I posted this in last years thread, this should answer most of the general questions you have about KCU, I try to update this when I can. Some of the info may not be too up to date since things in preclinical years have changed and I'm not really sure what its like now since I'm a 4th year, so those questions will probably be better for current 1st and 2nd year students on here. If anything isn't clear or you have other questions feel free to DM me or tag me here.
Hey y'all, I've had a bunch of people message me the last few weeks about KCU stuff and most are asking the same questions so I figured I would just copy my responses and post them here incase anyone else had similar questions. But still feel free to DM me with other questions.
What do you like about KCU / why KCU?
So I chose KCU over a couple other DO acceptances for a few reasons. KCU is one of the cheapest private DO schools, the cost of living in KC isn’t bad, they have rotation sites for 3rd year all over the country including in FL (where I’m from), the board scores are consistently very good, and KCU has a good establish reputation since it’s one of the original DO schools. I really like that 95% of classes aren’t mandatory and are recorded, pre Covid the cafeteria food was really good and cheap lol, and we recently switched to pass fail which was awesome. Overall I would choose KCU again.
What don't you like about KCU?
The administration. They are the most unhelpful people in the school and really just get in the way of your education. It’s not the end of the world, and really wants to get to 30 or you don’t have to deal with that much but they are just really annoying with everything to do. Another thing I wish was different would be to not have as many little BS required things we have to do, like our bioethics class thats a total was of time, or just the required small group session, they aren't the biggest deal but they just take up time in the middle of the day and can be annoying. Also, I'm not a big fan of KC itself but thats because I'm from a big city on the coast so living in the midwest has been a big change for me.
Pass fail / grading stuff?
I was at the end of first year when we switch to pass fail, so I was part of the original letter grading system and can say that pass fail is so much better. In pre clinical it’s honors/pass/fail, only top 10% get honors and we are ranked by quartile. Also, the class average after all grades are in is curved up to an 85% (never curved down).
Will I have free time?
So you’ll definitely have time to do other stuff. I’m involved in multiple research projects, go to the gym 4-5x per week, go out with my girlfriend 1-2x per week (but we eat at home almost everyday to save money) and I know a bunch of people who do other stuff too. With that said, first year is still going to be rough, and I defiantly had to study a lot more during first year than second year, but with pass fail it will be much better. You can definitely have time to relax / do whatever you want, but it's still med school so studying will still be a full-time job.
How are the students?
The study body is pretty awesome, everyone is really helpful. No real gunners in my class, or in any other classes that I've heard of. My class (c/o 2023) has a groupme with everyone on the Kc campus in it, so like 270 of us, and people are always asking/answering questions for each other, posting notes, helpful videos, memes etc. Also, If you come to KCU you will be assigned a "big" who will be a student in the class ahead of you that you can ask a bunch of questions too and stuff. Also you can reach out to upper classmates at any time, I've talked to probably 50-70 students in the classes above me either in person, via email, or here on SND and literally every one of them was happy to answer my questions.
How is the curriculum structured and how often do you have exams?
(Refer to
this post for updated info from another student, the KCU curriculum changes over the years so I may not be the best source for details about pre clinical years)
With coivd things are a little different for the current first years (I'm a second year) but during my first year on average we would have our "how to be a doctor" lab called PCM 1hr/week, our OMM lab 2 hr/week, and anatomy lab 3hr/week. Also, unless you like love OMM (which only like 3-5 of the students in my class of 270 actually do lol) having the minimum amount of OMM is the best, and KCU has some of the least amount of OMM required at any DO school. On top of that we would have about 8-12 hours of lecture per week, and I would study about 60-80 hours per week. Now no matter what school you go to your going to study a lot, but we also just switched to a pass fail system so that made things a lot less stressful and second year is way easier, like less than half as stressful as first not just cause of the pass fail but also the material and professors are just better. Our lectures are NOT required and are recorded, absolutely go to a school with no required lectures its way better to just watch a lecture online at 2x speed instead of sitting in class. The only thing is all lab are required, and maybe 1-2 other classes per week are required like bioethics or a research skills class we had, but when we were in school most of us would just show up and study and not pay attention at all lol, now we just mute zoom and continue on with our usual stuff. We have exams about every 2-3 weeks, sometimes up to 4 weeks apart, and this year all exams have been on Fridays, so weekends off which is cool.
How's the area around the school?
The area right around the school isn't the best, as in its pretty rough, as in its bad. But the campus itself is really safe and downtown KC is only like 5 min away. A lot of students live in century towers next to the school, I don't think it's worth the price, but with covid I would def live there cause I would want to meet other students. But most of my friends live in downtown or the river market area.
Clinical experience in pre clinical years?
We used to do score one for health where we would go to local elementary schools around KC and do physicals and stuff for the kids, but other than that not much patient stuff in pre clinical years, but I wouldn't worry about that, you won't really know what to do anyway lol.
I'm trying to choose between XYZ med school and KCU?
Only DO school I would take over KCU-KC is PCOM-PA because I like Philadelphia better, they have good residency programs and I'm from the east coast. Unless you get into a Texas school thats super cheap, or get a thicc scholarship somewhere I would go to KCU. Take any MD school over any DO. Also, I usually get a few "I'm trying to choose between CCOM and KCU" messages per year, no way I would pay $73K+ in tuition alone plus another $20-30k in living expenses to go to a DO school.
Where to live?
