Dr. Midlife, care to share some things you found out about EVMS during your trip? Whether it be about the school, students, area, etc. By the way, where are you going to be living in the fall?
Sure. This is going to be long, sorry to those of you who are not wanting this info (or not wanting it yet).
Never having been to Norfolk was too weird, since I'm soon to live there, and I wanted to see the school and hopefully meet some of the people running the med masters. For me it was super important to go there vs. arrange housing over the phone or whatnot.
First about EVMS:
I emailed Leah Solomon in May to let her know I was coming to town, and I asked if it would be appropriate for me to meet Dr. Meyer, the program director. She set up an appointment for me to meet with him. I also PMed Daedalus and Immunorocks to see if they'd be in town (and took the red pill). I got hotel recommendations from Leah, and picked Page House Inn even though it's spendy ($150/night), because I was traveling alone. (I would normally Motel 6 it or couch surf.) I rented a car but planned on mostly walking around.
I've been obsessing for more than a year over how the EVMS med masters works and what its graduates have to say about every last detail. I've read the EVMS med student threads over in allo. I've read everything I can on evms.edu about curriculum and the academic calendar and financial aid. I'd also been accepted at Tufts and Tulane ACP, and waitlisted at Gtown and Cincinnati, so I'd done similar obsessing about location and program and had that data with which to compare EVMS.
When I got to the school on June 18, I met first with Leah and we chatted about various things, health insurance and tuition etc. and whether or not I was the oldest person who ever did the program (I'm 43, no I'm not the oldest ever). There are "always" med masters students who are older, have families, etc. The Aetna student health insurance policy is more expensive than some private policies. Tuition for OOS students just went up about $1000 so it's now 29,298.
Then Dr. Meyer came down and talked with me for better than an hour while we did a walking tour of Lewis Hall and the medical campus. The quality of the building is modest, clean and functional, not fancy or grungy. Lots of painting and upgrading is going on. There's a lounge with vending machines and bulletin boards and about a dozen tables. There are multiple libraries, a bookstore with school supplies and souvenirs, and computer labs. Security makes you sign in if you don't have a badge. We couldn't get into the labs, but histology will still use microscopes (some med schools are all digital now) and the med masters students do this lab at a different time from the med students. There are two big lecture halls in Lewis hall, 200+ seat auditoriums. There's a children's hospital in a huge, expanding building that's separate from the regular hospital that's huge and expanding. There are other clinics and offices in other big buildings, and 2-3 parking garages. But it seemed psychologically manageable: big enough, sure, but not a vast conglomerated universe. (I'd visited Washington U in St. Louis the day before, on the way to Norfolk: now
that's a vast conglomerated universe, and completely intimidating, and it looks like lots and lots of money. I also know, too well, the U of Washington health sciences campus, which looks and feels like a penitentiary crossed with a rabbit warren, goes on for miles, is run down where it isn't under construction, and where you can walk around all day without anybody looking at you. And I know that Dartmouth has no children's hospital, and that for somebody who wants to do a peds specialty this is a detriment in terms of how many cases are seen and how much autonomy the peds specialists have.)
Dr. Meyer was extremely patient and friendly and encouraging. He meets with med masters a couple times during the year to give feedback and groom for EVMS interviews (in May? spring, anyway). The fall coursework instructors get to know the med masters students very well, and feed this info to Dr. Meyer, who considers performance feedback and general med school app credentials and pushes students to fill in gaps. He does mock interviews and takes it very personally whether the med masters students are succeeding or not. So he was VERY aware that 20 of 23 '09 med masters students are currently in at EVMS or another school for this coming fall. He walked me through the "yearbook" of current med students and pointed out which ones were med masters grads. He strongly roots for students to stay at EVMS, but insisted that he's very supportive of same-year apps to other schools and that he fully understands the instate tuition pull for folks to go "home" for med school. He emphasized that there's
never a guarantee that a med masters grad is going to get into EVMS med school, but holy cow does this guy work hard to make it happen for students that pony up the effort. He mentioned that there are three people at Gtown who do his job, and he mentioned Dr. Mulroney there as a familiar colleague. (He was surprised to hear that there are now 180+ students at Gtown.) He's been physiology faculty at EVMS for some 25 years, and running the med masters since 1999, he's an adcom, and he doesn't seem the slightest bit burned out.
