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Hey! Who's accepted to Dartmouth? I LOVED that place! Just thought I'd make a space for us to talk about it.
Will do. I could use the company. This is a lonely thread....Serikk, tell them to accept me.
Reminds me a little bit of hanover.Will do. I could use the company. This is a lonely thread....
It's true. We were kind of lonely there too. Just like here.Reminds me a little bit of hanover.
I like it that way, though.It's true. We were kind of lonely there too. Just like here.
On it. I'll pull out the "I'll come to your school if....." You guys can expect acceptances shortly 😉.maybe If I post in this thread Ill get an acceptance. Serikk, share the love. I'm sure chubs wont mind.
What do you mean "doing anything"?Hey you guys doing anything about your acceptances???
What do you mean "doing anything"?
I think imma send Dartmouth a letter of interest. It was a really nice school.
Ya well I mean I sent back the form too, but idk, I just feel like i'm supposed to be doing something else, like fin aid stuff/scholarships stuff.
I guess we'll hav to wait till Jan for that huh...
true.Have you been waitlisted? If not I dont think itll be very helpful. Its not like its gonna change your "score."
I am interviewing on January 22nd at Dartmouth. It is my first choice school and I am quite nervous about the interview. What were your experiences like? What types of questions were you asked?
Hi,
Anyone know where I can find more information about the school in general or feedback from current students? I'm new at this...
Well, you could ask one of us... 😉
1.) How difficult is it to actually rotate through Barrow? It seems like it might be a crapshoot if everyone tries to do it.
It's a lottery system for choosing clerkships, but there are enough spots at CPMC (and they should be opening more) so that you should very easily be able to get a least one rotation at CPMC if that's a priority for you. The lottery seems complication, but it ends up going pretty well (my classmates from last year seemed happy with what they got).2.) Ditto for the California Pacificare clerkships. How does the selection process work and how many are you allowed/encouraged to do in California now that there is this new partnership?
This will be changing soon because we're moving from a 6x8 (six 8-week rotations) to a 7x7 rotation system during third year so that everyone who wants to can do an elective in third year. When I took step 1, we had about 6 weeks off. It should be fairly similar in the future. I took it about 3 weeks after the term was over, and I found that to be more than enough time to study. Some people who thought six weeks wasn't enough (I don't understand that sentiment) pushed off starting their first rotation for a month to study more. That was a small number of students, but you can do that if you want. Honestly, Step 1 isn't as bad as everyone says, and by the end of 2 years at Dartmouth you would probably be able to pass with little studying. I was a pretty average student, and my 2-3 weeks of studying was more than enough to get me a score I'm very happy with.3.) How much time is available for step I prep between 2nd and 3rd year?
Other than a few board review books (total cost maybe $100) that would be helpful during years 1 and 2, you don't really need to buy any text books. You may want to pick up Netter's, though. In every class, you get lecture notes for every lecture, which basically yields a textbook if you staple them all together. You also get MP3 recordings of the lectures and the powerpoint slides, so textbooks are pretty superfluous.4.) Do you actually need to buy any pre-clinical textbooks or can you primarily use lecture notes?
In Hanover the apartments are smaller than elsewhere (average sale price of a house in Hanover last year: $600,000. Average sale price in Lebanon, which is 5 miles away: $200,000.) The apartments in Hanover are also typically more expensive: maybe $1100 starting + utilities for a 2-bedroom. The best deals and nicest housing are through the school. Dartmouth owns first year grad housing on campus right next to the med school (North Park) which you can apply for online. After first year, Dartmouth also owns most of the buildings in Hanover, and over most of the shops are apartments that grad students can rent. These are pretty popular and priced a little above the $1100 mark but are nice and most utilities are provided.5.) What are some prices one might expect to pay for rent in the greater Hanover area? What if one is willing to drive 15 minutes to get to school? Is parking available for commuters?
6.) Clearly residency interviews be a royal pain in the logistic ass if one applies to predominately west coast programs. How flexible is Dartmouth in accommodating students with time off and loan moneys for the residency hunt?