I had a bunch of friends that lived in Century Towers (CT) during first year, and pretty much all of them moved out for second year. Most of my friends live either in the River market area or in downtown KC, but I also have a few friends that live in North Kansas City, just north of the river. Just a few places I can think of off the top of my head would be Sky on Main, 909 Walnut, RM West, market station, second and Delaware, Kingsley forest, art spaces lofts, commerce towers. RM west and market station are some of the best, but those are on the higher end of rent but totally worth it in my opinion since you are gong to be stressed and are going to want a nice place to live (especially during coivd hen you will be studying at home a lot). Also, I recommend you do NOT live in Westport, not a safe area, at least not the part where I lived during first year lol.
Whats up the the KC and Joplin campuses?
KC and Joplin are considered like 1 cohort, so pre covid we would have our lectures live streamed from one campus to the others lecture hall during the lecture, but 95% of stuff was recorded so I never went to lecture and just watched it online later, so I never really knew if a professor was on one campus or the other. But it was about 50/50 if a professor was at KC or Jop. Now with coivd all lectures except for 2 hours of lab per week are online (which is actually awesome) so not much has really changed for me other than we have a required zoom lecture like once per week.
I have a question about interview day?
I interviewed years ago so I'm not gonna be much help there, just be a normal person and you'll be fine lol
Do students have cars / do I need a car?
I have a car and most students do. the public transport in KC is limited and some of the grocery stores (like Trader Joe's) are pretty far. So I would defiantly recommend you get a car since you will need it for sure during 3rd and 4th year.
How much time for dedicated board study?
I had like 8-10 weeks, not sure what it is will p/f boards now (this may no longer be the case, I'm not sure. But I took 8 weeks for step 1 and 3 weeks for step 2)
Studying for step 1 / comlex 1 now thats its pass fail?
Biggest thing I did preparing for boards was to use the AnKing Anki deck. First year material isn't too relevant to boards, but its your foundation for understanding pathology. I would do whatever cards are relevant to class material in AnKing and kept up with those cards until I took step. If you aren't familiar with AnKing or Anki just check out the AnKing YouTube channel. I know boards will be pass fail for you, but I would still just do AnKing and keep up with it. I was passing practice tests before we even got to our last system course because I knew the rest of the material so well, so if boards were pass fail for me I would have taken them months earlier and just chilled/done research for a couple months before third year started. For reference I matured ~80% by the time I took my boards and scored really well.
3rd year match
For the 3rd year rotation match process you will creat a rank list of all the rotation sites and the school uses some algorithm to attempt to match students with the best possible outcomes based on there rank list. Last year we had like 24 or 25 sites to rank. You do get the opportunity to write letters to the school requesting a certain site. There are 2 letters you can write, one goes to KCU where you state a financial/medical hardship reason for being at a certain site, like owning a house in KC. The other letter goes to the site itself and in that letter you talk about why you want that site, like you grew up there or have family in that area etc. for both of these letter you can and should submit supporting documents like proof of homeownership or proof that family lives in the area. Some sites like KC and Denver are really competitive, so if you want that site you really need to write a letter but there’s no guarantee that you’ll get it. The majority of people get a rank in there top 3 choices, but in my class we had one person who wrote a letter for KC but ended up dropping 10 ranks, which sucks. There is a 1 week trade period where people can switch sites, but most people at the less desirable sites won’t be able to switch out (cause no one wants to go there. With all that being said I wrote letters and got my top choice rotation site. When I made my rank list I knew I didn’t want to end up in rural Missouri so I ranked all those places last, just know if you rank those super rural Missouri sites that most people don’t want in your top 10 you have a much higher chance of ending up there.
The most competitive sites can change from year to year depending on class preferences, but on average the most competitive are KC, Denver, and Detroit. The rest aren’t too hard to get, especially in the really small rural areas and your class will do a straw poll before rank lists are due so you can see how competitive the sites are for your class.
Is 3rd year/clinicals better than 1st and 2nd year?
Yes, 100x better. I love being in the hospital actually doing things instead of just smashing that spacebar all day.
Can I go wherever I want for 3rd and 4th year?
So the school does a really terrible job of explaining this and I really hate the way they do it. For third year there’s a 99% chance you’re going to end up at one of the clinical sites listed on the website. These sites can change year over year, but they usually stay relatively the same.
If you really want to you can set up your own rotations for third year and it can be wherever you want, I think two people in my class did this. I thought about doing this but the process was so complicated and really just not worth my time. You have to make sure you find a doctor willing to take you for a month in every required specialty (FM, PEDS, IM, Surgery, Psych, OBGYN, electives) and if one of those doctors backs out last minute it’s up to you to find another one, it just wasn’t worth it in my opinion. I would really just plan on going to one of the listed sites for third year.
For fourth year you can really do whatever you want, there’s a lot of things you’ll learn about as you go to med school about how fourth your works but for now just know you are going to do at least three rotations at residency programs where you want to match (in whatever specialty you are applying to) and then for the rest of fourth year you can go literally anywhere you want. So for all the other rotations in fourth year you can do them in your home town if you want, you just have to find doctors who are willing to take you for a month. Its really a little more complicated than that for fourth year but you really don't need to worry about it at this point.
Do I need to buy the med kit?
No, don’t spend the $900 the school charges for the med kit, they are just stewing your money. You need the Stethoscope and a blood pressure cuff, the otoscope and ophthalmoscope you will literally use one time so I recommend just borrowing it from one of the other 400 people in the class lol. If you really feel the need to buy one just get it used on eBay like I did and save a few hundred dollars or buy it from an upperclassman.
I'll try to regularly update this post as I get more questions.
schools.studentdoctor.net
