I was very interested in this program. But like the previous poster states, its brand new and, after speaking to the director by phone and email, it feels more like a money-making venture by a Jesuit university struggling for funding. At the heart of the program is a 'guaranteed' interview at the Stritch School of Medicine at Loyola. This sounds great, but in essence, you are paying 30k for the privelege of interviewing there. Furthermore, the interview will be granted in the application cycle *following* your completion of the program, which introduces a lag year in between the program and matriculation. The interview is also only valid for students with cumulative undergraduate gpa's of 3.0 or above. As this forum has shown, there are scores of us out there who have undergrad gpa's < 3.0, so this program would do little for us.
Lastly, look at the curriculum--its just Physiology, Genetics, Biochem & Cell Biology at the graduate level. I would bet that these classes are brand new courses (added especially for this program) and essentially taught at the undergraduate level, but given graduate status so that the university can claim a new graduate program, thereby acquiring federal funding for the droves of suckers they expect to be lining up for it.
Having said all this, I would love the opportunity to attend Loyola. In fact, if I had not screwed up my undergrad gpa so much, Stritch would be right up there with U of Chicago, UIC and Northwestern as my top choice schools (just love Chicago!) but as it is I won't even allow myself to dream about these schools. Nonetheless, if the program had some real bite to it--i.e., it was like a real SMP program, modeled after the program at another Jesuit school (Georgetown anyone?)--I would have sent my application in months ago. Its really sad that they havent made more of an effort to make this a relevant program. Think about it: SMP in Chicago? Sign me up...
