I was accepted to another program with a FAT non-refundable deposit due next week and my wallet hurts thinking about it 🥺 I figure if I don’t get accepted to DPMS, I have a seat secured elsewhere. If I do, I withdraw my other acceptance. I may lose a deposit, but gain a medical school seat.
Those last words there are gold. I honestly don't even know what to do. I applied to an exact program like DPMS at my state medical school and found out I was rejected a few weeks ago. I honestly am thinking of doing the PhD research route because this journey seems so long. And it's not like it's easier but I wouldn't have to do so much just to even get a shot at getting in. There are a lot more programs and initiatives for minorities to go into research. Pero anyways this is me just ranting.
I hear you. These are truly my same sentiments. For what it's worth, I've read that some schools will give back the "non-refundable" deposits if you ask, advocate for yourself, and explain your situation :/ I may try this because I also have a fat deposit due at the end of the month to save my seat. I will try anything to save my monies because, like you mention, this process is not made with low SES or URM students in mind.
Nothing yet
No 🙁 Maybe by the end of the week? Sounds like that's when people started hearing back in the past cycles. Good luck everyone!
I hope so. It is the beginning of April, so we may not hear anything until next week, but hopefully we start hearing something soon.
Sorry, you may have answered this already but were you officially accepted into Drexel's medical school for this upcoming cycle? Did you have to retake the MCAT? Thank you so much! Best of luck to you.
BU? Because same 🥲
yes RIP 😢
Hi! How has your experience been in the DPMS program?
What were your stats going into the program ?
Hi! It's been a really great experience so far honestly! As many of you are probably experiencing right now, it's really tough feeling like you're having to take an alternative route to become a doctor and I'm sure you're all feeling that sense of self doubt or imposter syndrome that maybe you won't get there. I think DPMS has done a great job at erasing that kind of mind set for me! They've provided great resources, help, and assistance all throughout the process. They really care about helping you at this school, especially in this program where they know that we've been helping ourselves for most of our lives. The other people in this program are great - Sanjeev, who I seen has posted above, and I are bff x10 and he and the rest of our study group have been a great support, along with the rest of the people in the program who are such a great time. It's tough with COVID taking away most of the possibilities to escape academia, but we've all managed. You don't have too much free time through out most of the school year anyway so it's not the biggest loss for me, but it does drive me crazy being stuck in my apartment studying all day every day. The staff and administrative team are all great professors and for the most part, this is a really fleshed out, organized program without a whole lot of kinks in it. Hard to complain when this program has helped me grow in a million different ways!
Going into the program, my undergrad GPA was 3.6 (science GPA was around 3.7, non-science around 3.6). My MCAT was a 496 (124, 122, 125, 125 for each category). I had a ton of extracurricular, a ton of clinical experience, lots of other leadership-y job experience, just an overall well rounded student if I say so myself!!! It was really just the MCAT that tanked me, but after DPMS and retaking the MCAT in January, it went up a whole lot so I'm very happy about that 🙂
It is so good to see that the administrative team and your fellow classmates are all so supportive! It is really encouraging to hear so many DPMS students, like yourself, talk so highly of the program! Do you guys get the summer before medical school off, and how is living in Philadelphia?
Hey! How is the program for you? 1/10 on difficulty how would you rate it/ do you think its possible for most people to matriculate?
Hi, was the entire program online for your class? Summer, Fall, and Spring? Any word on this Summer being online and the Fall in person? Thanks
Hi how is the weekly schedule of classes? Is class Monday-Friday or is like undergrad where you could typically have all your classes on the same two days?
Philly is great, lots to do, lots to see, always room to meet new people if you wanted to branch out your circle. It's a very big city with a lot of hospitals and universities around, so student life is also really nice. It's been hard to explore the city or to take in the most of it with the pandemic, but that's just how things have to be for now. The fall semester is looking more optimistic because things should be closer to normal then than they are now! We do get the summer off before med school, but most of us are looking for jobs right now anyway because a summer off doesn't always look like a good thing when applying for residency, plus more money is always nice!
