Dartmouth Medical School Class of 2013

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
maybe If I post in this thread Ill get an acceptance. Serikk, share the love. I'm sure chubs wont mind.
 
maybe If I post in this thread Ill get an acceptance. Serikk, share the love. I'm sure chubs wont mind.
On it. I'll pull out the "I'll come to your school if....." You guys can expect acceptances shortly 😉.
 
acceptance! i guess this makes me a boomerang kid - Dartmouth BA '05 MD '13


i heart dartmouth🙂
 
I think imma send Dartmouth a letter of interest. It was a really nice school.
 
I think imma send Dartmouth a letter of interest. It was a really nice school.


Have you been waitlisted? If not I dont think itll be very helpful. Its not like its gonna change your "score."
 
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...



yeah - that was my take on it, though my dad is being a super hard ass about filing his taxes early. you could call and ask (and then share with the group 😀)
 
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?
 
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?

The interview day is well done by Dartmouth. You begin with a presentation, usually by Mrs. Redman, then go on a tour of the hospital and have lunch there, then return to the admissions office for interviews. My interviewers were very nice. They asked the standard, file specific questions, but also tried to get to know me. It was very conversational. There weren't any complaints from the other applicants I spoke to. Just relax and have fun. Try and be yourself and whatever happens, happens. Hanover is a wonderful place. Just try to enjoy your time there.
 
I got accepted to Dartmouth back in October and thought it time to say "hi." As for the interview, I had one awesome interview and one horrible interview. That said, I still got accepted, so you never know.
 
has anyone heard anything since their acceptance letter? and any ideas when second look weekend is?

thanks!
 
Hi,

I received my acceptance on Feb 6th. Anyone know where I can find more information about the school in general or feedback from current students? I'm new at this...
 


http://www.dartmouth.edu/presidentelect/

Jim Yong Kim, M.D., Ph.D., Chair of the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, has been elected the 17th President of Dartmouth by the College’s Board of Trustees. Ed Haldeman, Chair of Dartmouth’s Board of Trustees, announced the appointment today at a meeting of students, faculty and staff.

Dr. Kim trained as both a physician and anthropologist, receiving his M.D. and Ph.D. from Harvard University. He graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. from Brown University in 1982. A former senior official at the World Health Organization and co-founder of Partners In Health, he is internationally acknowledged for his leadership in the fight against HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and other diseases. In 2004, in recognition of his many accomplishments, he was elected to the prestigious Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences.

totally awesome news for Dartmouth!
 
Please ignore this message. I got my answer from physicsnerd on another thread.
 
Last edited:
Well, you could ask one of us... 😉

I'm super stoked about Dartmouth; it's definitely high on my list. I'll throw a few questions out there for you since there were no students around when I interviewed:

1.) How difficult is it to actually rotate through Barrow? It seems like it might be a crapshoot if everyone tries to do it.

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?

3.) How much time is available for step I prep between 2nd and 3rd year?

4.) Do you actually need to buy any pre-clinical textbooks or can you primarily use lecture notes?

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?

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!
 
1.) How difficult is it to actually rotate through Barrow? It seems like it might be a crapshoot if everyone tries to do it.

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).

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?
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).

3.) How much time is available for step I prep between 2nd and 3rd year?
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.

4.) Do you actually need to buy any pre-clinical textbooks or can you primarily use lecture notes?
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.

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?
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.

Dartmouth also owns a "village" for grad students about 1.5 miles from campus. The rents there are a little cheaper and the buildings are all new. It's mostly families living at Sachem village, but there's no reason you can't find a roommate and live there.

If you go into West Lebanon or Lebanon (both about 5 miles away), you can find pretty nice apartments for cheaper than in Hanover. I lived in an apartment that was ok/older during my first year. It was in west leb and was a 2 br for $900 + utilities. The nice/new apartments in Lebanon are about as expensive as those in Hanover but are bigger. There are deals to be found. Use this to find housing. The upper valley rental list is linked to on there and that's private housing for rent.

A couple of other options: you'll get e-mail through the school once you're here from other grad students offering housing, etc. Some of these can be good deals. Also, I get e-mails for older Hanover residents/retirement homes who want a med student to live there just for someone to be around. They offer free housing. I don't know anyone who's done this, but the offer's there.

And, if you're an MD/PhD student you can do what I'm doing (since it's only open to graduate, not medical students): live for free in on-campus undergrad dorm and act as a Graduate advisor. I have my own apartment and I spend about 6 hours per week on the job. It basically just involves letting undergrads know about options for after college.


Parking is available for everyone right next to the med school and parking is cheap (around $70 per year).

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?

Dartmouth is pretty flexible. People usually just take December/January "off" to interview (or earlier if they're doing the SFMatch).

7.) Summer research--is it available and easy to have funded?
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.

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 went to undergrad in SF Bay area in California. Skiing around here isn't like skiing in Tahoe, but it's not bad. Dartmouth owns its own small/CHEAP skiway about 15 minutes from campus. But if you're willing to drive 30-60 minutes, you can ski the best the Northeast has to offer - in Vermont. Some Vermont skiing is really pretty decent.

I'll undoubtedly have more questions, thanks in advance for answering!

You're welcome! Ask away!
 
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.

That was a very thorough response. Thanks for taking the time to put it all together.
 
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.

There are various sites for each rotation. The family med ones are pretty diverse (Florida, Alaska, Arizona, others). You just have to have completed at least 2-3 rotations before family med before they'll let you go. Each of these aways have typically 1 slot per block, but it varies.
 
physicsnerd- thanks for all the invaluable information on DMS. If you have a moment, I have some questions.

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?

Thanks!

