BYU and DO schools.

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zoner

zoner

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in every interview I have been to I ran into a fairly good leverage percentage of students from BYU maybe except for UMDNJ. is it like that for MD schools as well?

Also do you have to be a mormon to attend that school?

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zoner said:
in every interview I have been to I ran into a fairly good leverage percentage of students from BYU maybe except for UMDNJ. is it like that for MD schools as well?

Also do you have to be a mormon to attend that school?

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My advisor told me they just have their advisors on top of things and make students apply super early just like my school does. June vs August submission makes a huge difference.
 
zoner said:
in every interview I have been to I ran into a fairly good leverage percentage of students from BYU maybe except for UMDNJ. is it like that for MD schools as well?

Also do you have to be a mormon to attend that school?

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A Nony Mouse said:
My advisor told me they just have their advisors on top of things and make students apply super early just like my school does. June vs August submission makes a huge difference.
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Not much of an extensive advisement center (no committee) and all they really do is a LOR service. It more has to do with the quantity of students that are apply for med school from BYU.

The campus itself has 33k+ students and has a relatively decent amount of students pursuing medical, dental, and other health professions. The AAMC has BYU in the Top 10 producer of med-school bound students.

You don't have to be LDS (mormon) to attend BYU, but obviously a large amount of the student body are.

Here is a chart from a 2010 application cycle report

timthumb.php
 
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Thats pretty amazing. Do you think its cultural thing? As in since this profession is very family friendly/oriented it goes well with mormon's family oriented philosophy as well

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zoner said:
Thats pretty amazing. Do you think its cultural thing? As in since this profession is very family friendly/oriented it goes well with mormon's family oriented philosophy as well

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It is hard to say for medicine. Medical training is FAR from family-friendly even though the eventual career has high potential to be so. I know quite a few very qualified women who turned down medical school acceptances b/c they didn't want to postpone starting a family.

It is certainly cultural/natural to want to help people, but this is not exclusive members of the LDS church (since all mormons aren't doctors and vice versa).

I'm sure culture plays a role as well as the type of students that are accepted to BYU. Avg. incoming GPA is 3.8+. Honestly though, for $2,400/semester you'd be an idiot to not go if you got accepted.

On the same thought, look at dental school. The amount of BYU students going into dentistry is staggering. Many a pre-med at BYU goes into dentistry b/c it is MUCH more family friendly. Personally, I'd sooner be a garbage man. Teeth aren't my thing.
 
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FEEDER COLLEGES
Listed below are the top 20 feeder colleges providing the largest number of applicants.

Institution Name City Applicants

Michigan State University East Lansing, MI 307
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor Ann Arbor, MI 247
Rutgers, The State University of NJ New Bruns-Newark-Camden, NJ 235
University of California-UCLA Los Angeles, CA 233
University of Florida Gainesville, FL 227
Brigham Young University Provo, UT 205
University of California-San Diego La Jolla, CA 179
University of California-Berkeley Berkeley, CA 168
Penn State University-All Campuses University Park, PA 168
University of California-Irvine Irvine, CA 167
University of South Florida Tampa, FL 161
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Champaign, IL 161
Arizona State University-All Campuses Tempe, AZ 156
University of California-Davis Davis, CA 152
Ohio State University-All Campuses Columbus, OH 143
SUNY At Stony Brook Stony Brook, NY 141
Loyola University Chicago Chicago, IL 137
University of Central Florida Orlando, FL 131
Wayne State University Detroit, MI 117
University of Oklahoma Norman, OK 114
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These are the top feeder schools for DO programs in the 2012 entering class. As you can see BYU is near the top. In years past BYU has also consistently been near the top. While a good percentage of BYU students are not Utah residents, the ones that are only have one small MD state school at the University of Utah. The class is small, competitive, and admission is tough. This may contribute to more BYU grads going DO.
 
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I definitely agree that a disproportionate number of Mormon students tend to pursue the DO route. I think it has to do with the perception that DO schools are more friendly towards non-trads than MD schools. Many Mormon students (myself included) marry and have kids at a younger age than the general populace; also, many of us have spent two years as missionaries and thus tend to be a bit older when we graduate from college. Thus I think we tend to self-identify as non-trads and thus end up feeling very comfortable going the DO route.

