AZCOM Discussion Thread 2011-2012

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LookOutFox said:
Clarification question: When I interviewed they made it sound like all but $100 of the deposit was refundable if you decide not to go to AZCOM. Now I am looking at the form for submitting the deposit and it says you "may request a $100 dollar refund". Does anyone know which one is right?
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Pretty sure the latter is true.
 
Does anyone have insights as to when we should hear back about on-campus housing? I remember hearing something about mid-March...
 
senlar said:
Does anyone have insights as to when we should hear back about on-campus housing? I remember hearing something about mid-March...
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I spoke to Jose a couple of weeks ago and he said end of March.
 
Hey could someone provide me with a brief explanation of the rotation sites? I have no clue which to put down as my top three and staring at the list of hospitals doesn't seem to help. I'm interested in Emergency Medicine and Gastro but this will probably change in the future.
 
Go with the area in which you are most comfortable with/want to live in
 
ppappui said:
Go with the area in which you are most comfortable with/want to live in
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I've only been to Arizona once, and that was for my interview. Honestly I have lived everywhere except each of the rotation sites. I do have a wife and newborn if that makes a difference. What about future residency/specialty choice based on clinical sites? Is this important?
 
Hey everyone. I have a question for current students. Is your curriculum systems based? The Midwestern in IL is not, so I was wondering about this program. Also, do you have SIM bodies and a SIM lab? Thanks!
 
Elyse1230 said:
Hey everyone. I have a question for current students. Is your curriculum systems based? The Midwestern in IL is not, so I was wondering about this program. Also, do you have SIM bodies and a SIM lab? Thanks!
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Our curriculum is traditional and there is a sim lab with bodies (granted, as an MS2 we've only used the bodies as part of club workshops and for practicing male and female invasives).
 
Docsted said:
I've only been to Arizona once, and that was for my interview. Honestly I have lived everywhere except each of the rotation sites. I do have a wife and newborn if that makes a difference. What about future residency/specialty choice based on clinical sites? Is this important?
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This is a hard question to ask here, as I am probably the only 3rd year who posts at a regular rate and I am from the Tucson region, which is among the smallest of the regions.

I chose Tucson to be available to UMC and UPH Kino/UMC south, which both host EM residencies and IM residencies. It's more than just being able to rotate here; living here has allowed me to go to lectures and events during other rotations as the preceptors are really nice and open to you doing extra stuff outside a possible mundane day at the clinic.

The only issue I have is the need to drive back each month for the shelf and/or didactics. Other than that, it was great to explore AZ more after living in Glendale for 2 years.

I know West and East valley have great rotations too, mainly at the Banner ones and Maricopa. PCH is also a great place for peds.

Again, it's your call. If you have a family, I might consider staying in West Valley for the sake of staying in one place all the time without having to move at all but I can't comment on rotation quality. I only know this one part of AZ and it is all I can speak for accurately.
 
Flushot said:
This is a hard question to ask here, as I am probably the only 3rd year who posts at a regular rate and I am from the Tucson region, which is among the smallest of the regions.

I chose Tucson to be available to UMC and UPH Kino/UMC south, which both host EM residencies and IM residencies. It's more than just being able to rotate here; living here has allowed me to go to lectures and events during other rotations as the preceptors are really nice and open to you doing extra stuff outside a possible mundane day at the clinic.

The only issue I have is the need to drive back each month for the shelf and/or didactics. Other than that, it was great to explore AZ more after living in Glendale for 2 years.

I know West and East valley have great rotations too, mainly at the Banner ones and Maricopa. PCH is also a great place for peds.

Again, it's your call. If you have a family, I might consider staying in West Valley for the sake of staying in one place all the time without having to move at all but I can't comment on rotation quality. I only know this one part of AZ and it is all I can speak for accurately.
Click to expand...

Not sure if they've mentioned this to y'all or not but at one of the Deans meetings they said they're considering letting the Tucson students do didactics in Tucson instead of coming up here. Not sure if they've made a final decision on it yet.
 
randomusername said:
Not sure if they've mentioned this to y'all or not but at one of the Deans meetings they said they're considering letting the Tucson students do didactics in Tucson instead of coming up here. Not sure if they've made a final decision on it yet.
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That would be great, consider the Tucson Osteopathic Medical Foundation has the facilities to do it for us. We have to teleconference lectures there anyway, so it makes sense to push for this.
 
Docsted said:
I've only been to Arizona once, and that was for my interview. Honestly I have lived everywhere except each of the rotation sites. I do have a wife and newborn if that makes a difference. What about future residency/specialty choice based on clinical sites? Is this important?
Click to expand...