PS- I interviewed with Sally, too. She was amazing- definitely left me with a positive take on DMS.
 
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?

1) I'm a MD/PhD student, so I don't deal with financial aid. I do, however, know that Dartmouth is pretty generous. The average indebtedness post med school at Dartmouth is around $110k, which is pretty good.

2) This is the first year of the CPMC association. They're basically testing the waters this year, only doing 1 or 2 students per block in each department (about 5-10 students per block) at CPMC. As they work out the kinks, they anticipate adding more spots per block in each of the core clinical rotations. So, there should be more chances to go. They've also pursued buying a couple of houses in San Fran for students to live in (since right now the school is renting space for students). If you do a core rotation more than something like 30 minutes away, Dartmouth provides housing, so I think they're also trying to expand the housing in San Francisco.

3) I think On Doctoring has its plusses and minuses. I thought it was nice to get patient exposure from week one. I also loved my preceptor and learned a lot about taking histories and doing physicals. I think they force you to do a little too much "busy work" in On Doctoring, like documenting patient encounters in an online database so that you know exactly how many cardiac exams, etc. you did in med school. They teach you how to write up a patient visit (SOAP notes, etc.), which is good experience, but can also feel pretty tedious after you've done it 20 times. Then again, much of medicine is paperwork, so they're probably just warming us up for that. They also teach "motivational interviewing" and some of the social sides of medicine, which is nice. I'm glad I had On Doctoring and I'm glad I got the clinical exposure I did, but there were probably some things I would change.

4)I haven't done anything international, but plenty of students have. There is quite a bit of money to support international work by students, especially between years 1 and 2. There is, for instance, a Medical Spanish course taught by a DMS professor in Guatemala every year. Dartmouth has longstanding relationship with the medical school in Dar-Es-Salam in Tanzania (the Dar-Dar program), so that is also a popular site. People also go to places like Eastern Europe. There are away rotations you can do in 4th year that are international. So, if that's something you like, you can do it. With the selection of Dartmouth's new president, I'm sure there will be more international opportunities opened up.
 
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
 
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

1. The lab itself is a pretty big room in the basement of one of the med school buildings. It's pretty standard. Lab is a good experience: 4 students per cadaver, 4-5 cadavers per section (one faculty member per section). You rotate cadavers in between sections. It's a great learning experience, but I'm guessing it's pretty standard.

2. I enjoy being a grad student in Hanover. There are a lot of students in relationships, and fewer who are married (and fewer still who have kids). Probably at least half of each class is single, and there are other grad students around. I'm engaged, which seems to occur with greater frequency as the class gets older.

3. I couldn't tell you what residency directors in general think of Dartmouth since I have yet to hit fourth year. We do, however, do very well in the match. Hearing from some of the older students: Dartmouth med students typically are well respected. (I'm sure that also true of the students at many other med schools.)
 
Hi Guys!
My dream came true on Wednesday when I was accepted to DMS. I am so excited! Just thought I would say hello and introduce myself.
 
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.

1. The grading policy's fine. There is some talk about P/F, but the H/P/F system makes you care a little bit more about the classes. I definitely didn't stress about it. When I got an H I was pleasantly surprised and when I didn't (which was far more typical) I was fine with it. It doesn't really matter all that much.

2. In first year, it's a strict cut-off of percentage, so everyone could honor. In second year, they do it based on the class (top third get honors). You would think that increases competition, but it doesn't. You're so used to working together from first year that the habits of collaboration persist. Plus, people (at least in my class) didn't really stress about grades other than about not wanting to fail. I will say, though, it's class-dependent. The second years stress about grades more than the other classes. Each class develops its own personality and that determines the norms for that class.

3. I liked the quizzes every 2-3 weeks. It made me study as much as I needed to and it took some of the pressure off of the finals. Yes, it's stressful, but it helps DMS identify the members of the class who need extra help getting up to speed during the first year. When you fail a quiz (and pretty much everyone does at least once), the first e-mail you get is your score. The next is typically (if your grade in the class is pretty low) an offer for tutoring. So, it helps them keep track of how people are doing so that DMS can help the students succeed and it helps students understand that med school is a lot more work than undergrad and they need to study harder. In second year, you already know how to study and having 90+% of your grade depend on the final is great because it allows you more freedom.

4. Hanover, yes. DHMC, no. You need to understand that DHMC is THE major medical center from basically Burlington, VT to Maine (East-West), and from Boston to the Canadian border. Our patient population comes from most of NH, half of vermont, and some of NY, Mass, and Maine. There's a reason they have a bunch of helicopters at DHMC. So, you get a huge range of patients at DHMC (which is why the hospital is extremely large and constantly full + expanding).. You will not lack clinical experience coming to Dartmouth. Plus, it helps that you can do core clinical rotations in San Francisco, Portland (ME), etc.

5. I really, really like the class size. It's one of the reasons I came to Dartmouth. I know ALL of my classmates and it helps the place feel more like family (and if you want to talk about small, you should see my first year engineering PhD class of 20 people). It is class-dependent on how well everyone gets along, but people typically do get along very well. Yes, there's drama that reminds people of high school, but there's honestly more of that at the med school my fiancee goes to that's twice the size of DMS. Remember that there's a large (2000 person) grad student population at Dartmouth, so it would pretty tough for you to not find friends unless you're an extremely disagreeable person (and then, good luck finding them anywhere). Plus, they try to screen the disagreeable ones out at interview. 😉
 
Last edited:
quick question : when do you guys have spring break ? Please let me know
Thanks
 
Has anyone received their financial aid package?
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.

Have you gotten yours?
 
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?
 
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.
 
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?
 
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.
 
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.

Good to know. Thanks ScottyT!
 
Top