I would give the program around like an 8 or 9/10 difficulty. It's hard to gauge what that means though. I remember when I applied and got accepted to DPMS, they were really emphasizing how hard and how difficult the program is and how it's like trying to drink water from a fire hose or how the program is like a marathon, not a race, or how you'll learn everything you learned in your undergrad biochemistry class in the first two weeks of the program and all this stuff to really emphasize how hard the program would be. I remember listening and thinking oh wow it's hard, but in undergrad, I majored in biology, neuroscience, and chemistry while working four jobs and being in a million different clubs on campus and playing a sport, and all doing it extremely well, so maybe the program is hard for most people but not for me. Wrong!!! I don't know a single person who this program hasn't been difficult for and everything they did to warn us about the difficulty of the program was pretty spot on. But it's just not something you can prepare for until you're in the midsts of it, you just have to take the advice from the people who did this before you and adapt. To answer your question, it's possible for 100% of the people applying to matriculate into the next year, and the program directors and stuff really try to get you there, so you're not on your own. The reason most people don't make it forward is because something else is standing in their way. Usually it's a personal issue, such as things going on in their family, a relationship, COVID related, or just their inability or unwillingness to adapt. Not a whole lot of things from undergrad carry over to this program, unfortunately, you kinda have to start from scratch. But you can look at is as a good thing too because if for some reason undergrad didn't go well for you, this is a great time to start over and have none of that matter! There are people who didn't have a science major at all in undergrad that in this program an they're doing just fine because they've listened, adapted, and taken the advice of how to take on the program.
Hello! Our year was entirely online, start to finish, nothing in person 🙁 some people are still in their home states in like Florida and haven't had to leave once and are still in the program. But I did just meet with our TA's last night and they are saying that for the incoming class ('21-'22), your summer semester will be online up until the last week before the fall semester starts, then you'll be in person like normal. Mind you, things change in a blink of an eye, but that's what's in store from what I'm aware of. I recommend getting here (philly) early if you can because the summer semester is really important and a GPA saver if you do well, and things pick up fast for this program so better be settled before it starts in my opinion 🙂
Over the summer, mandatory classes and meetings were pretty much a 9-5 job - it was really long and exhausting and occurred pretty much every day, sometimes requiring weekends as well. Once the fall semester starts, however, you seldom have to meet for a live class. Most of the teaching and learning occurs through professors posting their lectures online in the form of a hand out and you learn from that at your own pace. It's most likely that way because there are simply wayyyyy too many lectures to cover for each class that there's no way you could meet in person/zoom and have the professor teach every single one to you one by one in time for the exam. As I understand it, this is how it is for medical school too - independent learning all the way. The only time we had to meet was for a lab (where we learn all the content before going into the lab and then we practice what we learned there in teams) or if there was a specific case study or team-based learning activity that the professors wanted us to do (but again, we learned all the content before the meeting and then the professors wanted us to apply what we learned in a specific case study, so maybe we learned all of glycolysis on our own, for example, then the professor would schedule a meeting to talk about a clinical case where glycolysis when wrong and we problem solve.)
I wish they moved a little faster too so we can actually plan ahead for other plans if this doesn’t work out. Hopefully we will start hearing back soon!
For my application, I only put my most recent work experience from my current job but I probably should have included all my work experience. I did attach my cv/resume though that includes all my work, volunteer and research experience
Did you use bullet points in your resume for the description of each experience?
Format it as you would any resume/CV.
I formatted it like a sample resume/cv
Don't I know it!!! I've been looking forward to this week for the longest time now! I'll be checking this thread compulsively to see if anybody has gotten II's and I haven't 😢
lol jk We'll ALL get in and they will admit the biggest class yet!!!definitely read this in tyra banks voice lol good luck to you as well!!!!Don't I know it!!! I've been looking forward to this week for the longest time now! I'll be checking this thread compulsively to see if anybody has gotten II's and I haven't 😢
I am also refreshing this thread too much for my own good😂 but I am wishing the very best for everyone!!
Glad we’re all on the same page 🙂))
I check this thread like every day so you're not alone lol
Nope they do multiple rounds of interviews. One should be coming out this week and I think the last one is right after the application closes.
lolll why are they doing this to us
Hello! That's me! 🙂 Personally, my score improved 8 points, which I'd say is a lot and was enough to help me meet that part of the contract for matriculation next year. I believe from last years DPMS class, everyone was able to pass the MCAT that was in track one (if I remember the statistic correctly, and if not, then it was pretty close to everyone). It's still too soon to say for this class because we're scheduled to take the MCAT in January so that we can get our results back in February, that way if we don't do well then we still have time to take a second MCAT and get our results back before the end of the school year. So overall, you get two shots while in DPMS to take the MCAT. I don't know for certain, but I believe maybe two or three people from this years track one class still needs to take their second MCAT/get their scores back. Most people were able to meet the MCAT requirement after the first MCAT they took in January, so ultimately we don't know what that number is for this years class right now (but I have full faith in everyone in our class nonetheless!!).
Thanks for all the responses so far! Congrats on almost finishing the program.
