What are everyone's thoughts on the West Reading campus? From my interview, it sounded like the two campuses would be better placed in terms of convenience of rotations being done at Tower Health's Reading Hospital. This year was the first graduating class from Reading and apparently they did pretty well for themselves (reported in my interview session).
I think the entire medical school experience in WR has been so much smoother with much more communicative feedback than what I've heard anecdotally from Philly students, and after M2 year you're not really distinct as a Philly campus student anymore anyways since you all scatter around the different sites. I've liked that I know my classmates, all big whopping 40 of us, and that we get to stick together through all four years - we're kind of in the know with who's who in the community now, and all the physicians in the area. About 20 Philly students are placed at Reading Hospital for their year long third year site and there are rotator students who get put here on occasion.
Clinically speaking, as a soon to be M4, my Reading Hospital experience has been great, with the caveat that it can totally depend on who you rotate with/who you work with lol. Knew a lot of the faculty physicians from M1 and M2, interest groups are able to actively connect with them sooner, and we get shadowing experience much sooner. The current M4 students matched very well - I'm going to try to separate them out from the full list Drexel puts out if they don't do so themselves - and the ones who didn't go through the match this year are all finishing their research years in ENT, neurosurgery, orthopedics. Knowing who's going into what makes reaching out to upperclass students so much easier over here.
There is no difference in curriculum other than having a much, MUCH smaller faculty:student ratio here and our class isn't separated into two. We have less cadavers because less students so ironically we know all of our anatomy test cadavers better. Same clinical texts, exams, scenarios. Major organizational clubs are cross-campus and will require representation from both campuses, with the likelihood of getting leadership positions higher as there are less students here. And there's been a trend of starting campus specific clubs to take advantage of the club funding to feed students, get a PS5 (to my shock as well) because there's the same funding to spread to less people here lol
The area is also rapidly expanding with a lot of new things opening up, but you definitely won't get the city experience. That being said, nothing's stopping you from going anyplace more exciting with a car. Lots of commuters don't live in Reading and we go to the city/King of Prussia/Lancaster as time allows. Not that medical school allows much time in general lol
Happy to speak more about WR if you're interested!