2023-2024 Drexel

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Was there anyone who received an A on 5/24 who is IS? Just curious :)
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For people getting acceptances, were any of you deferred or was it initial decision?
 
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A this morning. Interviewed 3/15, will be withdrawing. Good luck guys!
 
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hi! i just got assigned to the west reading campus and have a couple of questions if anyone can help with answering:
- im interested in research, is there a lot of opportunities available here on campus or nearby institution?
- is living 30 mins away from reading not recommended (pottstown area)? i have a partner who's going to work in philly and we want to live somewhere that's halfway to both.
any advice is greatly appreciated! also would love to hear about students' experience studying at west reading campus :)
 
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westcoastgirlie said:
hi! i just got assigned to the west reading campus and have a couple of questions if anyone can help with answering:
- im interested in research, is there a lot of opportunities available here on campus or nearby institution?
- is living 30 mins away from reading not recommended (pottstown area)? i have a partner who's going to work in philly and we want to live somewhere that's halfway to both.
any advice is greatly appreciated! also would love to hear about students' experience studying at west reading campus :)
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I'm a Philly student but I have heard that there are opportunities to do research at Tower Health. You can also always do some virtual research and research in the summer between M1 and M2.

For your second question, I know one of my classmates over at the WR campus actually lives in Philly and commutes whenever they have live sessions to attend. It's doable, especially if you have a car (maybe only if you have a car lol).

I know there are some WR students that are on this thread so hopefully they can fill in whatever I missed
 
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westcoastgirlie said:
hi! i just got assigned to the west reading campus and have a couple of questions if anyone can help with answering:
- im interested in research, is there a lot of opportunities available here on campus or nearby institution?
- is living 30 mins away from reading not recommended (pottstown area)? i have a partner who's going to work in philly and we want to live somewhere that's halfway to both.
any advice is greatly appreciated! also would love to hear about students' experience studying at west reading campus :)
Click to expand...
not a current student but an incoming one also assigned to WR with a partner living in philly so following this!
 
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westcoastgirlie said:
hi! i just got assigned to the west reading campus and have a couple of questions if anyone can help with answering:
- im interested in research, is there a lot of opportunities available here on campus or nearby institution?
- is living 30 mins away from reading not recommended (pottstown area)? i have a partner who's going to work in philly and we want to live somewhere that's halfway to both.
any advice is greatly appreciated! also would love to hear about students' experience studying at west reading campus :)
Click to expand...
Hi! I am still waiting for a decision but I can give some insight into the commute as someone who lives in Pottstown and has parents that commuted to both Philly and Reading. The commute from Pottstown area to Reading can be about an hour if there is traffic. My mom commuted often, as she worked at Reading Hospital, and it was manageable but she didn't love doing it all the time. As for Philly from Pottstown, the traffic near the city can be a lot worse and can take an hour to and hour and a half. If you are both okay with the commute then it would probably be fine. I personally have loved living in Pottstown, and there are a lot of parks nearby. But just think about what you want to get out of the WR campus, it might be harder to participate in clubs and activities if you have a longer commute.
 
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westcoastgirlie said:
hi! i just got assigned to the west reading campus and have a couple of questions if anyone can help with answering:
- im interested in research, is there a lot of opportunities available here on campus or nearby institution?
- is living 30 mins away from reading not recommended (pottstown area)? i have a partner who's going to work in philly and we want to live somewhere that's halfway to both.
any advice is greatly appreciated! also would love to hear about students' experience studying at west reading campus :)
Click to expand...
Hi! I'm an M3 at the WR campus and happy to answer any questions here or over DM.

To answer your questions:
1. TONS of research, it is so convenient having a hospital down the street to connect with since we know where we will be rotating and can make connections over a longer time period. Like someone mentioned, virtual research is also aplenty for anyone, and those include to areas across all of the Drexel sites and other med schools in the Philly area. I know someone in my class who had over 20 pubs/posters/conferences by the end of their second year lol, it just depends on how proactive you are.

