" time (the few quiet weeks in May when the school finally leaves us the f**k alone). Just as you're about to take COMSAE you receive threats of expulsion for failing. This is straight from Dr. Coty:
"If a student has not achieved a minimum passing score on a COMSAE after two consecutive attempts, they will be referred to the SPC committee for academic performance inadequacy and may be subject to dismissal."
Ironic that this is coming from a man who holds a
PhD in anatomy and has
never taken a medical board exam in his life. How is he responsible for ensuring that we pass the boards? His policies are so stupid that LECOM Bradenton (his former school in which he utterly sabotaged) made a website dedicated to his stupidity. You can read about it here:
LECOM-a-SUTRA (Search results for: coty) (tumblr.com)
Hello Kiddos!
Reading through this thread I couldn't stay quiet about the school. If ATSU is your only acceptance then congratulations! You are well on your way to achieving your goals and dreams and you should be proud of that!
If you have other options though, I'd recommend seriously considering the other options. I've seen people mentioning that SOMA is well established and had a great match cycle (props to that class), but the underlying foundations of the school is very poor, morale is very low among students and faculty, and there is no stability. Professors have been leaving faster than they can hire, administrators as jumping ship as well. Sad to say but it's only been getting worse each year and seems like the trend is still downwards.
Again if this is your only option to becoming a physician then 100% take the acceptance and pursue your dreams. Just keep your head down and do not expect too much support from the school. You will have to be your own advocate and support yourself emotionally and academically. The school will treat you like a problem child otherwise.
P.S. Not a single student from the school has had a positive interaction with Dr. Coty. Even students from his past school of LECOM were happy to get rid of him. "He's your problem now" - LECOM student
ATSU over-admitted students last cycle under the assumption that many of the students admitted earlier in the cycle would eventually give up their admission to go to a different school-- unfortunately, not enough of these early admits gave up their seat. As a result, students who interviewed later in the cycle after the class already filled up, received something called a Notice of Selection (aka "admission pending a seat" or APS for short). Not everyone who interviewed in the Spring received this Notice of Selection, as some later interviewees were waitlisted, while still others were rejected post-interview. At the end of the application cycle, since many APS students were still awaiting a seat to open up, ATSU decided to hand out deferred admission to APS students giving them the option to accept a deferred admission meaning that they'd start the program in July 2022. According to last year's thread, as of this past May, there were something like 180 students still stuck on the APS list, many of whom were unable to matriculate this last July so were deferred for next year's class. I am not exactly sure how many of the 180 students were deferred vs how many matriculated this past July. I also don't know if ATSU is planning to increase their class size for next year to account for the deferment. Keep in mind, if enrollment size does not change and remains at 160, then my best guess is that anyone applying to ATSU this cycle will be vying for a smaller than normal number of spots since many of the 160 seats will have already been filled by APS students who were deferred. Sorry that was a mouthful, but hopefully this makes sense and provides a better picture of what happened and what to expect.
I can't really recommend applying again or going to this school because obviously I made a decision and can't go back. That is up to you. Its important to just take this information in and weigh it against the negatives of applying again. I did not want to talk negatively about my school because I genuinely am a positive person who tries to see the best in things, and I want to stay professional. But all of the things I am saying are true, nothing is being stretched or dramatized and I am very careful to speak respectfully.
But there are so many policies especially 3rd and 4th year that we have no say in, that actively work against us, or make life 10x more stressful. Making up holidays instead of just being able to take the day off to study, using vacation/flexible time if you happen to get infected with COVID infection, having an OMM course our 3rd and 4th years that requires us to do hands on work on potentially COVID+ patients during almost all rotations despite pleas from students to get it changed, have all contributed to the incredible stress and burnout 3rd and 4th years are experiencing. We have tried to raise these issues to administration (or in the other case the OMM instructor) and have been largely ignored, and just told to deal with it.
I talk with students from other schools (including midwestern, other MD schools), and they don't seem to feel this way.
The thing about the suicide hotline I did not actually personally use it myself or hear other students say they used it, I believe it was in an email written from someone higher up urging students to reach out if they were feeling this way because they had seen an uptick in calls to the hotline this year. This just really highlights that you must develop good habits to take care of yourself in medical school (at any medical school) and reach out to anyone if you are ever feeling like hurting yourself. This also highlights the mental state of some of the students this year.
I used to really enjoy this school my 1st and 2nd year and would never say anything bad about it, but things have taken a different turn this year, so I felt it was important to be upfront about the policies of this school. I am not saying to not come here because I can't make that decision for you and shouldn't. I am just trying to communicate some things up front about this school has and hope you all can make your own decision.
