Anyone attending West Virginia?

[mattng]

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Got an interview at WV. Just wondering what your thoughts were about the school.

 

[koojo]

I also received a request for an interview from them today, and wondering the same thing.

 

[Bill_Brasky]

yes

very expensive if you are out of state, and though i've gotten a great education here go elsewhere unless you get religion about it during your interview

 

[mattng]

Yea, I was debating on if I should go to the interview. It seems like a good thing to do, but I don't really see myself going there if I were to be accepted...

 

[Cp22kjer]

Care to elaborate some? What year are you?!# Thanks for input.

 

[simpleman]

Lewisburg is a dead town!!! there is nothing to do! I heard negative remarks from current students there. I dont attend WVSOM, but i had an interview and acceptance, but declined. If you want to be in the a proximal region, apply to VCOM which is 60 miles away from west virigina school....VCOM with Virginia Tech!!! great school man...so many advances and so much alive!

 

[Bill_Brasky]

Care to elaborate some? What year are you?!# Thanks for input.

i'm an MSIV trying to get into surgery. My undergrad debt was only ~24k. Now my debt will be ~300k. Don't go, this debt is going to ruin my life for a long time and the school keeps piling it on to build new facilities it DOES NOT NEED.

 

[Cp22kjer]

i'm an MSIV trying to get into surgery. My undergrad debt was only ~24k. Now my debt will be ~300k. Don't go, this debt is going to ruin my life for a long time and the school keeps piling it on to build new facilities it DOES NOT NEED.

Most schools are pushing 40k nowadays. It's insane tuition. LECOM's are affordable along with some state schools where the applicants have residency there. But I think most people will be hurting wherever they end up.

 

[fmsswick]

I'm a third year student attending WVSOM and have nothing but great things to say about it. Friendly, great education. PBL is available. Great area with few distractions except nature and a supportive community. Yes, it's small here, but it's also a touristy small town; many great events such as Taste of Our Town, many concerts at our own Carnegie Hall and Lewis Theater and Greenbrier Valley Theater. Awesome gym in town. Truly beautiful red-brick campus. Helpful faculty. Strong OPP Department. The only drawback is that it is somewhat isolated, but has a private airport that you can sometimes find good deals through. Roanoke and Charleston are 1.5 and 2 hours away, respectively. Surprisingly open, liberal atmosphere for such a small community.

 

[gclax30]

Hmmmm, I've gone back and forth over this with myself many times. I am a MS4. Some days I am quite satisfied with my education and feel that it was a good decision to attend WVSOM, other days I think to myself WTF was I thinking? Those are usually the days when I get a loan interest statement in the mail. FYI- $237k with one more year to pay and interest is building every day...

Every school has pros and cons of course depending on your perspective and personal experience. What initially attracted me to the school: the location, the people, and the option to do PBL for MS1 and 2. In terms of these first two, personally I think rural WV can't be beat. Lewisburg and the Greenbrier region are absolutely gorgeous and wonderful places to live. The people are the best you'll ever meet anywhere. I loved those aspects of my medical education and would seriously consider retiring there one day for those reasons. But are they enough to justify >$300,000 in debt over 4 years? I can honestly say NO they do not.

I was also excited about the possibility to do the PBL track. I can't speak for it now or what it will be like if you were to attend next year, but it was a miserable joke for my year. The curriculum changed every month, we never knew what we were going to be tested on or to what depth, exam formats changed constantly, I could go on and on. I was highly disappointed with PBL there and I hope and pray that they've made some adjustments in the past few years.

All of these factors aside, what I failed to consider (and strongly encourage you and ANY potential applicant to consider) was the quality of the clinical education i.e. years 3 and 4. I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH!!! Any school can boast about high level 1 board passing rates, PBL vs SBL vs independent track, etc. But those all pertain to the basic science aspect of the med school curriculum and you'll find out later when applying for residency that programs don't give a crap about MS1 and 2 (so long as you didn't fail a bunch of courses and passed step 1). They want to know that you've had excellent clinical exposure during your later years and have experienced tough, rigorous medicine. I just can't say that you get that exposure while rotating at rural community hospitals in podunk WV for all of 3rd year. You really REALLY have to go above and beyond the boundaries of WVSOM's clinical ed to get this type of exposure and you'll resent having to do so.

Do some students get decent clinical ed at WVSOM? Yes, I'm sure many do. But if you aren't slated for family med, peds, or internal med, the school doesn't really provide good quality opportunities to see a lot of other fields. Now before I get jumped on by the Lewisburg Faithful about how the school's stated mission is to train primary care doctors let me remind you that even a family med doc in the middle of the woods treating bread-and-butter cases all day should have the opportunity to train where they see everything including the zebras. This has been stressed by my own preceptors on rotations. The exposure you get at WVSOM just ain't enough, period.

I encourage you to go on the interview and check it out for yourself, but truly ask yourself if it is worth spending that much coin on a mediocre education.