2. Pottstown to Reading isn't bad at all, it's like a 30 min commute and almost never has any traffic. There may be construction, though, if that counts? One of our third year couples recently moved to the Pottstown area from Philly to have a better commute to the hospital, and it's about 25 min for them. There are a handful of students who commute from home (with parents) or already previously lived in Philly/other areas of PA - the only area that is prone to traffic is between King of Prussia to Philly, and Pottstown is not in that stretch. I just drove to King of Prussia today from Reading and it was 50 minutes. There are others in the same situation as you! The idea about missing out on extracurriculars because you live farther extends to how convenient you want to feel - students frequently will meet up in local restaurants/pubs/school activities on a whim to hang out.

For what it's worth, the general consensus for those who did not want to be placed here initially is that we are really, really glad to be here the longer we're in med school. It's no knock on the Philly campus, but there's just so much to be grateful about being here, not worry about moving third and fourth year, and we feel we have a lot more opportunities to engage with the community and a lot more leadership opportunities that are there for the taking. Our Tower Health physician faculty are very involved in the local community and have a lot of niche roles available to us that are not established by Drexel in Philly; things like the HIV/AIDs clinic, addiction medicine, LGBTQIA+ center, Centro Hispano, Street Medicine, Eye Clinic, etc. We have a huge Hispanic population here, to the point that every day in the hospital I see >60% only Spanish speaking patients and rely heavily on the interpreters + pick up Spanish just by how often I hear it. The idea that there is less opportunity here is not true, and frequently there are leadership opportunities set aside for WR students on exec boards. A smaller campus means we have less competition for more spots, get more funding per person for clubs and orgs, and the administration is much more flexible because they're able to hear us all in a very quick and timely manner. It's not perfect and there are definitely things that a larger student body can accomplish that a small one can't, but there are definitely a lot of benefits to being here!
 
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billybob321 said:
For this incoming year, is it 40 students at reading and 260 at Philly?
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I can't speak on behalf of admissions but that is the class size of the three previous classes so far. The intention eventually is to open up more spots as the campus is built for a class of 100. There also seems to be a future partnership campus to be built with a hospital system in Delaware, so Drexel may or may not have a third campus in the future.
 
veraserah said:
Hi! I'm an M3 at the WR campus and happy to answer any questions here or over DM.

To answer your questions:
1. TONS of research, it is so convenient having a hospital down the street to connect with since we know where we will be rotating and can make connections over a longer time period. Like someone mentioned, virtual research is also aplenty for anyone, and those include to areas across all of the Drexel sites and other med schools in the Philly area. I know someone in my class who had over 20 pubs/posters/conferences by the end of their second year lol, it just depends on how proactive you are.

2. Pottstown to Reading isn't bad at all, it's like a 30 min commute and almost never has any traffic. There may be construction, though, if that counts? One of our third year couples recently moved to the Pottstown area from Philly to have a better commute to the hospital, and it's about 25 min for them. There are a handful of students who commute from home (with parents) or already previously lived in Philly/other areas of PA - the only area that is prone to traffic is between King of Prussia to Philly, and Pottstown is not in that stretch. I just drove to King of Prussia today from Reading and it was 50 minutes. There are others in the same situation as you! The idea about missing out on extracurriculars because you live farther extends to how convenient you want to feel - students frequently will meet up in local restaurants/pubs/school activities on a whim to hang out.

