2024-2025 CA University of Science and Medicine

[chilly_md]

2024-2025 CUSM Secondary Essay Prompts

150 word limit for each

1.) Diversity comes in many forms. How do you think you might contribute to the diversity of the class?

2.) Describe the last time you were criticized by a peer or supervisor. How did you handle it?

3.) Give an example of when you had to work with someone who was difficult to get along with. Why was this person difficult? How did you handle that person?

4.) What would be the best example that shows you are a person of integrity?

5.) If given the opportunity to attend medical school, where would you see yourself in ten years?

6.) If you were enrolled in fewer than 12 units/credits for more than 1 semester/2 quarters during your undergraduate education, please provide a brief explanation below. (If not applicable, please enter N/A in the box below)

Good luck to all applying!

Interview feedback:

California University of Science and Medicine Interview Feedback

Review of California University of Science and Medicine Interview Feedback. Get the latest information, opinions of fellow students, and LizzyM and SDN Rankings.

www.studentdoctor.net

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Remember to schedule your Casper exam.

2024-2025 list of schools and their SJTs

Updated July 2, 2024 (page updated June 11) on The AAMC PREview® Professional Readiness Exam Participating Medical Schools and MSAR reports Look at the 2023 list to see if your school(s) wanted you to take an SJT. PREview scores are automatically released to AMCAS. Examinees do not need to...

forums.studentdoctor.net

 

[Blippo]

For applicants interested in applying, here is some insight as to how admissions worked last cycle which may be relevant for the current one.

• Secondaries are screened for and IIs were sent starting around October. Interviews were virtual asynchronous, similar in style to casper in dealing with ethics issues, and outsourced to a 3rd party who rated the responses and gave a score back to the admissions committee. This apparently would provide a more equitable and holistic review of applicants.
• It took a minimum of 8-12 weeks after IIs were sent for some applicants to receive an A or Waitlist with the committee stopping their review around April. Everyone else was ghosted until the first day of orientation when rejection letters were sent.
• To meet the AAMC deadline of having a filled class, they pulled waitlisted people off instead of finishing their review of all applications. From napkin math, they had reviewed about 300-350/600 applications at this point. This was unfair to applicants in my opinion because the committee only met biweekly from November to January but started meeting weekly around February to meet the deadline. Thus, the committee could have evaluated all applications before the deadline and before drawing from the waitlist had they appropriately scheduled but chose not to.
• Importantly, the Dean of Admissions made a statement during an information session about how the admissions committee would promote a GPA and MCAT blind admission policy to circumvent the Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action starting with the 2023-2024 cycle and going forward. This in my opinion, denies transparency in the admissions process and enables the admissions committee to discriminate against applicants for any reason possible, including not matching the school’s version of diversity.
• The conditional admit pathway that the school offers to its MBS students (SMP program) skews MSAR and the actual number of seats available for regular applicants. Currently, up to 15 seats are reserved for current MBS students who meet the admissions criteria and are accepted through the pathway. Additionally, eligble MBS alumni up to 2 years are guaranteed 1 interview, with an average of 4-5 alumni from previous cohorts matriculating. Therefore, out-of-state interviews and matriculants on MSAR may reflect the MBS students instead of regular applicants, and the realistic number of seats currently available for regular applicants may be around 130-20=110 seats give or take.

Accordingly, I would recommend that applicants be prepared for the lack of professionalism that this school has been espousing for the last couple of years with its delays. Furthermore, given the heavy regional bias that this school has, I would recommend against applying and donating money to this school unless you are from the Inland Empire and its surrounding areas, or are from California per MSAR. Good luck.

 

[Deggroll]

IS Secondary received, heavy ties to IE

 

[Basalganglia4life]

IS Secondary received, heavy ties to IE

Congrats! when you have a chance, can you post the prompts?

 

[Deggroll]

Congrats! when you have a chance, can you post the prompts?

1.) Diversity comes in many forms. How do you think you might contribute to the diversity of the class?


2.) Describe the last time you were criticized by a peer or supervisor. How did you handle it?


