2024-2025 Hackensack Meridian

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Would anyone be able to explain what the biggest differences between this school and other schools are? I understand there is the 3 year program, but for someone wanting to do a competitive specialty and a 4th year, would your med school journey be the same as if you were at a different school? It's hard to find things online that separate the two. Everything is saying it feels rushed but to me it looks like how most schools do it, if you don't plan on matching in 3 years. Like would it be any harder to do something like anesthesiology in 4 years vs at another school?
 
Mr.Robot said:
Would anyone be able to explain what the biggest differences between this school and other schools are? I understand there is the 3 year program, but for someone wanting to do a competitive specialty and a 4th year, would your med school journey be the same as if you were at a different school? It's hard to find things online that separate the two. Everything is saying it feels rushed but to me it looks like how most schools do it, if you don't plan on matching in 3 years. Like would it be any harder to do something like anesthesiology in 4 years vs at another school?
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It probably wouldn’t be too different, the advantage might be more research time in 4th year and higher step 2 average. For anesthesia specifically step 2 score seems to matter a lot more than research. This school seems to punch above their rank when it comes to step 2 performance. Also I think the 3+1 curriculum has spots for you to enter anesthesia residency during 4th year.
 
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stew_md said:
It probably wouldn’t be too different, the advantage might be more research time in 4th year and higher step 2 average. For anesthesia specifically step 2 score seems to matter a lot more than research. This school seems to punch above their rank when it comes to step 2 performance. Also I think the 3+1 curriculum has spots for you to enter anesthesia residency during 4th year.
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Thank you so much you're awesome. This is a relief because I've seen people say it's rushed or more difficult under other posts. I'm most probably going here because of the scholarship they gave me, so hopefully things work out.
 
Mr.Robot said:
Thank you so much you're awesome. This is a relief because I've seen people say it's rushed or more difficult under other posts. I'm most probably going here because of the scholarship they gave me, so hopefully things work out.
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It’s a shortened preclinical (1.5 years) followed immediately by 1 year of clinicals, and then taking step 1/2 back to back. I think people say it’s rushed because there’s no break between preclinical and clinical. In my opinion it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

How did you hear about your scholarship? I’ve had no info shared with me about financial aid. Did you have to complete all the prematriculation tasks? Congrats btw.
 
stew_md said:
It’s a shortened preclinical (1.5 years) followed immediately by 1 year of clinicals, and then taking step 1/2 back to back. I think people say it’s rushed because there’s no break between preclinical and clinical. In my opinion it’s not necessarily a bad thing.

How did you hear about your scholarship? I’ve had no info shared with me about financial aid. Did you have to complete all the prematriculation tasks? Congrats btw.
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I see. Damn back to back steps sounds crazy lol.

Thank you so much. I got it with my acceptance letter. I submitted my fafsa to hackensack and other schools I interviewed at earlier this month, so I'm not sure if that's why? My scholarship says merit based so I'm not entirely sure if they even had time to look over my fafsa yet. Other than that I didn't do anything, did the pre-matriculation tasks after the fact
 
Mr.Robot said:
I see. Damn back to back steps sounds crazy lol.

Thank you so much. I got it with my acceptance letter. I submitted my fafsa to hackensack and other schools I interviewed at earlier this month, so I'm not sure if that's why? My scholarship says merit based so I'm not entirely sure if they even had time to look over my fafsa yet. Other than that I didn't do anything, did the pre-matriculation tasks after the fact
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Nice, yeah apparently the students I talked to said the back to back steps weren’t that bad with step 1 being pass fail. It more felt like step 1 was a warm up for step 2.

I filled out my fafsa last month I guess I just need to be patient.
 
stew_md said:
Nice, yeah apparently the students I talked to said the back to back steps weren’t that bad with step 1 being pass fail. It more felt like step 1 was a warm up for step 2.

I filled out my fafsa last month I guess I just need to be patient.
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I hope they give more detail really soon, they def have plenty of money to give I haven't seen anyone but myself and one other talk ab a scholarship on here
 
Anyone's background check still show that it's not done for pre-matriculation? I did it for another school and did not receive anything for this one.
 
Mr.Robot said:
Anyone's background check still show that it's not done for pre-matriculation? I did it for another school and did not receive anything for this one.
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Doesn’t it send it to all participating schools that request it for you? At least that’s what I thought.
 
Iron Man23 said:
Doesn’t it send it to all participating schools that request it for you? At least that’s what I thought.
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I hope so, I'm not sure how long it'll take for it to populate on the site for the pre-matriculation checklist
 
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How long does this school usually take to make a decision after the interview?
 
any words of comfort/advice for the interview? have mine w a faculty member soon and im nervyyyy :')
 
loverofneuro said:
any words of comfort/advice for the interview? have mine w a faculty member soon and im nervyyyy :')
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Cheesy but be yourself and know your application, your experience may be different depending on the interviewer. In my experience it was a pretty standard open file interview. Good luck!
 
stew_md said:
Cheesy but be yourself and know your application, your experience may be different depending on the interviewer. In my experience it was a pretty standard open file interview. Good luck!
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thanks so much 🙂
 
Anyone go to the tour, how's the dress code? Is it casual or were people dressing up
 
I applied pretty late in the cycle (application review complete very early Dec) , fingers crossed that they are still scheduling interviews/sending invites for admissions day.
 