I also went by the financial aid office to see if my paperwork was in order (which it is thank goodness). Darmailya talked to me for a good 20 minutes, mostly just chatting, and was very clear and encouraging about the aid process. My strategy with financial aid offices is paranoia and politeness, but this office looks much better organized and efficient than some I've seen, and I'm not worried. Award letters are expected about a month before school starts, and after awards are accepted (after we sign and return), it's another week or so for approvals and accounting. Students can do everything we need to via email. If we're on top of our responsibilities, there's no reason we won't get our living money when school starts, and we can "ignore" the scary tuition bill. We'll get emailed as various steps of the process occur.
About housing:
Since January, I've been obsessively looking at housing ads on
Craigslist and
Sinapse, and walking the neighborhoods on Google Maps street view, so I'd done my homework. I've owned property and been a landlord, so I know what I like, and don't like, and how to spot trouble. I've also been reading
the local paper for a while. I had a sense that the Ghent neighborhood was walkable to school, and that I should be able to find an EVMS student to live with for maybe $500-$700/month, or that I'd be able to find a studio or 1br apartment for maybe $600-$800/month. Living in a tower or complex would be depressing; living on the top floor of a 2-3 story 100 year old building with charm and central air and wood floors would be sweet.
What I thought would happen: I figured I'd meet a couple people who were looking for roommates and maybe find a liveable situation. I figured I'd also check out a couple studios and/or 1 bedroom apartments in the buildings owned by
Cavalier or one of the other property management companies that are on Craigslist all the time. What I was afraid of was that any shared living situations would all be with psycho cat-owning smokers, and that any apartments I liked would take longer than 4 days to background check me, and that I'd go home with nothing.
What did happen: About an hour after I got off the plane, I checked Craigslist, and there was a new apartment listing for a 1 bedroom just under $700, in walking distance to school, in an old charming building. I called immediately and went right over. I knew I was in trouble when I saw the cobblestone street. Another party showed up to look at it as well. The tension mounts. The landlord/owner shows up and is non-creepy. The apartment oozes charm and is non-crappy. My checkbook starts to vibrate in my backpack. Top floor of a 100 year old 3 story walkup. Wood floors. Central air. Clawfoot tub. Put a fork in me, I'm done. 3 hours after arriving in a town to which I've never been before, I signed a lease. Quite possibly the biggest score of my life.
About Ghent et al:
I'd be unable to succeed in school if I were in Manhattan, because there's too much fun stuff going all all the live long day, and really I shouldn't have even applied to Gtown (every 30 seconds: "is that Obama? is that Orzsag? omg is that Justice Ginsberg?!?!?!"). But being in suburbia would put me in the psych ward. I need minimum daily distraction, and maximum pretty things to look at while walking around. Ghent is
perfect. Good enough coffee shops and delis and movie theatres and museums etc. but not so great that I'll want to be out and about all the time. I saw a reasonable number of choices for groceries and laundromats and drugstores. I found good produce and good fish. I'll be pretty comfortable walking alone at night along Colley, and certainly during daylight around school. Lots and lots of people are out walking dogs at all hours. There's tons of construction going on, on the major streets, and on the EVMS campus. I didn't have trouble finding parking on the street. Everything around Norfolk is military friendly and there were a fair number of people in fatigues, but around Ghent they seemed outnumbered by regular folk and people in scrubs.
South of Ghent, in the downtown/Freemason area, there's upscale shopping and event centers and art galleries and high end housing, interspersed with some urban decay. The waterfront areas are decidedly lowbrow, developed and fairly clean but not touristed/resorted to death. The water doesn't smell all that nice, but it's not gross.
I've been advised to plan on street flooding, and I won't try to store anything in a basement - this is a town built on a swamp, absolutely, just like NOLA. I'm hoping I can park in an EVMS garage during a torrent. But there was a pretty impressive overnight thunderstorm with a big hard rain while I was there, and that wasn't enough to put any water on the road.
In summary, I'm cautiously excited about EVMS and Ghent and Norfolk and my sweet-ass apartment, and I'm feeling quite confident that I'm one seriously lucky old fart to have gotten into the program.
Obviously I have too much to say here, and I'm sure this is the longest and most tedious post ever made on SDN, but a year ago I would have nearly memorized this kind of a post, and I'm hoping other/future SMPers find it useful.