This is one of about a hundred hoops we'll have to jump through to become an Attending Physician.
Exactly.
It seems foolish to me that you are trying to correlate a profession's mission statement with their deposit amount... I don't see your logic of associating "holistic approach to patient care" with "expensive admissions deposit."
Keep in mind, 1/3rd of all current DO students are there because they couldn't get into an MD school. That's a significant population. This is why DO schools tend to be looked at as just a second choice, a back-up, a safety. To compete with this, DO schools up the admissions deposit so they don't lose students to other programs, especially MD programs, or else they will continue to be viewed as "just the back-up." It is their way of increasing the chance of students committing to that school.
Thank you for pointing that out, because I don't see the connection. A school looking at the whole package or just numbers or being holistic has nothing to do with an expensive deposit.
Like you said, the point of the deposit is to only hold seats for people who really want to attend your school. I'm sure no school wants a student that isn't willing to commit to them, and given that a lot of DO applicants are applying MD or waiting on MD waitlists, it just makes sense for DO schools to have higher deposits. Besides, it gets applied to your tuition if you matriculate anyways.
Schools have a job of filling their seats, of course they will make their deposits higher if some people are just holding seats with no intention of matriculation. To those who are committed, then it doesn't matter how much the deposit is.
It adds a risk, not to just waste a schools time, and hinder some other student who would take up that seat in a second.
Bingo.
...Also, I am not bashing the profession...
No, you are just bashing their school and DO schools in general.
Cost of education has sky rocketed in the past 10 years and now schools are adding on additional ways of making money at the students expense. To me this is just wrong.
Most of the DO schools that see doing this are the new ones that aren't really established yet and their tuition is already equal to the cost of Caribbean schools and the deposits are 3 to 6 times Caribbean schools which have traditionally been known to be out for money only.
First off, I'm still not seeing how this is really a way of making money. I mean it is, but its not like you don't know the policy beforehand, and its not like the money just disappears, it gets applied to your tuition if you matriculate. At least most DO schools have a cheaper secondary app fee than most MD schools.
Second, what are you talking about? I applied to 2 of the best Carib schools and one had a $500 initial nonrefundable deposit followed by another $500 due 3 months before matriculation and the other had a $1000 initial deposit. Have you even applied to them?
As far as tuition goes, that's the price of private med schools. That's how much it costs to attend. And besides, Saba and AUA for example have to have low tuition, because they have to attract people willing and able to get non-federal loans, as their students aren't entitled to them yet, so there are other reasons for some Carib schools to be cheaper.
Sylvanthus,
the complex does sound horrible and insanely expensive but it is something uniform that is across the board (MD or DO)
My problem with some of the DO schools is that they preach this wanting to bring back family practice and rural medicine but then they charge so much for everything that it seems like they really only care about making a profit.
First off, its COMLEX, NOT comPlex.
Second, you're just cherry picking an aspect of the DO process that annoys you. Sure MD schools have a lower deposit, but they also have higher secondary app fees. MD schools also send secondaries to everyone who applies as opposed to filtering out the people who have no shot, saving the applicants time and money. There are pros and cons in each process.
Third, I'm still not seeing the part where their mission has anything to do with their tuition or deposit amount.
As I mentioned, they want people who want to be at their school in order to fulfill their mission. The deposit is a way of guaranteeing that. And if the people don't want to be there, they can not pay it or their deposit will go to the school to cover the extra costs associated with that individual wasting the school's time. That in no way affects whether or not they are pushing people towards primary care or rural medicine. The fact that DOs are represented twice as much in rural medicine than in other areas of medicine demonstrates that they are accomplishing their goals. Ultimately, money is a necessary part of accomplishing that goal.
With a lot of those schools, the community has invested into them, so they need to be successful and return the favor. Part of that means being stable financially. Every school has a different way of doing it. Unfortunately, private schools have to do it at the expense of applicants and matriculants. Where else are they supposed to get the money from?
Like I said, instead of charging say $100 for a secondary that gets sent to everyone who applies like most private MD schools, DO schools only send secondaries (and in turn only request a secondary fee from) individuals who meet their initial cutoffs (i.e. those who actually have a chance at an interview) and they are usually ~$60. So what if they require a higher deposit? They are probably still making less money off of the process than private MD schools. At least they are only asking for secondaries from people who have a shot, as opposed to making people who can't afford it choose whether or not to apply and waste their time with secondary essays. If anything that to me demonstrates that they want to see applicants from a variety of different socioeconomic backgrounds.
Actually they do make profit because a lot of these schools are charging high deposits for two reason: 1) to secure students that normally wouldn't go there and 2) to make a profit off of an early acceptance who they know are going to go elsewhere. But sometimes students cannot flat out make the deposit payment.
(1) They aren't securing students that normally wouldn't go there. Who would pay a deposit if they wouldn't realistically go there? Why would they even apply? The whole point is to keep spots only for people who would really go there. Unlike MD schools, DO schools don't have a May 15th deadline for holding a single acceptance seat. Because of that and the simple fact that many DO applicants are holding out for MD school acceptances, it makes sense that the deposits are much higher.
(2) Do you actually know how the application process works? The AACOMAS traffic guidelines state that for individuals who gain an acceptance before Nov. 15th (so that's everyone from July/August to November 15th), they have until Dec. 15th to pay the deposit. Sure later in the cycle (like between Jan. 15th and May 15th) that deadline becomes 2 weeks from acceptance, but that's more about timing than anything else.
Its not about gaining a deposit from someone who is going to go elsewhere, its about making the app process more efficient when there are empty spots. So as opposed to waiting months to send out another acceptance when you find out that half of the individuals you accepted haven't secured their seats, you only have to wait 2 weeks before calling up that guy on the waitlist or accepting that person you just interviewed.
By the way, are you seriously complaining about an "early acceptance" or fast application turnaround? Seriously? So you'd prefer a school like PSU-Hershey which takes 16 weeks to even verify that your app is complete and 6-8 weeks to get back to you after your interview? A fast app turnaround is in the best interest of the students more than the school. For example, knowing you're in at one school before you have to go to interviews for others may save you a ton of money on interview travel costs, remaining app fees, etc.
Also, medical school is a gift for a lot of people because the cost of medical school is so great that many well qualified candidates who do not have the funds cannot afford to go through the motions. And DO's seem to be the biggest offenders.
I researched a few DO schools that were still in their probation period because they are new but yet they are charging over 40K for tuition and a large deposit. On the flip side most of the new MD's have lower tuition (Probably because they are state schools) and lower deposits. I remember reading that UCF had low tuition and scholarships for their first 3 classes.
Again, unfortunately the system was set up to be based on federal loans. That's not unique to DO schools, its true about all private MD schools and OOS tuition for state schools. That being said, its pretty damn easy to get loans for medical school. That's what most people do. Most people can't afford to be in school full-time and pay hundreds of thousands in tuition, room and board. People who don't have enough money to cover it are not the minority.
As far as UCF goes that was all about getting the students with the best numbers and getting lots of applications. I'm sure they made/are making their money back through the application fees from individuals that would have never dreamed of applying to such a new school.
sounds like a legit source
I know, right?