If you've never been here before other than for your interview, it will definitely be hard to "know" where you want to live. But that can come later. My advice would be to live close to campus during the 1st two years of school. During this time you will get to know the whole valley, depending on how much you decide to "expore". And from they you will be able to decide where you'd like to live. Thats important because there are some sketchy areas and some way to expensive areas to live in.

Being in your position before, I understand that everyone worries about rotations sites and what is the best way to approach them and what areas are the best. But the most important thing right now is to get into school. Once your in school, the next most important thing is to survive the first two years and get through the boards. Now I realize I'm talking to highly motivated people, being one myself, I get that you want to plan everything now. But the truth is, our adminstration and clinical coordinators will not "help out" much until close to the end of your 2nd year. What I mean by that is, they are busy with the current 3rd and 4th years trying to get them the rotations and auditions that they need to take the next step of getting their preferred residency. Rotations spots are organic, ever changing even while in your 3rd and 4th years due to availability and things like that. That being said, when the time is right, they will bend over backwards to get you the spots you want/need to be competitive for your chosen residency. For example, if you have a west valley spot, but a ward-based rotation that you want is in East valley, then your coordinator will do all possible to get you that spot, no matter where you "live" or what your "rotation site assignment" is. Pretty much your rotations are what you make them AND where you make them. I have a buddy that was assigned to Tuscon, but has done all his rotation here in the valley. So, don't worry about rotation sites just yet. Trading and swapping happens all the time, probably 90% of my class got what they wanted if they persue it enough.

As for, rotations sites being important for residencies and all that. I've been told if you do well at a rotation site (good grades/evaluations) then thats all the residencies see. Those sites are more important for your 4th year anyway, plus you have more control over where you rotate.

If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask. I'm a currently 2nd year and am going through organizing my rotations as we speak.
 
I agree wtih Xiphoid for the most part, mainly taking control. Granted, being assigned to a region and essentially not being there for at least 50% of the time and only getting the perks of the region (ex. Tucson region but staying in Valley, so you can get Valley rotations and UMC at the same time) is not very common.

However, taking control of 3rd year is very important. Had I known what I know now, my first 3 rotations would've been very different. I would not leave it to 4th year to take command of your education wherever you can.

For 2016, unless you have specific rotation plans in CA or IL, then stay instate and customize accordingly. A lot can be changed when you step up to the plate and the whole system could be changed then too.
 
Hey so I got that letter in the mail saying that I was on a pre-interview hold. When I called AZCOM they told me that its like a wait-list for an interview and told me that they interview deep into May. How likely is it for someone to get an interview from this wait-list/ is the wait-list ranked in any specific manner (applicants who had their stuff in earlier are up first)???

3.5/3.5 25MCAT
 
WizardFan said:
Hey so I got that letter in the mail saying that I was on a pre-interview hold. When I called AZCOM they told me that its like a wait-list for an interview and told me that they interview deep into May. How likely is it for someone to get an interview from this wait-list/ is the wait-list ranked in any specific manner (applicants who had their stuff in earlier are up first)???

3.5/3.5 25MCAT
Click to expand...

Right now there are 5 or 6 interview dates open through about May 15th.
 
Keep checking back periodically if you're curious. Only about 130 students reported in that link as of my posting. I'm sure by this weekend, there will be many more.

EDIT - New page, so I'll quote my original post:
Flushot said:
Just got an email with a google maps showing student participated matches and locations. Will keep people updated:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF&msa=0&msid=209544913025182426254.0004b7695df5160cec1ee

EDIT - probably should include the color key:

BLUE=Osteopathic
YELLOW=Allopathic
RED=Military
Click to expand...
 
For those of you who aren't members of the AZCOM 2016 group on facebook yet, just heard that next year's tuition will be $52,635.
 
Yep, that 4% increase each year won't stop anytime soon. AZCOM has been relatively good to me so far but the tuition is seriously a buzz kill.
 
Flushot said:
Yep, that 4% increase each year won't stop anytime soon. AZCOM has been relatively good to me so far but the tuition is seriously a buzz kill.
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Do they just up the maximum amount you can take out in loans to go along with it?
 
Flushot said:
Yep, that 4% increase each year won't stop anytime soon. AZCOM has been relatively good to me so far but the tuition is seriously a buzz kill.
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And they always conveniently use the excuse of how costs for utilities, insurance, and clinical rotations keep increasing...

samiam87 said:
Do they just up the maximum amount you can take out in loans to go along with it?
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Yeah, the amount you can borrow is based on the COA, so when the COA increases the amount you can borrow increases as well.
 