3.) Give an example of when you had to work with someone who was difficult to get along with. Why was this person difficult? How did you handle that person?


4.) What would be the best example that shows you are a person of integrity?


5.) If given the opportunity to attend medical school, where would you see yourself in ten years?


6.) If you were enrolled in fewer than 12 units/credits for more than 1 semester/2 quarters during your undergraduate education, please provide a brief explanation below. (If not applicable, please enter N/A in the box below)

 

[DeterminedWind]

1.) Diversity comes in many forms. How do you think you might contribute to the diversity of the class?


2.) Describe the last time you were criticized by a peer or supervisor. How did you handle it?


3.) Give an example of when you had to work with someone who was difficult to get along with. Why was this person difficult? How did you handle that person?


4.) What would be the best example that shows you are a person of integrity?


5.) If given the opportunity to attend medical school, where would you see yourself in ten years?


6.) If you were enrolled in fewer than 12 units/credits for more than 1 semester/2 quarters during your undergraduate education, please provide a brief explanation below. (If not applicable, please enter N/A in the box below)

Thank you for posting! Wow, at least there are fewer essays than previously! What is the character/word limit for these?

 

[Basalganglia4life]

1.) Diversity comes in many forms. How do you think you might contribute to the diversity of the class?


2.) Describe the last time you were criticized by a peer or supervisor. How did you handle it?


3.) Give an example of when you had to work with someone who was difficult to get along with. Why was this person difficult? How did you handle that person?


4.) What would be the best example that shows you are a person of integrity?


5.) If given the opportunity to attend medical school, where would you see yourself in ten years?


6.) If you were enrolled in fewer than 12 units/credits for more than 1 semester/2 quarters during your undergraduate education, please provide a brief explanation below. (If not applicable, please enter N/A in the box below)

@chilly_md

 

[findingdory]

1.) Diversity comes in many forms. How do you think you might contribute to the diversity of the class?


2.) Describe the last time you were criticized by a peer or supervisor. How did you handle it?


3.) Give an example of when you had to work with someone who was difficult to get along with. Why was this person difficult? How did you handle that person?


4.) What would be the best example that shows you are a person of integrity?


5.) If given the opportunity to attend medical school, where would you see yourself in ten years?


6.) If you were enrolled in fewer than 12 units/credits for more than 1 semester/2 quarters during your undergraduate education, please provide a brief explanation below. (If not applicable, please enter N/A in the box below)

can you plese share the character count for each essay?

 

[Deggroll]

150 words for each which sucks because all of my answers were made for the 1500 character limit of last year's secondary.

 

[findingdory]

150 words for each

thank you!

 

[bobby_smith981]

IS Secondary received, heavy ties to IE

Congrats! When were you verified?

 

[Deggroll]

Congrats! When were you verified?

submitted 5/30 (I think) and verified 6/17

 

[Basalganglia4life]

@Deggroll when did you submit your casper score to CUSM? their website says to send after receiving secondary, but that just seems like it would slow your app completion down

 

[Deggroll]

@Deggroll when did you submit your casper score to CUSM? their website says to send after receiving secondary, but that just seems like it would slow your app completion down

They have not received my score yet. My score should be available to schools later this week though.

Edit: I just checked on the Casper site and it shows that my scores were already sent to schools. I looked at my quartile score and it gives me this,
"This means that your score is higher than undefined of other test takers in your cohort." Can someone explain this lol?

 

[ecobio]

They have not received my score yet. My score should be available to schools later this week though.

Edit: I just checked on the Casper site and it shows that my scores were already sent to schools. I looked at my quartile score and it gives me this,
"This means that your score is higher than undefined of other test takers in your cohort." Can someone explain this lol?

You will be able to see your percentile after 4 weeks. They are sent to the schools after 2 weeks.

 

[bobby_smith981]

Does CUSM screen for secondaries?

 

[Apothecary Aquinas]

Does CUSM screen for secondaries?

Yes, although the exact way in which they do may have changed since I've seen it. There used to be an MCAT cutoff around 503 (maybe lower), and a GPA cutoff just around 3.0 but I cannot find the information on their site anymore. I'm assuming place of residence also plays a role but can't be certain. However, they certainly still have a screening process of some sort as not everyone receives a secondary that applies, at least using the past application year posts on SDN as evidence.