Positives for this school:
1. The CHC model: I really enjoy working with underserved populations and felt that starting in clinic 2nd year really gave us a leg up when starting 3rd year. This may not be as useful if you want to go into a surgical specialty because we are in primary care clinics mostly our second year but it is helpful to prepare you for IM, FM, Peds. I also loved the patient population at the CHCs, and the resources you have available to you (nutrition counseling, behavioral health, clinical pharmacists). This is the biggest strength of SOMA and something I enjoy a lot. I also think it also taught me to be more understanding of people (I didn't have an issue with this before but it helped expand my ability to give people the benefit of the doubt at all times- ie. everyone can improve on this). I think this is an incredible useful skill as a physician because being a physician is truly a test of emotional maturity/ ability to maintain professionalism in tough circumstances, and if you are a hot headed person who gets frustrated at little things or don't try to see things from patient's perspectives, residency is going to be tough for you. We will all be tested in many ways as physicians and working on this skill is key. I feel I have grown so much as a person due to my time at the CHC and the different types of people I have encountered and helped. Plus working with our patient population really makes you feel like you are making a genuine difference and this is what keeps me going during tough rotations.
2. The OMM curriculum in 1st and 2nd year will prepare you well for COMLEX. It is a tough course which may not be your jam, but you won't have to be learning all of that information on the back end right before COMLEX. You will have a solid foundation. This isn't helpful for step though obviously, but I know some others schools OMM curriculum is lacking.
3. The Medical directors/RDMEs at all CHCs are caring and want the best for you. They will go out of their way to help you and guide you. They are awesome mentors, and I truly wouldn't be where I am without the mentorship I have had from my RDMEs. I felt very supported by my CHC. There are also some really great professors that truly care so much and respond to emails promptly that you encounter 1st and 2nd year.
Just to let everyone know a couple more details about attending ATSU SOMA that relate more to 3rd and 4th year. I would have liked to know this before I attended ATSU.
1. If you get COVID-19 while rotating you have to take vacation time, instead of having the option to do online learning. This means out of the 4 weeks of vacay you get 3rd year, you have to use 10 days to quarantine. Most students use 2 of 4 weeks to study for boards, so if they got covid or already used their vacation before contracting it, they would lose additional board study time. This is not common practice for any other medical schools whose students I have spoke with.
2. If you are on an outpatient rotation and have a holiday where the clinic is closed and you are not scheduled to work, you have to complete a make up assignment for that day. This is also a thing that when talking to other students, no other medical school does (out of the students I talked to so not sure about every medical school in US). Also we do not get the day before the shelf off to study, which many other schools do give their students. But, we are given 3 personal days per year to use for whatever we need (i.e mental health day etc.)
3. During third year there are weekly assignments that you do during all core rotations that are time consuming and graded pretty carefully. These assignments are not board questions but often activities that course directors make. They can take anywhere from 1-7 hours to complete. These assignments count towards your grade. If you Honored an Eval and High passed a COMAT exam, you need at 99% average on these assignments to be able to pull up your grade to honors.
4. Some students at certain sites have to pay for core rotations and some students have to find their own electives. This is not paid for by SOMA and you take out additional loans to pay for these rotations (some students report paying 1000 for a 4 week rotation at some institutions but not sure how accurate this is so take this with a grain of salt). Electives you can find on your own or through VSAS - so this does not mean you will not be able to do electives but if a certain site does not have the elective you want, you may have to find it yourself.
5. I have seen some concern about PBL, not sure how good or bad it is because I started after this was decided. I don't know if this is a good or bad thing. SOMA's curriculum required a lot of teaching yourself before or using outside resources but this is not uncommon in medical school and you should get used to the idea of teaching yourself. This will require being proactive and learning what style works best for you (anki, concept maps, etc.)
6. OMM is generally taught pretty well at this school which is good for those wanting to do well on COMLEX. The written tests that are given by the school can be very challenging and one should expect to study accordingly.
This is just some information for those who are thinking of attending ATSU SOMA that I think would be helpful. I want to highlight that every school has positives and negatives. I think every student should be well informed about policies of a certain school, and some may not have found out about these policies until after they accepted. Congrats to all of those who have been accepted to medical school. You got this!
And they do not plan on hiring new faculty members because they don’t see the need for that anymore with this PBL bull****. The dean refuses to meet with students and **** is behind all of this **** show. Don’t come here. They will blame your poor performance on not knowing how to study but when 91 people fail a final, that’s a glaring sign that the quality of education that they want to push on us is not working.
OMS-I here. Please think carefully before committing to this school. If you were promised of a potential CHC site rearrangement during your acceptance call, it is not as straight-forward as you might think. We were told by admin that we will get to switch sites by the first week of the first block. Fast forward to 6 months later, we are barely doing the rearrangement and the process is so backwards and unprofessional. Admin did not do anything for us and we are basically pleading with each other about why we need to switch. It has become a game of who has the most valid reason and it is unfortunate that this whole thing has become a pity game. Also, if you do not have an “attractive” site to begin with, your chances of switching is basically zero.