That said, there are several MD schools that I have heard tend to take a lot of BYU graduates. SLU, Creighton, and Ohio State come to mind.
 
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To add to it, Utah has one of the highest applicants/population ratio for DO schools, second only to Michigan. That is based on the statistics provided by AACOM.
 
All very interesting

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I've also met a ton of Mormon/BYU students on my interview trips. From what one of them told me, he really likes the primary care/relationship focus of D.O. schools. He said something along the lines of how it kind of reflects his beliefs.
 
FYI - Half of the OOS students at TCOM come from BYU. BYU is the #4 feeder school right behind UT Austin, Baylor, and Texas A&M.
 
Hence why they are opening a DO school in Utah because of the medical facilities available and the large population of students pursuing medicine. Took them long enough.
 
Elevencents said:
Hence why they are opening a DO school in Utah because of the medical facilities available and the large population of students pursuing medicine. Took them long enough.
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Didn't know that. In salt lake city?

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zoner said:
Didn't know that. In salt lake city?

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LECOM is partnering with a PT school in Provo (45 minutes south of Salt Lake City) to create clinical opportunities in Utah for LECOM DO students. Rumor has it they hope to eventually start a 4th LECOM campus there. Also, the COCA list of institutions applying for future accreditation of new DO schools includes Southern Utah University, a public university in Cedar City in southwestern Utah.
 
Wow thats alot of do schools popping up. I really hope they know what they are doing creating so many med schools. I sm particularly surprised by the socal com in la.

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I like a lot of what's been said here, I feel it makes a lot of sense and I'll add my late night 2 cents.

LECOM Provo better have a class of 1000+. I like what was said about the U earlier. Way small and super competitive. (Like 6 LORs? Is that the MD norm?)

I also agree about the non trad mindset. I recently worked a semester at a world famous amusement park. There were maybe a dozen or so college kids like myself doing the same job for roughly the same time frame. I was the only one who was married (for a year! 🙂 ) and now a year later I'm the only one with a baby. Different priorities for different life situations.

Maybe LDS applicants have a slightly higher likelihood of altruistic reasons for going into this, at least that's how it is in those BYUI classmates I'm personally familiar with. Of course there are Mormon gunners and those in it for the big reasons of $$$$$$$$ and prestige (want to lol at those who want to do ortho but don't know what it is). I've also noticed the family connection. Student's dad, uncle, grandparents drs... (I don't get the dentist bit either. Maybe the lack of residency?) While others may have had powerful experiences during their missionary service that helped prompt them in that direction.

Whatever the reasons for the numbers, I'm sure there's something those adcoms find interesting from the app, ps or interview.
 
GIpremed said:
Whatever the reasons for the numbers, I'm sure there's something those adcoms find interesting from the app, ps or interview.
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Its the fact that most of the time you get a very mature student that knows how to study and won't cause problems.

I wouldn't bank on SUU opening a DO school, but you should expect to see a LECOM rotations in Utah in the next 2 years and a branch within the next 6 years.

BYU produces far more MD than DO. However, it seems to be opposite for BYU-I.
 
I'm from Salt Lake City (hence the username) and I'm LDS, but I didn't go to BYU (University of Utah grad here). I remember my school (ATSU) sponsoring a welcome reception at the BYU campus for accepted students in all programs at both campuses who were from Utah. We had the event a few months before we moved off to AZ or MO. I thought that was the norm across the board for ATSU, but my classmates from other states didn't have that. I think it's just because so many students from Utah are accepted into ATSU programs. I mean, there were better than 10% of my classmates who are either from Utah, or went to school there. I'll bet the proportions were even higher for the ASDOH dental class of 2015.

And I would agree with "the cgrblue" above me that often times a BYU grad gives you an older student who won't cause trouble. In fact, my faculty have said nearly as much. Not about BYU grads, or Mormon students but about married students with kids. They often commented that older married students tend to do better in school because they know how to be efficient in their study habits since their time is often stretched between family and school responsibilities. It just so happens that BYU grads, and LDS medical students in general, fit almost uniformly into that category.
 
