Currently a student at LECOM-Erie, and would be more than happy to answer any questions you have. Granted, I'm in my last year, so there may be a few policy changes that I'm not aware of (since I'm on audition rotations all over the country and not really at school much...), but a few things that I can point out....
1. Yes, there is no food/water and there is mandatory attendance/dress code. The mandatory attendance and dress code probably affects the people who are in the lecture-based pathway; DSP and PBL are less affected since they do not have to come to school every day. That being said, I was in the lecture pathway as well. Did it affect me? Probably not. Most of us got used to the dress code by the 1st week of school, and soon stopped caring about the food/water/dress code policy afterwards. You've got more than enough on your plate to focus on right in med school that the policies are really trivial. And I would say that I'm more of a self learner, but I did perfectly fine with the mandatory attendance. Some days are long, other are short, some are in between. You get used to it fast.
2. Yes, some will argue that it's a strict school, with all the policies. Honestly, that's a reasonable opinion, and it may not appeal to everyone. That being said, do I regret coming here? Based on the fact that I'm like 100K less in debt than some of my other med schools friends, and that I'm still able to do what I love...I'd say I'm pretty happy.
3. Speaking of clinicals, LECOM isn't really different from any other DO schools in terms of rotations and schedules. I don't know what designing your own clinical means, but your schedule is pretty much laid out for you. The only time you really have to work to design your schedule is when you have electives (which you can do pretty much anywhere in the country). You can choose to do electives at your core site, or you can work to set them up at another hospital. An example is me right now, where I had to set my electives up as audition rotations across the country. That really isn't different from any other medical school, and its certainly not too difficult to do (as long as you do it in advance).
And speaking in terms of core sites, LECOM has many different core sites across the country (I can only speak for the Erie and Seton Hill Campus - Bradenton is kind of different). Like most other DO schools, the sites can be great, good, okay, or bad. But if there is anything I learned, a lot of the rotations are what you make of it. I've rotated at various places, ranging from tiny community hospitals to big academic tertiary medical centers, and the basics is the same for all medical students - you don't really know what to do, but as long as you work hard, it'll be okay. Even now on auditions, I've been with osteopathic and allopathic medical students from all across the country, and I don't feel like my knowledge base and skills are any worse than theirs are. And no, I wasn't a brilliant student or anything - I just worked hard on all my rotations to learn as much as I can. If a rotation didn't go well, I've just tried learning the important things, and then just moved on.
Happy to answer any specific questions you have. Probably not on this forum as much as I would like, so if I miss something, feel free to DM me!
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