 

[findingdory]

Did anyone else receive the secondary? I'm still waiting IS

 

[anxiousdonkey305]

Did anyone else receive the secondary? I'm still waiting IS

Also waiting IS; medium ties to IE

 

[Basalganglia4life]

anyone else getting a 404 server error when accessing the secondary? ive been getting this for 2 days now...

There is a massive tech outage today so that might explain it

 

[FlaptavianBird]

IS secondary received

 

[ecobio]

+1 IS

 

[ClashRoyaleKing]

+1 IS

 

[findingdory]

+1 IS finally

 

[DeterminedWind]

+1 IS

 

[loverofneuro]

anyone else's casper and transcript marked as not received even though every other school has recieved them lol

 

[SushiSphinx]

+1 IS 🙂

 

[HelpOthers!]

anyone else's casper and transcript marked as not received even though every other school has recieved them lol

same here, score should have been sent over a month ago

 

[HelpOthers!]

+1 IS IE

 

[medicine0707]

I am a. current M1 here feel free to ask any questions & tag me if so

 

[crowgirl]

Yes, although the exact way in which they do may have changed since I've seen it. There used to be an MCAT cutoff around 503 (maybe lower), and a GPA cutoff just around 3.0 but I cannot find the information on their site anymore. I'm assuming place of residence also plays a role but can't be certain. However, they certainly still have a screening process of some sort as not everyone receives a secondary that applies, at least using the past application year posts on SDN as evidence.

n=1 but my first cycle in 2021 i didn't receive a secondary with stats above that cutoff but received one today with the exact same GPA and MCAT score

 

[pokeMD]

+1 IS

 

[sarcasmrules]

Idk what's worse, changing the prompt completely or keeping it the same but drastically reducing the word/character count.

 

[sarcasmrules]

anyone else's casper and transcript marked as not received even though every other school has recieved them lol

I'm guessing those are marked a few days after submission. The only transcripts for the application process is on AMCAS and schools ask for an official transcript directly to their office only for matriculants.

 

[deleted1185734]

Has anyone been able to log into the portal? I was able to yesterday, but now I keep getting a 404 Error

 

[sarcasmrules]

Has anyone been able to log into the portal? I was able to yesterday, but now I keep getting a 404 Error

As tempted as I am to not say anything to increase my odds, I decided to do the honorable thing and beat you fair and square.

When you log in, you'll get this link AMP. Take out "/create" and you should be good.

 

[deleted1185734]

As tempted as I am to not say anything to increase my odds, I decided to do the honorable thing and beat you fair and square.

When you log in, you'll get this link AMP. Take out "/create" and you should be good.

It worked! thanks for doing the honorable thing lol

 

[dolephant]

NorCal resident w no ties to IE is getting nervy!

 

[bobby_smith981]

Are they just taking a long time to upload casper and transcripts?

 

[ClashRoyaleKing]

Got another secondary despite already submitting lol.

 

[Basalganglia4life]

Got another secondary despite already submitting lol.

they sent out secondaries again due to the link not working

 

[dolephant]

Got the secondary!

 

[bobby_smith981]

Is anyone's casper or transcripts marked as completed?

 

[sarcasmrules]

Is anyone's casper or transcripts marked as completed?

nope

 

[watchMedoiit]

do they send a confirmation when they receive your primary?

 

[dolephant]

do they send a confirmation when they receive your primary?

I did not get one, no.

 

[bobby_smith981]

They got rid of the transcript section...now just waiting for them to put in the CASPER scores. Anyone marked complete yet?

 

[sarcasmrules]

They got rid of the transcript section...now just waiting for them to put in the CASPER scores. Anyone marked complete yet?

No. I think their system is glitchy. You don't submit a transcript until you've finalized on the school you matriculant to. They're probably fixing it as we speak. As for the CASPer section, I don't think anyone's is marked as received.

 

[icky123]

Has anyone else not received this secondary yet?