2023-2024 Midwestern University (Chicago, Illinois) CCOM

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I submitted my secondary here prior to Thanksgiving but haven't heard back. Should I send a letter of intent or is it too early?
 
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Hey everyone! Incoming first year here. I was accepted at both CCOM and Marian (MU-COM) and I'm trying to compare the 2!
How do people like the traditional course-based curriculum instead of systems-based?
Is the price tag worth it? I'm from Chicago and would love to stay close to home, but it's a steep price difference
How are clinical opportunities? Are CCOM students often at major Chicago hospitals or not so much since many are affiliated with other med schools?
How is the mentorship and advising at CCOM? Are students assigned advisors or are there programs available to get mentorship or are students more on their own in regards to that?

I'd love to get people's advice, thanks!
 
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OOS II yesterday. 3.7X GPA and 51X MCAT. Completed in late July.
 
OOS II on 1/8, submitted secondary 1/7. Interviewing 1/10
 
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Current first year at ccom, feel free to ask any questions you guy have
 
3rd Year here.

purpleec4 said:
Hey everyone! Incoming first year here. I was accepted at both CCOM and Marian (MU-COM) and I'm trying to compare the 2!
How do people like the traditional course-based curriculum instead of systems-based?
Is the price tag worth it? I'm from Chicago and would love to stay close to home, but it's a steep price difference
How are clinical opportunities? Are CCOM students often at major Chicago hospitals or not so much since many are affiliated with other med schools?
How is the mentorship and advising at CCOM? Are students assigned advisors or are there programs available to get mentorship or are students more on their own in regards to that?

I'd love to get people's advice, thanks!
Click to expand...

  1. How do people like the traditional vs system based?
    • This is hard to answer as you will pretty much only get to experience one type of curriculum. It's not like I can compare it personally to systems based since I won't ever get to study in a systems based pre-clinical. I can say that the traditional curriculum feels, well, traditional. It reminds me of a course from undergrad. We do test often, I can attach an example of a pre-clinical block schedule for you to see what a week may look like.
  2. Is the price tag worth it?
    • That is entirely up to you to decide. For many people, the answer is probably no, unless you have a good reason to be here. Many people advocate to always go to the cheaper school (unless the difference is negligible) and that's good advice. It's not like CCOM grads are necessarily struggling to pay off their debt, physicians still make enough money, but it's a very substantial sum to pay off or have forgiven through PSLF. For me, it was worth it for personal/family reasons.
  3. How are clinical opportunities?
    • Again, hard to directly compare without extensive research against other schools, but they have been good so far for me personally. There are opportunities in pre-clinical to volunteer at clinics in the city and suburbs. There is also pre-clinical shadowing. For rotations, we do get to rotate through some large hospitals with associated residencies. This is a big plus, as you get exposure to programs and they can get to know you. For core rotation sites, we are associated with hospitals like Stroger/Cook County, Swedish, Advocate (Masonic, Good Samaritan, Lutheran, Ressurection, Christ, and others), as well as OSF, and some Amita sites. There are also plenty of smaller sites and/or individual preceptor sites. So if you want to go to a big hospital with residents for a rotation, you likely can. Or, if you want to have a more chill rotation one-on-one with a preceptor, you likely can do that too. And for 4th year, you can shoot your shot at any program here in the city that will take you for a rotation.
  4. Mentorship/Advising
    • In a nutshell, not great. From my understanding, this is a big point of comtempt. As far as I know, we don't get "assigned" a mentor or advisor until 4th year. And even then, you may be assigned a non-physician advisor. From what I've seen in our class and others, people feel like this is A) way too late to be introducing mentors/advisors and B) not great to have someone who hasn't been through med school/residency advising you. So early on, you are definitely more on your own to find a mentor/advisor. To be fair, every time I have reached out to our clinical staff for help/advice, they have been very helpful, or able to point me in the right direction. But yeah, this will be more for you to find on your own. I'd recommend you do this anyways, wherever you end up. Find someone in the field/s you are interested in and just reach out to talk to them.

FuzzyGorilla said:
Do you like being at CCOM? Where do students generally live? How do rotations work on the 3rd year?
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I have enjoyed my time here so far. Being near the city of Chicago has been great as far as time spent outside of studying. And being close to O'hare/Midway makes it easy to fly direct just about anywhere.

For pre-clinical, a lot of students live nearby in an apartment. Places like Cityview, Versailles, etc. Some students can live on campus, although the spots are limited. Plenty of students who are from here live at home to save some money, and still others live in the city. Some will rent a house together.

For rotations in 3rd year, we first rank our rotation "tracks" around March of 2nd year. The track is the order of your rotations. So, like track A might be FM, then Surgery, then OBGYN, then PSYCH etc, while Track B might be Psych first, then FM, then OBYGN and so on. I think there's like 12 or 14 tracks. There are pairs of tracks that are almost exactly the same, but usually with 2 blocks flip flopped, so like FM then Psych, instead of Psych then FM. I think for our class and the classes before, pretty much 100% of students got their top 4 track choice. Which means you basically get one of your top 2 tracks (since half of the tracks have a near identical pair).

After the tracks are set, you rank your clinical site preferences. You get to rank up to 10 sites for each block. Not every hospital is available for each speciality. On top of the core rotations, you get 2 electives, and 1 selective. The 2 electives can be done at a core site, or anywhere else. If you want to do an elective at a site that does not already have an affiliation, you'll have to get some paperwork done first. And the selective is an online course mostly. We had the option between OMM, obesity medicine, Research, and Intro to clinical practice/telemedicine. OMM has in person requirements.

Examples of block schedule from Fall and Spring of 1st year
Fall
FallScheduleExample.PNG

Spring
SpringScheduleExample.PNG
 
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dancegal16 said:
If it has been a week alr from the interview is that a sign we got rejected?
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give it a couple more weeks and see, idk when the commitee meets to decide decisions it might not always be a consistent interval for everyone.
 
FuzzyGorilla said:
Do you like being at CCOM? Where do students generally live? How do rotations work on the 3rd year?
Click to expand...

Really like it here because of the close knit group of people here in my class. Most students live at nearby apartments (the most common are City View, Versailles, and Apex 41). There are dorms and apartments on campus too, some people live there too.

For your third and fourth year on rotations people typically get a place in the city so their commute isn’t that bad. Rotations are a lottery system.
 
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Got an email today inviting me to send an update on, also said they were still actively interviewing
 
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Has anyone gone to a campus visit after getting accepted? How many guests can we bring?
 
OOS II! I got the email asking me to send an update last Thursday and sent them one later that day
 
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Just received a “still actively reviewing your app. Send updates”

How often does this result in an II
 
tigerrr said:
Just received a “still actively reviewing your app. Send updates”

How often does this result in an II
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n=1, but I got an II a week after this email! sent an update within a few hours of getting the email. they had spots open for in-person and virtual throughout march
 
Also got the “Your application is still under consideration. If you have any updates to share with the Admissions Committee, you are encouraged to submit them at this time” email. I submitted my app in late September, but I’ll be withdrawing
 
entropymania said:
Also got the “Your application is still under consideration. If you have any updates to share with the Admissions Committee, you are encouraged to submit them at this time” email. I submitted my app in late September, but I’ll be withdrawing
Click to expand...
Yeah I withdrew
 
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