Faculty-to-Student Ratio

[MTodd]

According to US News & World Report, most D.O. schools have a faculty/student ratio of 0.1 - 0.2. However, most M.D. Schools are in the 2.0 - 3.0 range. Is this accurate?

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[babyruth]

It depends on the size of the school---since there are so many more allopathic schools, they have a wider ranging class sizes and so you have to take that into account. I think the smallest class size of the osteopathic schools is OSU-COM at 88, correct? I know at DMU, class size averages from 190-210, depending on the applicant pool that year. But I never found to hard to corner a professor for a personal question or get my emails answered promptly. I guess that is the benefit of a private school with a student-centered mission. I think you will find other schools to have similar responses. I applied to both allo and osteo two years ago and found that it isn't the faculty/student ratio but the attitude of the faculty and whether they are there to help you learn or not.

 

[subtle1epiphany]

According to US News & World Report, most D.O. schools have a faculty/student ratio of 0.1 - 0.2. However, most M.D. Schools are in the 2.0 - 3.0 range. Is this accurate?

i think it also may have to do with the clinical faculty at medical schools. i'm making a guess here, so take it as such: MD schools have clinical faculty with professor-ships, meaning they are in some way legally affiliated with the school, thus increasing the number of faculty in the ratios; DO schools rely on volunteer clinical faculty to a greater degree or at least instructors and clinicians that do not hold professor-ships. Just an idea. I am interested to know how it works though because a medical school can't run with only 50 instructors, that would cover the basic science curriculum, and it would be stretching at that because we have four profs or more teaching each class.

 

[dr.z]

They probably count the basic science faculty as well. In any given allopathic schools, there are lots of Ph.Ds who are faculty. They don't necessarily teach courses, but they are still considered to be faculty.

 

[OSUdoc08]

It depends on the size of the school---since there are so many more allopathic schools, they have a wider ranging class sizes and so you have to take that into account. I think the smallest class size of the osteopathic schools is OSU-COM at 88, correct? I know at DMU, class size averages from 190-210, depending on the applicant pool that year. But I never found to hard to corner a professor for a personal question or get my emails answered promptly. I guess that is the benefit of a private school with a student-centered mission. I think you will find other schools to have similar responses. I applied to both allo and osteo two years ago and found that it isn't the faculty/student ratio but the attitude of the faculty and whether they are there to help you learn or not.

Although our school has a class size of 88, I don't think the faculty-student ratio is relevant. In my opinion, if every one of my professors knows me by name and recognizes me outside of class (which is true), then that's all that matters.

Even the manager of our bookstore knows everyone by name.

 

[jonb12997]

I agree that the number of people that are technically profs but don't actually teach has a lot to do with it... Take for example University of Vermont School of Medicine. a large portion of the physicians are Maine Medical Center are actually considered professors at UVM. That doesn't mean they actually teach classes in Burlington... but it still affects their student to faculty ratio. Also consider research... Here at UNE I only know of 1 "professor" who hasn't/isn't going to come in to give us at least a couple lectures, I bet that number is a lot higher at a bigger allopathic school.