Information and Questions about AZPOD

[AZPOD Foot Doc]

Hello All-

My name is Nathan Aikele and I am a Second year Podiatry Student at Arizona College of Podiatric Medicine (AZPOD). I am working with our Dean, Dr Page, Faculty, and other fellow students in order to answer question and provide information about AZPOD.

Given the success of the other schools threads, we want to provide the same information to prospective students while promoting podiatry as a whole. Our goal is to provide answers to the same questions that are frequently asked on these student forms as well as during interviews at AZPOD. Periodically we will also post newsworthy tidbits that are happing on campus and with our students.

Feel free to contact us with any questions, as we want to provide you with most accurate information. Good luck to all of you in your path to podiatry!

Nathan Aikele
Class President-AZPOD 2014

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[AZPOD Foot Doc]

News about 3rd year students in recent ACFAOM conference.

Congratulations to Jamie Henderson, 3rd year AZPod student, for winning
the top prize in the research presentation competition held at the
Clinical Conference of the American College of Foot and Ankle
Orthopedics and Medicine (ACFAOM) in Orlando, Florida. She was the only
student presenter.

Dr. Denise Freeman, a member of the Board of Trustees for ACFAOM was in
attendance.

Way to go Jamie!

 

[AZPOD Foot Doc]

Congratulations to David Applegate (AZPOD 2013), President Elect of the American Podiatric Medical Students' Association! He will direct the student governance, which represents all podiatric medical students from each school across the country. They address current issues on a national level and work to further the profession of podiatry. We're proud to have such a hard working leader at the Arizona School of Podiatric Medicine.

 

[AZPOD Foot Doc]

Michael Downey, (AZPOD 2012) was recently awarded a 5,000 dollar scholarship for Medical Students (in competition with all medical students, not just those studying Podiatric medicine) interested in doing their residency at a Kaiser Permenente facility. After the initial application process 1 year ago and some phone interviews, one of the 8 annually awarded Kaiser scholarships was presented to Michael. We are excited for him, not to mention this is a huge step for our profession and for AZPOD school of podiatric medicine.

If anyone has any questions about available scholarships or others recently awarded, feel free to ask!


Nathan Aikele
AZPOD Class President 2014

 

[AZPOD Foot Doc]

Happy 4th weekend, just wanted to publicly answer a question posed to me by a recent applicant regarding financial assistance for attendance at AZPod. We do have 3 scholarships that are $5000 per year for the 4 years. The award is based on undergrad grades and MCAT, and renewal of the scholarship requires the student to remain in good standing. AZPod doesn't have any additional scholarships because we are a newer program, and don't have alumni, since the 1st class to graduate was in 2008 and they haven't finished residency yet. We are trying to build additional scholarship funds i.e. through our CME events which means that any money that is received above the cost of the event is put toward student scholarships.

Additionally, a new scholarship was recently provided to AZPod students. This is a note from our Dean, Dr Page:

"I am please to announce a new scholarship for podiatric medical students. Through a generous donation from Pedinol Pharmacal, Inc., we have established a fund that will provide an annual scholarship for a third year student of $1250. Applications must be received by May 31 and the award will be given later in the summer of the fourth year. Criteria for consideration will include financial need, academic performance in podiatric medicine and general medicine, clinical evaluations, and a commitment to general medicine and podiatric medicine." This is just an example of one of the many scholarships available to AZPod students.

There are numerous additional outside scholarships offered and our Administration is very helpfully in making students aware of those that are available and helping in the application process.

Nathan Aikele
Class President AZPod 2014

 

[hematosis]

Michael Downey, (AZPOD 2012) was recently awarded a 5,000 dollar scholarship for Medical Students (in competition with all medical students, not just those studying Podiatric medicine) interested in doing their residency at a Kaiser Permenente facility. After the initial application process 1 year ago and some phone interviews, one of the 8 annually awarded Kaiser scholarships was presented to Michael. We are excited for him, not to mention this is a huge step for our profession and for AZPOD school of pediatric medicine.

If anyone has any questions about available scholarships or others recently awarded, feel free to ask!


Nathan Aikele
AZPOD Class President 2014

 

[fivescrew]

Automatic spell correct. I had to add certain words including podiatric to mine.

 

[hematosis]

yea, I figured that was the case. I would usually let this go, but considering the fact that OP is a pod student, a class president for that matter, and he is advocating the profession, it would be wise to spell it correctly.