 

[Founder]

Remember the rule though:

Those who are dissatisfied are always the loudest voicing their dissatisfaction with a school. Some of the gripes are legitimate, but many more are not legitimate because those who are dissatisfied resent certain things. I saw it extensively in college so in my opinion it is fairly easy to point out the legitimate gripe from the plain old resentful bitching.

What am I saying? Hearing three or four negative posts about a school is NOT representative of what the school is.

Ask yourself: If WVSOM was bad like some of these people say, then how come people keep applying and keep going? The three schools I applied to I was accepted into and I chose WVSOM for various reasons. I have not been disappointed. I'm not going to go into a point by point about why the negative posts are... "innacurate" but the point is this; the internet is okay for getting a introduction to the school but you can't rely on internet word of mouth. You need to visit the school and talk with students. You'll have plenty of opportunity to do this on your own during an interview.

 

[gclax30]

Remember the rule though:

Those who are dissatisfied are always the loudest voicing their dissatisfaction with a school. Some of the gripes are legitimate, but many more are not legitimate because those who are dissatisfied resent certain things. I saw it extensively in college so in my opinion it is fairly easy to point out the legitimate gripe from the plain old resentful bitching.

What am I saying? Hearing three or four negative posts about a school is NOT representative of what the school is.

Ask yourself: If WVSOM was bad like some of these people say, then how come people keep applying and keep going? The three schools I applied to I was accepted into and I chose WVSOM for various reasons. I have not been disappointed. I'm not going to go into a point by point about why the negative posts are... "innacurate" but the point is this; the internet is okay for getting a introduction to the school but you can't rely on internet word of mouth. You need to visit the school and talk with students. You'll have plenty of opportunity to do this on your own during an interview.

I don’t completely disagree with your post, I also encouraged the OP to indeed visit the school and make his/her own informed decision. But what exactly constitutes an “inaccurate” opinion? Especially one which is based on first hand experience? This is what the OP was requesting after all. I figured since I actually attended there I might happen to have SOME idea of what it’s like. But I guess you can better educate me on my own experience so please, by all means, go ahead…

mattng, the point I am trying to get across is that *in my opinion* the school tries to sell itself and its GIANT price tag to pre-meds by saying how lovely Greenbrier county is, how pretty the new buildings and classrooms are, how ‘advanced’ they are with the million dollar robot simulators, yadda yadda. But they don’t talk much about the clinical years which is really where you want to get the most for your dollar, all 300,000 of em. I just don’t feel that the experience and clinical training they offer can justify what you’ll be asked to give, er, borrow.

 

[Founder]

Why would I comment on WVSOM if I knew nothing about it?

But what I said goes for a lot of schools: You always hear more bad over good. Always. It's just how it is. I'm not trying to attack you as a person or anything. I am just saying those who are not satisfied tend to voice that opinion louder than those who are satisfied.

Now the price is horrendous, $52,000 I think. But cost of living is fairly low.

 

[Bill_Brasky]

Now the price is horrendous, $52,000 I think. But cost of living is fairly low.

COL isn't that low because there is paucity of apartments in town with the doubling of the class size.

 

[Founder]

COL isn't that low because there is paucity of apartments in town with the doubling of the class size.

That is true. Though you can find some pretty good deals out there if you know where to look. Or are lucky. Luck probably plays the largest role...

 

[mamitch4]

...but it was a miserable joke for my year. The curriculum changed every month, we never knew what we were going to be tested on or to what depth, exam formats changed constantly, I could go on and on...

All of these factors aside, what I failed to consider (and strongly encourage you and ANY potential applicant to consider) was the quality of the clinical education i.e. years 3 and 4... You really REALLY have to go above and beyond the boundaries of WVSOM's clinical ed to get this type of exposure and you'll resent having to do so.

Do some students get decent clinical ed at WVSOM? Yes, I'm sure many do. But if you aren't slated for family med, peds, or internal med, the school doesn't really provide good quality opportunities to see a lot of other fields....

I agree with this entire post.
I'm currently surviving my intern year at a teaching hospital much larger (and more dedicated to education) than where I did most of my clinical rotations while at WVSOM. I am struck everyday by the incredibly different experience that the medical students here are getting compared to what I was steered towards.

As a premed I gave very little thought to clinical education-- when you visit a school and talk with the students, you rarely are talking to the 3rd and 4th years, or the interns and residents who have recently graduated for that matter. And I would argue that some opinions are more valuable than others. I think that students who have experienced "rigorous" clinical medicine in addition to smaller community hospitals have a little more perspective on the issue. And yes, to a certain extent you can craft such an experience for yourself at WVSOM, but you are mostly on your own to make that happen. I know that I resent the time and effort that I spent setting up some more rigorous rotations, and too frequently I took the path of least resistance.

I don't consider myself to be "loudly voicing my dissatisfaction." I would simply like to encourage all medical school applicants to better understand what their needs and expectations are for school and their careers--and how well equipped the schools that they are interested in are to meet those needs, including: pre-clinical experience, clinical education, GME counseling resources, and beyond. I based most of my decision of what medical school to go to on what I understood about the pre-clinical experience, as I think too many students do. I can see now that years MSIII- attending should have been given much more consideration than I afforded them.