Hi all,
So far in this cycle, I've been lucky enough to get accepted into 3 schools (GA-PCOM, KYCOM and LMU-DCOM). For some reasons, I already declined the acceptance from DCOM. So now, I have 1 more week to decide bw GA-PCOM and KYCOM.
Here are several pros and cons of each school based on my own perspectives:
KYCOM
- Pros:
GA-PCOM
- Pros:
So far in this cycle, I've been lucky enough to get accepted into 3 schools (GA-PCOM, KYCOM and LMU-DCOM). For some reasons, I already declined the acceptance from DCOM. So now, I have 1 more week to decide bw GA-PCOM and KYCOM.
Here are several pros and cons of each school based on my own perspectives:
KYCOM
- Pros:
- CHEAP tuition: Coming from a very low-income family, I may qualify for scholarship for disadvantaged students, which can cover at least half of my tuition, up to $30k/year.
- KYCOM Advantage: ipad, opp table, diagnostic tools, etc.
- SUPER friendly and caring faculties. (Tbh, during the interview, we had the tour first, which I saw a lot of huge mountains from their OPP lab, which made me feel uncomfortable and unhappy <somehow hard to breath> and thinking there's no way that I can stay here. That may be the natural reaction since I've lived near the beach and suburban areas my entire life. But then after the actual interview, I was very deeply impressed by how kind and caring the faculties are, and after interacting with them, all of my negative feelings at the beginning just went away.)
- ~8-10 weeks of dedicated study time for boards
- I feel like the research is growing here. There's research club that can help students find opportunities I guess.
- Very rural, mountainous area and ~5 hours from home.
- First semester mandatory attendance.
- Most of the rotation sites are very RURAL and from what I've seen on SDN, they're weak. The good thing is students don't have to do all rotations at 1 site, so we can choose to do certain rotations at other sites. But the bad thing comes with it is that we have to be responsible for the housing and idk if we can rent a room for a short term.
- COMLEX 1st time pass rate: 97.6% (2018), 86% (2017), 81.5% (2016)
- NO match lists recent years.
- 76% Graduates go into primary care.
GA-PCOM
- Pros:
- Its name: P C O M
- Suburban area and only ~3 hours from home.
- Located near the big city and other research schools --> Probably more research opportunities.
- They didn't give the specific core rotation sites, but from what other people told, they're stronger than KYCOM.
- MORE EXPENSIVE: ~51k/year, so it'll be about 110-120k difference for 4 years.
- COMLEX 1st time pass rate: 87.6% (2018), 85.7% (2017), 76.2% (2016)
- Only 2-4 weeks of dedicated study time. And as far as I remember from the ii day, during that time, we have to take a mandatory course (idk what that course is) so we have to be on campus to study for that course during the dedicated time too. So a lot of students have to prepare for boards during the winter and spring semesters while taking classes.
- I didn't have any interaction with science faculties (my interviewer is 1 pediatrician), but I've heard that the admins here are not so good.