Yes and yes. There is funding through DMS (to do pretty much whatever you want: international health, research, etc.) but many PIs are willing to just pay you out of your grants.7.) Summer research--is it available and easy to have funded?
8.) Will I be able to survive 4 years of skiing exclusively in the northeast after having grown up in Colorado? Is it as icy and terrible as people rumor it to be?
I'll undoubtedly have more questions, thanks in advance for answering!
I'm not sure what you mean by this. If you're talking about BNI, that's not one of the core third year clerkship sites (although you can do away rotations pretty much wherever you like during fourth year).
Sorry, I typed out Barrow but I meant Bethel. I saw there was a family medicine clerkship site in Bethel, AK, which I thought would provide a pretty unique experience.
1.) Can you tell me about financial aid? Is Dartmouth known for being generous?
2.) At my interview, they indicated that the SF rotation would expand. Do you know what that might entail?
3.) How is the "On Doctoring" course?
4.) Any thoughts on Dartmouth's international opportunities? Are they popular?
hey physicsnerd - i got a couple:
1. what is the anatomy lab like?
2. what's it like being a graduate student in Hanover? and are lots of people already married?
3. what is your impression of residency directors' opinions of dartmouth students?
thanks!
becca
A few questions for current students:
1. How do you feel about the grading policy? Would you prefer a P/F system and is there any talk of switching to such a system?
2. Is honors given out to a certain percentage of the class or is there a threshold above which everyone receives honors, making it theoretically possible for the entire class to honor a course?
3. How do you feel about having exams every 2-3 weeks your first year? The exams are every 2 weeks the first semester culminating in a cumulative final at the end right? I've heard that it's pretty stressful.
4. I'm under the impression that the patient population and overall population of the Hanover area is fairly homogenous. Is that accurate?
5. What are your thoughts on the small class size? One of the student hosts I stayed with seemed to dislike it. He said it was a lot like being back in high school and suggested he disliked a large portion of his classmates. It occured to me then that a small class size might limit the chances of finding people you have things in common with and could get along with.
Yeah, just today ... it's significantly disappointing. There is like a $30,000 discrepancy between the award and cost of attendance. There is no possible way I could come up with that even with a substantial chunk of my parent's income (not that they're helping anyways). I'm wondering now if they accounted for the fact that my income will drop to $0/yr when I quit my job to attend med school. I'm going to call tomorrow and find out what's going on.Has anyone received their financial aid package?
Hey Scotty. Im still working on my application... Are you saying that there is $30000 that isnt covered by your loans either? Can you explain?
Yep, there is about a $10,000 scholarship and about $21,000 in loans. One of the papers that came with my package said that additional loans may be available to cover the family contribution. From what I understand from interview day, there will be the $21k in loans for everyone with a varying amount of scholarship. I assume the gap is supposed to be your expected family contribution. I really can't figure out how to cover that short of liquidating everything I own and causing significant hardship on my family. I guess the idea is that you go back and ask for more loans after receiving your initial package.
I'm curious about the result of fin aid inquiries. Was it as you thought, that you just ask for more loans?
Oh yeah, thanks for reminding me to share. It actually went surprisingly well. I spoke with the director of financial aid directly and discussed my situation. It turns out they were counting a very large portion of my full time employment income against me for next year's EFC. He was able to discount what I had earned and lower my EFC by a substantial amount since I clearly won't be working while in med school. My grant went up by a very nice amount but my loans stayed the same. I knew something was off when I got my package because it wasn't even close to realistic for my and my family's situation.
He also explained that they don't like to award any loans above and beyond what is needed to get you started for 2 reasons: 1.) sometimes, but not often, they have extra grant money to award after school gets started and 2.) it doesn't make as much sense to originate a larger unsubsidized loan at the beginning of the semester because interest starts accruing immediately ... it makes more sense to hold out until you actually need the money and can make use of it. Additional loans are always available.