Has anyone this cycle been invited for an interview that was put on hold pre-interview?
 
randomusername said:
And they always conveniently use the excuse of how costs for utilities, insurance, and clinical rotations keep increasing...
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It makes sense in the context of that facility next door and setting up the new vet school but that definitely doesn't make it right. They told us this from day one so it's not like we didn't know what we were signing up for, but it definitely doesn't help AZCOM look good.

wthomas1986 said:
Has anyone this cycle been invited for an interview that was put on hold pre-interview?
Click to expand...

I'm sure there are those who had successes and don't post. People usually post when they run into road blocks or have questions, so success stories often don't get posted. I think a lot of people lurk the forums too so I bet there have been but the ones that actually post are in the minority.
 
Lol. I just got an email that says:

Congratulations!

You've been accepted to Midwestern University.

I guess I'm glad it's official, since I put my deposit down five months ago. I kind of hoped it was about on-campus housing.
 
samiam87 said:
Lol. I just got an email that says:

Congratulations!

You’ve been accepted to Midwestern University.

I guess I'm glad it's official, since I put my deposit down five months ago. I kind of hoped it was about on-campus housing.
Click to expand...

Well...let me be the second to officially congratulate you!
 
Congrats to everyone who got in! My wife and I are looking to rent out a room in our house and I wanted to put it on the market to AZCOM students before I officially put it on the market. The house is fully furnished and we will be living here mostly on the weekends (which means you will have the house to yourself the majority of the time)! It located less than 10 minutes from the campus. This is awesome for those who are like me that love to study at home but also want to avoid the roommate situation. We prefer to rent to a female. Please PM me if you're interested!
 
Just curious if anyone knows how full the class is so far, since I interview in a couple weeks. Also, how often does the committee meet to make decisions? Thanks!
 
Elyse1230 said:
Just curious if anyone knows how full the class is so far, since I interview in a couple weeks. Also, how often does the committee meet to make decisions? Thanks!
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+1 - I would love to know this.

Also, it seems from searching the thread that the adcom gets back to people the Tuesday or Wednesday following their interview. Does that seem accurate to the rest of you?
 
samiam87 said:
Lol. I just got an email that says:

Congratulations!

You’ve been accepted to Midwestern University.

I guess I'm glad it's official, since I put my deposit down five months ago. I kind of hoped it was about on-campus housing.
Click to expand...

Congratulations. I hope to hear more good news on the thread.
 
Is it too late to apply for scholarships/grants? What are the best options as far as trying not to go $300,000 in debt besides military and rural physician? My wife is freaking out about the tuition. Is there any info available online about the full tuition scholly that Midwestern offers where you stay and extra year?
 
voisinator said:
Is it too late to apply for scholarships/grants? What are the best options as far as trying not to go $300,000 in debt besides military and rural physician? My wife is freaking out about the tuition. Is there any info available online about the full tuition scholly that Midwestern offers where you stay and extra year?
Click to expand...

AZCOM is incredibly "light" when it comes to useful scholarships and virtually everything other than the OMM scholar program is insignificant when you're looking at $52k+ in tuition annually. As for the scholar program, it's not smart to bank on getting that after MS2 either because in a class of 250, there are plenty of people interested in securing one of the three spots.

http://www.midwestern.edu/Programs_and_Admission/Financial_Aid/Scholarships.html
http://www.midwestern.edu/Programs_..._Info_-_AZ/Scholarship_Listing_2012-2013.html
 
Has anyone calculated how long it would take to pay off 300,000 dollars of debt if you where a family physician only making 100k-160k a year? Taking into mind that with interest on top of that you are probably looking more at 350-400k debt and owning a house and everything?
 
I am also wondering about this. Can someone please provide insight on how viable this is as someone practicing family medicine? Maybe some current students can give an idea?
Lifeboat said:
Has anyone calculated how long it would take to pay off 300,000 dollars of debt if you where a family physician only making 100k-160k a year? Taking into mind that with interest on top of that you are probably looking more at 350-400k debt and owning a house and everything?
Click to expand...
 
Lifeboat said:
Has anyone calculated how long it would take to pay off 300,000 dollars of debt if you where a family physician only making 100k-160k a year? Taking into mind that with interest on top of that you are probably looking more at 350-400k debt and owning a house and everything?
Click to expand...

You've started your own answer. While not a perfect way (doesn't take into account compounding interest, payment plan, etc) to figure it out by any means: take a guesstimate of the principal + interest as your starting total. Arbitrarily choose a number between $100k-160k/year and call it your income. Take off about 40% for taxes and call that your take-home pay. Figure out how much money you'll want to live off of in a year (mortgage, car, insurance, food, investment/retirement, discretionary, etc) and subtract that from your THP. Call this new figure "money for student loans per year."
Now:
(guesstimate of principal + interest)/"money for student loans per year"= years for repayment

You can also utilize an online student loan repayment calculator, of which there are countless to choose from.

premed21 said:
I am also wondering about this. Can someone please provide insight on how viable this is as someone practicing family medicine? Maybe some current students can give an idea?
Click to expand...