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Byu student here with my .02. Agree with everything said here, pre-dent is the big time here. I don't feel the pre-med advisor does anything besides tell you to apply broadly and early. One of my interviewers at Atsu knew the advisor by name and commented how on top of things byu students were. I think almost a fifth of azcom do class is from byu. I bet it's more lopsided for the dental class.
As for a do school in Provo, I think after a few years it could become one of the more competitive do schools in the country with all the high quality applicants from Utah who don't get one of the 65 spots at UofU
 
dododr said:
As for a do school in Provo, I think after a few years it could become one of the more competitive do schools in the country with all the high quality applicants from Utah who don't get one of the 65 spots at UofU
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Not to mention the amount of OB work they'll get during rotations. :laugh:
 
SLC said:
I'm from Salt Lake City (hence the username) and I'm LDS, but I didn't go to BYU (University of Utah grad here). I remember my school (ATSU) sponsoring a welcome reception at the BYU campus for accepted students in all programs at both campuses who were from Utah. We had the event a few months before we moved off to AZ or MO. I thought that was the norm across the board for ATSU, but my classmates from other states didn't have that. I think it's just because so many students from Utah are accepted into ATSU programs. I mean, there were better than 10% of my classmates who are either from Utah, or went to school there. I'll bet the proportions were even higher for the ASDOH dental class of 2015.

And I would agree with "the cgrblue" above me that often times a BYU grad gives you an older student who won't cause trouble. In fact, my faculty have said nearly as much. Not about BYU grads, or Mormon students but about married students with kids. They often commented that older married students tend to do better in school because they know how to be efficient in their study habits since their time is often stretched between family and school responsibilities. It just so happens that BYU grads, and LDS medical students in general, fit almost uniformly into that category.
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I'd like to say +1 to what everyone has said here, and specifically about that which is in bold. I do not attend BYU but I am LDS and from Utah. And to add to cgrblue's most recent comment about OB rotations, I have to agree. My wife just had a baby and our OB delivers ON AVERAGE 40 babies a month! He sees about 50 patients a day and 90% of those are OB visits.

Also to answer Zoner's other question that I believe has not been answered, no you do not have to be LDS to go to BYU, but you do have to agree to live by a certain set of principles/rules. I'm sure a current/former BYU student could comment further on that.
 
I just remembered that in the pre-med class I and most premed kids took, they talked a lot about DO schools. We had several DO's come speak, someone from AACOMAS, and a grad school fair with a bunch of DO school representatives. A lot of misconceptions were cleared up...though they kept on saying that DO schools weren't less competitive. I remember thinking, you would either have to be really stupid or stupid smart (4.0 45mcat full ride to Harvard) to not apply to DO schools.
 
they must love money, because anyone who does dentristry does it for the money
 
Yep, DO schools love mormon applicants because a lot of them have life experience from their 2 year missions, they have good moral values, and they work extremely hard. The mormons in my med school class definitely made things very competitive and brought up the class average. As a group they out-work pretty much everybody. Nice people too..I liked having them around.
 
I don't think there is any greater motivator and nothing that gives better results than someone who is driven by core convictions that are greater than themselves.

I am not Mormon but know from personal experience the power behind this kind of moral motivation provides some of the hardest working, most reliable people that exist and I'm true this is true in medicine too
 
Mosonik said:
I don't think there is any greater motivator and nothing that gives better results than someone who is driven by core convictions that are greater than themselves.
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Well said, totally agree.

Should be a pre-req for all medical students.
 
Former BYU student and current DO student. Everyone's basically got it spot on so far. From what I've been told by admissions departments, they really enjoy and respect the quality of individuals that come from BYU. I've heard that translates well to the classroom and learning environments as well.

There is no requirement to be Mormon to attend BYU to attend, but there is a higher standard of living expected. People often know the big ones, like no alcohol/drugs/tobacco (on or off campus), no premarital sex, but there is a lot more that goes on. For example, not only can guys and girls not live together, but guys and girls can't be in the other gender's apartment past midnight on any night except Friday (1:30), girls must dress modestly (no shoulders showing/knee length clothes), guys are required to be clean shaven to take a test, eat at the cafeteria, or participate in intramurals, and no coffee/tea.