Just to add insult to the wound about the CHC rearrangement - the dean in charge of the switch made a mandatory 8AM Zoom session to announce how the switch is going to happen. She scheduled this the morning after our exam. 8AM comes and she does not show up. Many were upset because it took her so long to announce anything and most of us are so tired from the exam the day before. She shows up 30 minutes after and does not even acknowledge that we were waiting on her or how unprofessional her behavior was. All of that and she basically tells us that she did not do anything to facilitate the rearrangement. What an embarrassment!
Please save yourself from this school. The associate dean for student success just announced her resignation (one out of the many who has left the school) and the morale within the staff and the classes are at an all time low. We don’t even know who is teaching us anymore and we’re always using past years’ lectures to learn. Go spend your $60k+ tuition somewhere else. Even if this is your only acceptance, you are better off reapplying again.
They will only allow you to remediate if you fail the whole course. A lot of students were borderline passing before the final exam. From what I know, they will allow you to take another exam much later on that is completely revised from the original one. The school cares about their image so they do adjust the scores, but this clearly show the poor quality education that we are receiving. We were told that we failed because we don’t know how to study. How ridiculous must admin get to blame students for not knowing how to study if more than half of the class failed? This is even more worrying when the boards come. It’s not like the boards will adjust the scores so most of us will pass.
Some gems from reddit:
disdiadochokinesia comments on ATSU-SOMA? (reddit.com)
Don’t go to ATSU SOMA. I am a 4th year. The students are not happy. The students are well educated INSPITE of administration which does nothing to support you and will hinder, gaslight, and harass you for any subjective reason. Treatment is not equal. The sites are a mess. Some are strong and supportive locally, some are biased and harassing, and some have no local faculty at all and the students are completely on their own.
-Goal posts are constantly moved.
-Curriculum changes occur without notification.
-Administration has completely abdicated their responsibilities in communicating with our class and instead has asked our class president to continuously interpret and relay major administrative changes.
-Rotation pass/fails is often subjective between course directors.
-A second year resident has shown predatory sexual harassment towards our students and nothing has happened.
-A student from my class had a mental health crisis and the school quietly expelled him without any reckoning of their responsibility or addressing the students who were directly impacted.
-A finalist for the open deans position has directly targeted around 20% of our class for abject harassment and the school is trying to promote her.
-Anti discrimination policy is not addressed or updated. Recently an underclassman was silenced in a curriculum meeting when she tried to address diversity and inclusion. The white doctor stated that this is not a curriculum issue and what is covered in orientation is sufficient.
I can’t tell enough people DO NOT come here. Tell your friends.
This is a medical school? : premed (reddit.com)
So just to give you premeds a heads up, there is a school that needs to be avoided at all costs in the Great State of Arizona. That School is ATSU-SOMA.
If you ever want to be weighed down by endless busy work, guaranteed to deprive you of valuable study time, or monitored and treated like junior high-school students to ensure you are doing said busy work or be penalized with a negative Dean's letter, then by all means, go there.
If you are looking for curriculum changes that are implemented in the middle of an academic year, a faculty that has no issue with getting worthless OMT "research" published, then please attend school here. Want to spend 4 useless hours a week doing OMT with little to no supervision? Go here.
The school is not a total loss however, the anatomy faculty, every last one of them, are amazing, and Herculean efforts are made by said staff to remedy the fact that the school no longer has a cadaver lab. This came after the realization that we'd already spent the first half of the year inhaling too much formaldehyde.
Save your money premeds, becoming a doc is just not worth it, at least not through this school. Find a more reputable osteopathic school if you must, hell go carribean, but don't go to this school. Endless BS that is more than guaranteed to steer you into a specialty you don't want, and in doing so likely lines the pockets of a dean that couldn't care less.
If you didn't do so hot on your MCAT, and absolutely want to attend med school ASAP, slap yourself in the face, and apply anywhere but here….it just isn't worth it. Seriously. Don't.
disdiadochokinesia comments on Help Me Decide: ATSU SOMA vs. COMP-NW (reddit.com)
I graduated SOMA last year. Idk about COMP at all but soma was extremely toxic and the program is barely holding itself together. The current Dean personally harassed around 20% of at least the fourth years last year while she was assistant dean. We launched a campaign to block her promotion to dean which the administration quietly blocked and when they couldn’t ignore it any longer denied us on technicalities like not reporting through the correct channel. During that process we found that the third years at that time were pursuing a separate campaign against her that was blocked. She is frankly awful and will make your life miserable if she decides to durn her attention on you negatively. Extremely malignant.
Beyond the dean, the (now 15 I think) sites have no standardization and vary WIDELY in quality. Some sites haven’t had a permanent regional director in years with students suffering from any lack of local advising or help navigating their specific regions health systems for rotations. Students are often left to just figure out their own rotations. OMM instruction widely varies and I can’t even speak to the didactics portion anymore because so many home-base basic science professors jumped ship because of the reign of terror the now-dean was unleashing.
This is about as much as I can piece together currently. I would never wish SOMA as it is on my worst enemy.
Do yourself a favor and don't come here.
ATSU leadership should be embarrassed.
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