2022-2023 Hackensack Meridian

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wysdoc

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Thank you to @HauntingDevil_0776 and @AFilmDoctor for alerting us to the questions

2022-2023 Hackensack Meridian Secondary Essay Prompts
1. Why are you interested in attending the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine? (500 words limit)

2. Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine values social justice and diversity in all its forms. Describe a circumstance where you sought to learn about a culture, group or idea different than your own and how that impacted you. (500 words limit)

3. Describe your experience with the field of medicine (or a related field) that has prepared you for advanced study in this area. Specifically, how have your life experiences prepared you to pursue a degree in medicine, including coursework, clinical work, experiences in overcoming adversity, work opportunity, volunteer activities, and/or research experiences? (500 words limit)

4. Have you ever been convicted of any crime or offense, whether State or Federal, including offenses categorized as misdemeanors, high misdemeanors, or felonies? You should include convictions under any circumstances such as, but not limited to, a plea of guilty, Non Vult, Nolo Contendere, No Contest, etc., or a finding by a judge or jury. You do not need to include convictions that were overturned on appeal. (500 words limit)


Good luck to everyone applying!

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Rising M3 here, feel free to ask questions here for any advice or specific information about HMSOM. Currently on rotations and engaged in a variety of research at the medical school.

some FAQ:
How many people do P3R (utilize the 3-year track)?
About a quarter to a third so far seem to utilize the 3-year track. The numbers may shift moving forward considering the initial classes were smaller and faced uncertainties through COVID.

Are there new residency programs starting up in the HMH network?
Yes. HUMC is starting an orthopedic surgery residency with 3 residents starting July 2023. According to the program director he will try to prioritize and support matching HMSOM students. I believe they are also starting an HUMC neurosurgery residency program, unclear if for 2023 or 2024. HUMC Urology just increased from 1 resident/yr to 2 residents/yr starting this year 2022.

Can you do research at HMSOM?
Yes. There is a wide range of research opportunities at HMSOM and throughout the network. The most active student research department is probably Urology, they churn out clinical research. There is also significant basic science research at the CDI (Center for Discovery and Innovation next to med school).

Where do people match?
Outside of the HMH network, the first class had some pretty stellar matches including Orthopedics at Mayo Clinic, Urology at Mt. Sinai, Emergency Medicine at Penn, and combined Peds-IM at Indiana.
 
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Hello.

I hear you have to drive a lot for rotations. How much do you drive in a typical day? And do you have to drive back and forth since you're also doing research?

Vibe? More friendly or more competitive?

Any sense of how many people SOAPed this past cycle?
This was a bigger issue for the first two classes, since they were randomized across all HMH hospitals for clinicals. The current system for my class and below is a North/Central and South/Central split. Didactics (first ~1.5 yrs) is at the Nutley ON3 campus. After didactics the clinical sites are HUMC, Mountainside, Englewood, etc for North, and Jersey Shore, Ocean, etc for South, with JFK as a central location.

There is a lottery system in place where people choose to be north or south. Some people have family in south jersey, want to be down by the shore, or want to be at those clinical sites. Some people have family in north jersey, want closer proximity to NYC, or want to be at those clinical sites. Most people get their choice. After the lottery there is the ability to switch N/S and it works out for most everyone.

I have an apartment in Nutley and am North/Central. It takes me ~7 minutes to drive to the school campus. The CDI, big research building, is next to the school. A good deal of research I do is also able to be done remotely. It takes me ~20-25 minutes to drive to/from HUMC, where I have most of my rotations. It also takes me ~10 minutes to drive to Mountainside, where I will have another rotation.

Vibe is generally friendly. There is natural development of some cliques, but I think most people have med school friends. Some initially very competitive people are humbled by an exam and/or mellow out by rotations.

The match data is hard to decipher with the overlap between M3's P3R'ing and M4's going directly through and some of the M4's P3R'ing the year prior. The school was not particularly forthright/transparent about the results, but there also is a bit of a culture of privacy over transparentness. I think everyone in the first class matched, but I could be wrong. Only 2-3 SOAP'd if I remember correctly, with a couple doing surgery transitional intern year. I was overall impressed and encouraged by the match results being a current student. An Ortho to Mayo Clinic, a Urology to Mt. Sinai, an EM to Penn are all top tier results.
 
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Just received my R from last cycle lmao
 
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Just to ease of stress atleast for this school, Hackensack sends secondaries in early/mid August. So they aren’t an immediate worry! Their cycle runs really late into the year, for example I got an interview in March and then accepted in May. I turned it down but dm me if anyone has any questions about atleast the admissions process!
 
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MS3 here. Can answer questions y'all have. Good luck everyone!
 