For what it's worth, the general consensus for those who did not want to be placed here initially is that we are really, really glad to be here the longer we're in med school. It's no knock on the Philly campus, but there's just so much to be grateful about being here, not worry about moving third and fourth year, and we feel we have a lot more opportunities to engage with the community and a lot more leadership opportunities that are there for the taking. Our Tower Health physician faculty are very involved in the local community and have a lot of niche roles available to us that are not established by Drexel in Philly; things like the HIV/AIDs clinic, addiction medicine, LGBTQIA+ center, Centro Hispano, Street Medicine, Eye Clinic, etc. We have a huge Hispanic population here, to the point that every day in the hospital I see >60% only Spanish speaking patients and rely heavily on the interpreters + pick up Spanish just by how often I hear it. The idea that there is less opportunity here is not true, and frequently there are leadership opportunities set aside for WR students on exec boards. A smaller campus means we have less competition for more spots, get more funding per person for clubs and orgs, and the administration is much more flexible because they're able to hear us all in a very quick and timely manner. It's not perfect and there are definitely things that a larger student body can accomplish that a small one can't, but there are definitely a lot of benefits to being here!
Click to expand...
waiting4doc said:
Hi! I am still waiting for a decision but I can give some insight into the commute as someone who lives in Pottstown and has parents that commuted to both Philly and Reading. The commute from Pottstown area to Reading can be about an hour if there is traffic. My mom commuted often, as she worked at Reading Hospital, and it was manageable but she didn't love doing it all the time. As for Philly from Pottstown, the traffic near the city can be a lot worse and can take an hour to and hour and a half. If you are both okay with the commute then it would probably be fine. I personally have loved living in Pottstown, and there are a lot of parks nearby. But just think about what you want to get out of the WR campus, it might be harder to participate in clubs and activities if you have a longer commute.
Click to expand...
LancesDragonite said:
I'm a Philly student but I have heard that there are opportunities to do research at Tower Health. You can also always do some virtual research and research in the summer between M1 and M2.

For your second question, I know one of my classmates over at the WR campus actually lives in Philly and commutes whenever they have live sessions to attend. It's doable, especially if you have a car (maybe only if you have a car lol).

I know there are some WR students that are on this thread so hopefully they can fill in whatever I missed
Click to expand...
thank you for the input, thats super helpful! i appreciate it :) also another question is what does a typical week look like in M1/M2 vs M3/M4 year?
 
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westcoastgirlie said:
thank you for the input, thats super helpful! i appreciate it :) also another question is what does a typical week look like in M1/M2 vs M3/M4 year?
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From the M1 perspective (I just finished M1), it really depended on the week and block in terms of how many TBLs and/or microanatomy labs (typically anywhere from 0-4 in a week) there were. On the regular, you could expect (the specific days may vary between Philly and WR so I won't include them):

-CBL once a week
-Anatomy lab once a week throughout HSF1 and HSF2
-Your HAP practicum (the frequency depends on your site)
-Doctoring course (FPC1) once a week

I'd estimate we were in live sessions 10-15 hours a week. With the rest of the time, you're going through the Independent Learnings and your ECs you may have
 
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NO DECISION GANG HOW ARE WE FEELING

sponge bob day GIF
 
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OOS A today, interviewed 3/25. Will be withdrawing. Goodluck everyone!!!!!
 
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OOS A today!! interviewed 2/9 the email was at 11:30 AM PST, initial decision
 
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westcoastgirlie said:
thank you for the input, thats super helpful! i appreciate it :) also another question is what does a typical week look like in M1/M2 vs M3/M4 year?
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M1:
-8-10 per wk independent learning modules that you work on your own time.
-1.5 hr case based learning session
-Foundations of patient care where learn how to take history and clinical skills
-HAP: basically community service, 1.5-2 hr + commute time
-Team based learning sessions, kinda like recitations where you show up and answer questions

M2:
-Pretty much same as M1, except 12-14 learning modules per wk and for HAP you don't need to do community service but you just attend class to learn more about the social determinants of health
-ends in feb and you will enter dedicated and take step 1

M3:
-rotate at a hospital in internal med, family med, pediatrics, surgery, ob/gyn, psych, neuro, ambulatory
-Drexel does not have local hospital so you will either be sent to an all year site to do all the rotation (like Pittsburgh, York, Harrisburg, or even California), or you will be a rotator where they send you any of the hospitals they are affiliated with

M4:
-take step 2
- you choose a pathway which is the speciality that you wanna go into and you follow the guideline + 2 required courses.
 
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Hi! For those who selected a campus after gaining admission, how long did it take to find out which campus you were assigned to?
 
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Has anyone who was accepted in the last two weeks received Phili for their campus assignment?
 
Has anyone not received a deferral or acceptance at this point? Anyone still waiting for a decision?
 
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