Mr.Robot said:
Would anyone be able to explain what the biggest differences between this school and other schools are? I understand there is the 3 year program, but for someone wanting to do a competitive specialty and a 4th year, would your med school journey be the same as if you were at a different school? It's hard to find things online that separate the two. Everything is saying it feels rushed but to me it looks like how most schools do it, if you don't plan on matching in 3 years. Like would it be any harder to do something like anesthesiology in 4 years vs at another school?
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They do the whole program a disservice by focusing on the "uniqueness" of the 3 year program. It is the option to enter residency a year early if you are 100% sure you want to do a specific residency at a specific location within the Hackensack network. You have to apply in for it at the beginning of 3rd year halfway through rotations. It is an amazing option if you are sure about your specialty early on, and want to stay in NJ/NYC area, and everyone who did it seems happy. It is getting more popular every year as Hackensack adds more specialties to it. They offer anesthesia, so some people graduate early and match anesthesia internally. However, most people do NOT enter residency early, and go on to match plenty of competitive things all over the country.

Some other less discussed differentiators -
  • You take Step 1 after clerkships. This is unanimously a good thing. It makes Step 1 much easier. Some people take Step 1 without studying at all.
  • You take Step 2 in March of M3 so you have slightly more time for electives before applying to residency in September.
  • You do not have summers off. I don't know how people in other medical schools use their summers. Maybe you are someone who would obtain a very productive research placement if they had a summer off, you can't do that if you go to Hackensack.
  • You can get a free MBA or MPH during 4th year.
 
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picklej00s said:
They do the whole program a disservice by focusing on the "uniqueness" of the 3 year program. It is the option to enter residency a year early if you are 100% sure you want to do a specific residency at a specific location within the Hackensack network. You have to apply in for it at the beginning of 3rd year halfway through rotations. It is an amazing option if you are sure about your specialty early on, and want to stay in NJ/NYC area, and everyone who did it seems happy. It is getting more popular every year as Hackensack adds more specialties to it. They offer anesthesia, so some people graduate early and match anesthesia internally. However, most people do NOT enter residency early, and go on to match plenty of competitive things all over the country.

Some other less discussed differentiators -
  • You take Step 1 after clerkships. This is unanimously a good thing. It makes Step 1 much easier. Some people take Step 1 without studying at all.
  • You take Step 2 in March of M3 so you have slightly more time for electives before applying to residency in September.
  • You do not have summers off. I don't know how people in other medical schools use their summers. Maybe you are someone who would obtain a very productive research placement if they had a summer off, you can't do that if you go to Hackensack.
  • You can get a free MBA or MPH during 4th year.
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Do you think the lack of summers off to do research is a disadvantage in terms of residency match? Or burnout?
 
Mr.Robot said:
Do you think the lack of summers off to do research is a disadvantage in terms of residency match? Or burnout?
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How could anyone possibly answer this? I don’t know what other medical schools do during summers. I know NY Medical College, which in my opinion is a comparable school, is in process of accelerating their curriculum. NYU uses the accelerated model as well (not to equate Hackensack with NYU, just to point out it’s not as unusual or sketchy as people make it seem)

Premed forums get so freaked out about the idea of “burnout” and the boogeyman of back to back Step 1/2. I am offering a genuine alternate perspective; having done it, I genuinely think back to back Steps is a good thing.

Regarding burnout; medical school is incredibly challenging. There is no easy medical school. Frankly, with Hackensack you have over a full calendar year off after Step 2 and extremely flexible requirements in 4th year with 3 months of vacation so I might anticipate less burnout.
 
Mr.Robot said:
Do you think the lack of summers off to do research is a disadvantage in terms of residency match? Or burnout?
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I think it's helpful to have a full year after M3 to perform research. Maybe it's harder to get publications out by the time you're applying to residency but I'm not sure. I think they also said they have opportunities for research dispersed throughout the three years giving you an opportunity to get involved in research in preparation for the fourth year.
 
isabelle12970 said:
I think it's helpful to have a full year after M3 to perform research. Maybe it's harder to get publications out by the time you're applying to residency but I'm not sure. I think they also said they have opportunities for research dispersed throughout the three years giving you an opportunity to get involved in research in preparation for the fourth year.
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You never have a full 4th year to do research, the application for residency is due September of 4th year so anything on your app needs to be done before then IE during your first 3 years. This is the case at every med school and is why people do research years
 
for those accepted, did it take around 6 weeks to hear back for y'all?
 
Did anyone get an email saying "Hackensack Meridian - School of Medicine Primary Care Scholars Program Details and Informational Session"? I already had my interview--does this mean I'm accepted and they just haven't sent the email?
 
calendar7564 said:
Did anyone get an email saying "Hackensack Meridian - School of Medicine Primary Care Scholars Program Details and Informational Session"? I already had my interview--does this mean I'm accepted and they just haven't sent the email?
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I was just about to write the same question. My heart sank when I saw the email starting with “we understand” but now I’m just confused? I am telling myself that it’s unrelated to acceptance/rejection because I don’t want to get my hopes up…
 
lollypopdoc said:
I was just about to write the same question. My heart sank when I saw the email starting with “we understand” but now I’m just confused? I am telling myself that it’s unrelated to acceptance/rejection because I don’t want to get my hopes up…
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wait there's no way if i haven't done the background check yet right? i can't get the website to work but either way that means i can't have gotten in right?
 
lollypopdoc said:
I was just about to write the same question. My heart sank when I saw the email starting with “we understand” but now I’m just confused? I am telling myself that it’s unrelated to acceptance/rejection because I don’t want to get my hopes up…
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I think it’s a program that you apply to alongside your application to the medical school.

Edit: I got the email too and have been accepted, never heard about this program until now. I’m vaguely remembering them mentioning it on admissions day.
 
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