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MS3 here. Can answer questions y'all have. Good luck everyone!
I'm sure you get this a lot, but what's it like attending a relatively new school? Does the program in general seem structured enough?
 
I'm sure you get this a lot, but what's it like attending a relatively new school? Does the program in general seem structured enough?
The new school thing is slowly starting to wear off, you still see the occasional kink that needs to be worked out and there is still some faculty shuffling going on but not nearly as much as when I first got here. Not sure exactly what you mean by structured enough because there really isn't any flexibility throughout the first 2.5 years, for the preclinical you go to classes as assigned, and during the clerkship year your clerkship sequence and location are done through a lottery system.
 
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anyone get secondaries yet?
 
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anyone get secondaries yet?
Just to ease of stress atleast for this school, Hackensack sends secondaries in early/mid August. So they aren’t an immediate worry! Their cycle runs really late into the year, for example I got an interview in March and then accepted in May. I turned it down but dm me if anyone has any questions about atleast the admissions process!
based off this post, I think most of us are still waiting
 
Just wondering, does Hackensack screen to send out secondaries?
 
IS secondary received! Here's a list of prompts (Sorry not sure how to tag moderator...):
  1. Why are you interested in attending the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine? (500 words limit)
  2. Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine values social justice and diversity in all its forms. Describe a circumstance where you sought to learn about a culture, group or idea different than your own and how that impacted you. (500 words limit)
  3. Describe your experience with the field of medicine (or a related field) that has prepared you for advanced study in this area. Specifically, how have your life experiences prepared you to pursue a degree in medicine, including coursework, clinical work, experiences in overcoming adversity, work opportunity, volunteer activities, and/or research experiences? (500 words limit)
  4. Have you ever been convicted of any crime or offense, whether State or Federal, including offenses categorized as misdemeanors, high misdemeanors, or felonies? You should include convictions under any circumstances such as, but not limited to, a plea of guilty, Non Vult, Nolo Contendere, No Contest, etc., or a finding by a judge or jury. You do not need to include convictions that were overturned on appeal. (500 words limit)
 
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Does anyone know how to answer 3? Do they want us to mention everything or can we focus on 1 or 2 things?
 
IS secondary received! Here's a list of prompts (Sorry not sure how to tag moderator...):
  1. Why are you interested in attending the Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine? (500 words limit)
  2. Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine values social justice and diversity in all its forms. Describe a circumstance where you sought to learn about a culture, group or idea different than your own and how that impacted you. (500 words limit)
  3. Describe your experience with the field of medicine (or a related field) that has prepared you for advanced study in this area. Specifically, how have your life experiences prepared you to pursue a degree in medicine, including coursework, clinical work, experiences in overcoming adversity, work opportunity, volunteer activities, and/or research experiences? (500 words limit)
  4. Have you ever been convicted of any crime or offense, whether State or Federal, including offenses categorized as misdemeanors, high misdemeanors, or felonies? You should include convictions under any circumstances such as, but not limited to, a plea of guilty, Non Vult, Nolo Contendere, No Contest, etc., or a finding by a judge or jury. You do not need to include convictions that were overturned on appeal. (500 words limit)
The time has come @wysdoc
 
Anyone else not able to add prerequisites courses completed with AP credits? AP credits are accepted, according to their website, and they're on my transcript, but they're not on the course list on the secondary app.
 
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Anyone else not able to add prerequisites courses completed with AP credits? AP credits are accepted, according to their website, and they're on my transcript, but they're not on the course list on the secondary app.
Was just coming here to ask this! I can't figure out how to add AP credits either
 
Anyone else not able to add prerequisites courses completed with AP credits? AP credits are accepted, according to their website, and they're on my transcript, but they're not on the course list on the secondary app.
I'm having the same problem! For one of my other schools, they said to select it as a "future course" and then just type in that it was AP credit in the text box that pops up, but I'm not sure whether we can do the same here since they don't explicitly say to do that.
 
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Jesus, How fast are you?
lol I prewrote all my secondaries like 3 months ago. Plus most of my essays came from writing long secondaries like Duke and UMiami (These were hell secondaries)

I would never try to submit that fast if I did not pre-wrote, haha.
 
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I'm having the same problem! For one of my other schools, they said to select it as a "future course" and then just type in that it was AP credit in the text box that pops up, but I'm not sure whether we can do the same here since they don't explicitly say to do that.
I called admissions, and this is what they said to do!
 
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OOS Secondary received, verified on 7/17
 
Anyone know if there are any exceptions for the letters of rec? I don't have a letter from a health care professional.
They are pretty strict about this. I rmbr dropping them last cycle becuase I didn't have a letter from a health professional. Had to get a MD rec for this cycle to apply here
 
Once you all submitted, was your prerequisite verification still marked incomplete?
 
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