I know that a lot of that seems like a ton to not be able to do, but when it's something that the vast majority of people have never done, there is no change in the way we live. A lot of the above limits distractions and helps us focus on our education and ultimately our families and careers.

I can't vouch for why everyone at BYU wants to be a doctor/dentist, but I can say that most seem to have high ambitions and what to be with their families. It's a great school that definitely prepares for the next step.
 
I'd like to chime in on the subject. I'm also a member of the LDS church but I went to Utah Valley University just 10 minutes or so from BYU. I've seen a lot of love from schools this cycle too, and I think a lot of that comes from the experiences I've had as a missionary for 2 years in a foreign country, the moral standards I live by (which translates into all kinds of things like work ethics, study habits, motivations and goals, etc), an the fact that I'm a bit more non-trad since I'm now 28, married, and have a kid.
What I'm getting at is that in a lot of ways I match the stereotypical "zoobie" (BYU student 😉) and I think that's the reason why BYU is such a feeder school. Just like lots of others have mentioned above, med schools (maybe more specifically DO than MD, i dont know. I only applied DO) appreciate someone who has had more life experience and who is possibly more motivated due to having a family or something.
 
thecgrblue said:
Not much of an extensive advisement center (no committee) and all they really do is a LOR service. It more has to do with the quantity of students that are apply for med school from BYU.

The campus itself has 33k+ students and has a relatively decent amount of students pursuing medical, dental, and other health professions. The AAMC has BYU in the Top 10 producer of med-school bound students.

You don't have to be LDS (mormon) to attend BYU, but obviously a large amount of the student body are.

Here is a chart from a 2010 application cycle report

timthumb.php
Click to expand...

That chart has got to be way higher now. AZCOM seems to have ~20 BYU grads alone from what I've heard. I'm not LDS so I can't verify that for sure based on going to their ward meeting or w/e but yeah. Plus there are a lot of mormons who aren't BYU grads as well that got in. Probably at least 40 LDS people in the class total.
 
abolt18 said:
To add to it, Utah has one of the highest applicants/population ratio for DO schools, second only to Michigan. That is based on the statistics provided by AACOM.
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I might be wrong here, but doesn't Utah also have one of the largest DO schools?
 
SLC said:
Small class size is an understatement. 85 seats I think
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80. Used to be 100 and they've talked about increasing it to 100 again. And I believe 70-75% are reserved for Utah residents.
 
Reading through this thread has been pretty interesting...I had no idea there were so many LDS/BYU students on here. I'm LDS and at SUU currently, so its good to see that Utah guys are still getting some love from other schools as OOS applicants.

As far as the Utah DO schools goes, according to our pre-med advisor one of the schools opening here is going to be a branch of Rocky Vista. Last I heard they were going to accept their first class in 2015, but that may not be the case anymore. Also, I haven't heard much about LECOM opening a school up north, but I would be interested to hear about that as well.
 
O Grady said:
Reading through this thread has been pretty interesting...I had no idea there were so many LDS/BYU students on here. I'm LDS and at SUU currently, so its good to see that Utah guys are still getting some love from other schools as OOS applicants.

As far as the Utah DO schools goes, according to our pre-med advisor one of the schools opening here is going to be a branch of Rocky Vista. Last I heard they were going to accept their first class in 2015, but that may not be the case anymore. Also, I haven't heard much about LECOM opening a school up north, but I would be interested to hear about that as well.
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I didn't know that you are LDS. I was raised Mormon but do not follow despite my dad mentioning EVERY single time I see him about going back to church, getting sealed in the temple, teaching my children the gospel...it is endless. I'm pretty much the black sheep of the family besides my youngest brother who had to leave his mission from Taiwan early. My sis goes to BYU.