 

[fivescrew]

yea, I figured that was the case. I would usually let this go, but considering the fact that OP is a pod student, a class president for that matter, and he is advocating the profession, it would be wise to spell it correctly.

We all make mistakes. Especially when the computer helps us.

 

[hematosis]

Get off your high horse and stay out of a thread that has nothing to do with your school.

perhaps you should follow your own advice.

 

[hematosis]

We all make mistakes. Especially when the computer helps us.

lol

 

[SN1]

Do I have a chance if I did all of my prerequisites at a community college? I will transfer to a state university (Rutgers) in spring 2012 to take some upper level courses such as biochemistry, microbiology, anatomy, physiology, etc while working towards my bachelor's degree.
If I get a decent score on the MCAT as well as a good GPA at the 4 year university, will I still be competitive?

thank you.

 

[AZPOD Foot Doc]

Automatic spell correct. I had to add certain words including podiatric to mine.

Thanks for the heads up, auto-correct fail!

 

[AZPOD Foot Doc]

yea, I figured that was the case. I would usually let this go, but considering the fact that OP is a pod student, a class president for that matter, and he is advocating the profession, it would be wise to spell it correctly.

You're 100 percent correct, thanks for the help and good luck in school!

 

[AZPOD Foot Doc]

Do I have a chance if I did all of my prerequisites at a community college? I will transfer to a state university (Rutgers) in spring 2012 to take some upper level courses such as biochemistry, microbiology, anatomy, physiology, etc while working towards my bachelor's degree.
If I get a decent score on the MCAT as well as a good GPA at the 4 year university, will I still be competitive?

thank you.

Great Question!

I just spoke with our head of admissions and this was her comment on the subject-

"We don't discriminate between pre-reqs taken at 2 year vs 4 yr institutions. Currently our outcomes that we do track to determine how well you all do compared to your undergrad profile shows no difference"

Do well in school, stay involved, nail the MCAT and you'll do fine! Good luck and feel free to contact me with any other questions.

Nathan Aikele
Class President-AZPOD 2014

 

[SN1]

Great Question!

I just spoke with our head of admissions and this was her comment on the subject-

"We don't discriminate between pre-reqs taken at 2 year vs 4 yr institutions. Currently our outcomes that we do track to determine how well you all do compared to your undergrad profile shows no difference"

Do well in school, stay involved, nail the MCAT and you'll do fine! Good luck and feel free to contact me with any other questions.

Nathan Aikele


Class President-AZPOD 2014

Thank you very much Nathan!

 

[SuperFeisty]

Hey Nathan,

I spoke recently with some admissions officers at Arizona and was alarmed to hear their automatic rejection of sub 3.0 GPAs? Is this an absolute truth or is there leeway here?

Thanks,
SF

 

[AZPOD Foot Doc]

Hey Nathan,

I spoke recently with some admissions officers at Arizona and was alarmed to hear their automatic rejection of sub 3.0 GPAs? Is this an absolute truth or is there leeway here?

Thanks,
SF

There is some leeway! Our admission requirements are a "Minimum cumulative GPA and science GPAs of 2.75 on a 4.00 scale"; that stated, our average overall GPA for the class of 2015 was 3.54. Take that with a grain of salt as that is an average and there are some students higher and lower than that mark. If your worried about your GPA, work as hard as you can to get your grades up but don't forget, grades are only one part of the application. Here is a link to the full admission requirements: http://www.midwestern.edu/Programs_and_Admission/AZ_Podiatric_Medicine.html#Fast Facts

Look that over and see where you can add improvement to your application! Grades will always be an easy benchmark to compare your self to others with but make sure you don't forget all the other things you can do to improve your CV. Find a way to make yourself stand out! Good luck and if you have any more questions about anything I'm more than happy to offer advice.

Nathan Aikele

 

[MaxillofacialMN]

Here is a link to the full admission requirements: http://www.midwestern.edu/Programs_and_Admission/AZ_Podiatric_Medicine.html#Fast Facts

Class Size: 32

Male Population: 90%

Hahaha, that's some interesting math! I'm guessing that you have 3 females and 29 males and then just rounded to the nearest 10%

Note: So people don't kill me, I'm not making fun of AZPOD's program, just their interesting math.