It's viable but you can clearly understand why people want to specialize in something other than PC. Right now, a few things that PCs have in their favor is that: you can set up shop in an under-served area (not every place is necessarily a crap hole in the middle of BFE) and have significant chunks of your loans paid off per year (how much depends on the specific state); there's ample employment with "non-profit" organizations available, and with a lot of hospitals getting in on owning PC offices, you can work at one of their offices for ten years and have whatever outstanding student loans you have forgiven (I'm assuming they haven't specifically written physicians out of this forgiveness option and then you just have to hope that they don't nix it in the coming years); some practices/organizations offer student-loan repayment as an incentive for joining them.

Ultimately, make sure you keep up to date with what's going on politically when it comes to student loans (particularly for graduate students; in the past year or two Congress has really decided to increase the weight of the yoke that grad students will be lugging around by doing things like eliminating the subsidized Stafford loan for us), healthcare, physician reimbursements, tort reform, etc., because the decisions those in charge today make will ultimately be what we all get to deal with down the road. When you catch wind of something that sounds like it's going to be screwing you over with student loans or your future income (or conversely, when it sounds like it's going to really benefit you)- contact your representatives and senators in Congress, sign petitions, and do anything else within your power to get your opinion out there.
 
Lifeboat said:
Does anyone know what the interview questions they ask are?
Click to expand...

Why medicine? Why DO? Why AZCOM?
If there's anything interesting/unique in your app, be able to talk about it. For everything else, look at the interview feedback section here on SDN and it has a lot of questions listed.
 
Yay! Just found out about on-campus housing. I checked it this morning and hadn't heard anything, so it must have been updated pretty recently.
 
Feel free to email Jose Ponce (it's jponce AT midwestern.edu) if you're curious about your status or have questions about the process. I got my studio for 4th year so I suppose I will see some of you 1st years next year. I've always wanted to meet SDN people at my school but it always seems to fall flat.

At any rate, I have plenty of notes and pdfs to share, so if you're around, hit me up and I'll help you out before your big sib can :meanie:
 
I got notification about on-campus housing last night. I found out through the student services section on the midwestern portal.
 
Lifeboat said:
Does anyone know what the interview questions they ask are?
Click to expand...

I got asked why I was wearing my name tag on my right lapel when everyone else was wearing it on their left.

I also got asked what my favorite wine was.
 
Lifeboat said:
Does anyone know what the interview questions they ask are?
Click to expand...
They asked me who I would invite to dinner if I could invite three people (living or dead) who aren't family or friends, and what I would serve them.
 
crmellon said:
I got asked why I was wearing my name tag on my right lapel when everyone else was wearing it on their left.

I also got asked what my favorite wine was.
Click to expand...

That's...quite random to me. I don't drink wine at all so it's a shame that they asked that. It is kinda lame to assume that some drink it, or even any alcohol at all. The name tag thing I hope wasn't too serious.
 
Flushot said:
That's...quite random to me. I don't drink wine at all so it's a shame that they asked that. It is kinda lame to assume that some drink it, or even any alcohol at all. The name tag thing I hope wasn't too serious.
Click to expand...
The wine question could be related to something in his application, otherwise that is pretty random.
 
anyone get their award letters yet? As long as I'm checked off on my financial aids checklist I should be good right?
Thanks for the replies!!
 
samiam87 said:
The wine question could be related to something in his application, otherwise that is pretty random.
Click to expand...

That makes more sense. If it was a follow up to something, it's hardly a question that others can expect.

shaosoldier said:
anyone get their award letters yet? As long as I'm checked off on my financial aids checklist I should be good right?
Thanks for the replies!!
Click to expand...

Nope, haven't received mine yet. They still have a month, so just hang out for a bit.
 
Flushot said:
That's...quite random to me. I don't drink wine at all so it's a shame that they asked that. It is kinda lame to assume that some drink it, or even any alcohol at all. The name tag thing I hope wasn't too serious.
Click to expand...

I had put down that I was an amateur sommelier on my Interests portion for their CV requirement. However, the name tag thing was pretty unexpected. My interview was pretty laid-back, with a lot of questions from my CV. For people about to interview, pretty much expect to get asked why you want to be an Osteopathic physician, and be comfortable talking about yourself, interests, etc.
 
My wife and I are visiting AZCOM this next weekend to look for off campus housing. What are some of the better apartments/condos to check out? Also, I want to meet up with a financial aid counselor. Do they take walkins or would I be better off scheduling an appointment? Thanks
 
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