The very first thing that was mentioned at the interview that I went to at LECOM-ERIE was concerning BYU/Mormon students. Jamie (the presenter) also went on to say that the school was thinking about opening a campus in the west. 🙂
 
QuantumQuark said:
I know it's been a while since this thread has been posted on but since I go here I thought I'd throw out some more recent information about how BYU is doing getting accepted to med school.

https://ppa.byu.edu/sites/ppa.byu.e...cal/Medical Stats Handout 2012 for online.pdf

Pretty crazy there were 67 people accepted to AZCOM. 68% total applicants accepted and 84% that applied MD and DO.
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Whoa! AZCOM matriculated 37 BYU grads in 2012. I knew AZCOM has a lot of LDS students (I'll be one of them come August) but thirty-seven! And that's just BYU... that doesn't even count BYU-Idaho, Utah State, UofU, UVU, SUU, Idaho State, ASU, etc, which have large numbers of Mormon students as well.
 
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StudyShy said:
I didn't know that you are LDS. I was raised Mormon but do not follow despite my dad mentioning EVERY single time I see him about going back to church, getting sealed in the temple, teaching my children the gospel...it is endless. I'm pretty much the black sheep of the family besides my youngest brother who had to leave his mission from Taiwan early. My sis goes to BYU.

The very first thing that was mentioned at the interview that I went to at LECOM-ERIE was concerning BYU/Mormon students. Jamie (the presenter) also went on to say that the school was thinking about opening a campus in the west. 🙂
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LECOM recruits like crazy at all the mountain west schools with heavily Mormon student bodies. That said, I didn't even get an interview there.
 
I've found historically that BYU students are among our best.

zoner said:
in every interview I have been to I ran into a fairly good leverage percentage of students from BYU maybe except for UMDNJ. is it like that for MD schools as well?

Also do you have to be a mormon to attend that school?Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I997 using SDN Mobile
Click to expand...
 
NurWollen said:
LECOM recruits like crazy at all the mountain west schools with heavily Mormon student bodies. That said, I didn't even get an interview there.
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You should make it clear that you are LDS if you apply again. 😉
 
Goro said:
I've found historically that BYU students are among our best.
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I've always liked Goro 👍



But, yes, at BYU it seems like everyone is a pre-med at one time or another.

Then a large amount of the premeds break off and go Dental. (look up BYU dental applicants/matriculants...even crazier than medical by far).
 
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QuantumQuark said:
I know it's been a while since this thread has been posted on but since I go here I thought I'd throw out some more recent information about how BYU is doing getting accepted to med school.

https://ppa.byu.edu/sites/ppa.byu.e...cal/Medical Stats Handout 2012 for online.pdf

Pretty crazy there were 67 people accepted to AZCOM. 68% total applicants accepted and 84% that applied MD and DO.
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Just want to add a little bit of information to this that is missing. Although it doesn't say anything about it, there are 10 BYU graduates that are first years at TCOM. And, unless I'm mistaken, there are 7 that are second years, with many in their third and fourth years as well. It's a good school to apply to, even being out of state.
 
NurWollen said:
Whoa! AZCOM matriculated 37 BYU grads in 2012. I knew AZCOM has a lot of LDS students (I'll be one of them come August) but thirty-seven! And that's just BYU... that doesn't even count BYU-Idaho, Utah State, UofU, UVU, SUU, Idaho State, ASU, etc, which have large numbers of Mormon students as well.
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Oh c'mon leaving out Weber State??? 😀
 
lal4life said:
Just want to add a little bit of information to this that is missing. Although it doesn't say anything about it, there are 10 BYU graduates that are first years at TCOM. And, unless I'm mistaken, there are 7 that are second years, with many in their third and fourth years as well. It's a good school to apply to, even being out of state.
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I suspected this would be the case. I imagine there are a great many BYU students who get into med school without ever going through any 'official' premed advisement (Isn't that the case at most schools anyway?) if so, then it wouldn't surprise me if there are many BYU graduates who are current 1st years who aren't on that list.

abolt18 said:
Oh c'mon leaving out Weber State??? 😀
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I left it off just to irk you 😉
 
Why didn't BYU compete for opening a DO school? Imagine how cut throat competitive that place would be...
 
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