 

[ldsrmdude]

Class Size: 32

Male Population: 90%

Hahaha, that's some interesting math! I'm guessing that you have 3 females and 29 males and then just rounded to the nearest 10%

Note: So people don't kill me, I'm not making fun of AZPOD's program, just their interesting math.

I guess I'm not sure how the math is so interesting... 3/32 is 9.375%, right? That's pretty darn close to 10%. Maybe they taught us all bad math at AZPod, and I don't see that I'm wrong

As a side note, the class of 2013 is sort of an anomaly with that high of a percentage of male students. My class is around 30% female, and I think other classes are around that.

 

[MaxillofacialMN]

3/32 is 9.375%, right? That's pretty darn close to 10%. .

Yeah... but it's not ten... it's nine. It's a moot point, but I thought it was interesting.

 

[ldsrmdude]

Yeah... but it's not ten... it's nine. It's a moot point, but I thought it was interesting.

I see what you're saying. I was just afraid I was doing the math wrong.

 

[AZPOD Foot Doc]

Class Size: 32

Male Population: 90%

Hahaha, that's some interesting math! I'm guessing that you have 3 females and 29 males and then just rounded to the nearest 10%

Note: So people don't kill me, I'm not making fun of AZPOD's program, just their interesting math.

Well...some of the females at Midwestern are ridiculously smart so we decided to round them up! I thought it was a great idea.

And just FYI, AZPod Class of 2014 was 32 total students, with 10 females and 22 males.

 

[MaxillofacialMN]

Well...some of the females at Midwestern are ridiculously smart so we decided to round them up! I thought it was a great idea.

And just FYI, AZPod Class of 2014 was 32 total students, with 10 females and 22 males.

Nice!!

 

[josebiwasabi]

this thread is a great initiative by AZPOD but please spell "information" correctly in the thread title lol. it bothers me every time i open the forums haha. maybe get an admin or mod to edit the thread title?

 

[AZPOD Foot Doc]

this thread is a great initiative by AZPOD but please spell "information" correctly in the thread title lol. it bothers me every time i open the forums haha. maybe get an admin or mod to edit the thread title?

Joebiwasabi-

Apparently starting a thread after studying all day is not a good idea, it tends to introduce a lot of spelling errors into my vocabulary! Ive tried to change it, how would I go about getting an Admin/Mod to edit the thread title? Any ideas? Thanks!

 

[pheet rock]

There is some leeway! Our admission requirements are a "Minimum cumulative GPA and science GPAs of 2.75 on a 4.00 scale"; that stated, our average overall GPA for the class of 2015 was 3.54. Take that with a grain of salt as that is an average and there are some students higher and lower than that mark. If your worried about your GPA, work as hard as you can to get your grades up but don't forget, grades are only one part of the application. Here is a link to the full admission requirements: http://www.midwestern.edu/Programs_and_Admission/AZ_Podiatric_Medicine.html#Fast Facts

Look that over and see where you can add improvement to your application! Grades will always be an easy benchmark to compare your self to others with but make sure you don't forget all the other things you can do to improve your CV. Find a way to make yourself stand out! Good luck and if you have any more questions about anything I'm more than happy to offer advice.

Nathan Aikele

Well I believe there is some truth to the rejection policy of a sub par 3.0 for science gpa bc my friend had a 2.6 and her rejection letter stated she was rejected due to that and therefore her app would not be reviewed. It sucks bc she had a ref from a pod and has worked with this pod for 6 yrs now. Then there are some people who only shadow not work for like 2 days or 1 week and get in. I think she wanted to get in there because of costs even though we are from east coast. Just goes to show we need to push ourselves as app pool is getting more competitive.

 

[purplescubagear]

Hey Nathan, I'll be starting at AZpod in August, could you give me some insight as to how your first year was? What did you study in undergrad, did you feel prepared to start, how it's been etc.

 

[AZPOD Foot Doc]

The Arizona School of Podiatric Medicine (AZPod) would like to congratulate two fourth-year students who have received scholarship awards from the Podiatry Insurance Company of America (PICA Group). Both students were selected based on multiple criteria including GPA and for achievements in community leadership and service. Each Student received a $2,500 award!

 

[AZPOD Foot Doc]

Hello All-

As interview/application season heats up I wanted to let everyone know that we are here to answer any and all questions that you might have. Good luck on your path to podiatry!