As promised, an overview:
I signed up for the third cohort of the day at 1:30. I understood this to mean that my interview would start at 1:30, and I was wrong. The actual interview part of the day for my group didn't start until 4:30 so it was a LONG wait. I wish I had known that beforehand.
I got to the library around 12:45 and picked up my folder with info in it, and they give you a post-it note set that is really clunky and kind of a pain to carry around (after I left my purse in the car since I didn't want to carry anything, go figure). Most of the group was already there. It seemed to me that most of us were from IN, at least in my group. We had one from IL and one from Canada. I'm pretty sure the rest were from IN but I could be wrong. The President of the University actually came by to talk to us and shook each of our hands, which was unexpected. He seemed really nice and VERY proud that he could be a part of getting the new med school started.
The info sessions were pretty well done, minus the financial aid session (not sure why the FA lady didn't give the presentation though). The guy who was giving the presentations was Dr. Strom, formerly from DMU. I thought it was a little strange that he was telling us how great DMU was while we were there to learn about Marian.
There is a LOT of encouragement from the community to start up this med school. A LOT. Several of the state hospitals have donated money to the program so that they have "dibs" on the new students for rotations and future residency spots (yes, spots are being made specifically for MU-COM students). Notables are Community, St. Vincents, etc., that are big in IN. We even got letters in our folders from hospital administrators encouraging us to matriculate to MU. I think someone posted on here that they were unsure about having to have rotations sites 60+ miles away; I think Marian's thoughts on this are that they expect most students to be from IN, so they might want to do a rotation at a city closer to their hometown (which would save money if they live with family/friends during these rotations), but that's just me speculating.
Marian is aware that students may be apprehensive about starting at a new school with no upperclassmen to turn to for guidance; so they have established a mentoring program that will hook up students with practicing DOs in the community to serve as mentors. I think this is a pretty good idea, myself.
Money is not an problem for this school. The goal was $50M to fundraise to start this school; they are currently at $150M+. What rubs me the wrong way about this is that they are NOT giving a single CENT to any of the first class in scholarship money. I even asked our presenter to re-state what he said to make sure I heard him right, and he confirmed. ALL monies are going to infrastructure. I cannot believe they wouldn't invest in their students for this first class, to use just a small percentage of that to recruit and retain students.
We were told that the first round of acceptances had already gone out for the first group's students, the Fri/Sat Oct. 5-6th. We were told 80% were accepted and only 2 were outright rejected. Rejections were emailed, acceptances were called. Not sure about those waitlisted. We were told that those that were waitlisted were excellent candidates but it was too early in the cycle and they wanted to see how they stacked up to later candidates. However, waitlisted students would be reviewed weekly; they are only going to accept 150 and then stop accepting students. As spots open up, they will pull off the waitlist so there is a VERY good chance that if you are waitlisted, you will be pulled off.
They did say that the the sim labs would be Anatomy and OMM labs... but they didn't actually say anything about using real simulators, like Harvey and Noelle. So I'm a bit confused on if they are actually going to use simulators. With that high of a technology budget ($7M), I'm hoping they have several. All tests will be on a computer to prepare you for Boards.
As of right now, estimated tuition is set at $40k. As of right now, they are NOT including laptops/iPads/etc. But that may change. Right now, they have not hired all of the new faculty, but they are in the process. The Anatomy class will be split into four sections, and right now they have two Anatomy professors hired and plan to make offers to two more. Like someone posted above, they are NOT going to have their own professors for neuroanatomy, but they are having professors from IU School of Medicine teach those classes. Curriculum is being developed right now; it is systems- and competencies-based, and is being worked by professors and clinicians so that you get the best mix of biomedical sciences and clinical relevance.
On our tour, the guy leading it was talking up all of the undergrad stuff we can take advantage of while we're here: football games, intramural sports, etc etc etc. This annoyed me a little because I wanted to be sold on the professional school, not the undergrad. I understand that he needed filler since we couldn't tour the school building as it's still not completed, but still.
And one thing I forgot in my post below; the MMI interviewers only have your name, undergrad institution name, and degree concentration. Since I hold a graduate degree, I had to bring that up myself. All of the interviewers were very nice and not intimidating at all. One of mine told me I did a very good job, so that was encouraging.
We were told that the next meeting to go over our apps would be on Thursday and to expect phone calls on Thursday or Friday of this week. As posted earlier, seat deposit is $1000 around Dec. 15 and another $2000 sometime closer to April.
So those are all of the notes I took last Friday. Sorry for the overwhelming length of this post, but I hope someone finds it useful. Good luck, everyone!
🙂
I'm going to write a longer post tonight, but I would suggest to dress warm (I had a pantsuit and kept a lightweight coat with me last Friday, the weather should be able the same then) and bring a pair of flats! I wore heels when they took us on the tour, complete with a stroll through the Oriental Gardens and my feet were killing me afterward!
The MMIs were actually a lot of fun. There are 6 scenarios to work through. On each door there is a description of a scenario and a starter question. When the bell rings, you walk in and talk to an interviewer about the scenario (this way the interviewer for that particular scenario sees everyone answer the same one). Once your time is up, someone will knock on the door to let you know to move on to the next one. It goes by REALLY quickly. All of the interviewers are really nice, and I got some good feedback from the first few so I was even more confident for the next ones after that. The final station is a 20-minute interview with the two Deans (or at least mine was, not sure if they change who is there). It was all really relaxed. I actually liked that format better than the traditional interview.
EDIT: The scenarios change for each interview day; they told us that the faculty have submitted questions and they pull from those, so you won't be able to find them on the internet or anything like that. They weren't hard and they weren't trying to trick you, they just want to see how you would think about a situation to come to a conclusion or a suggestion.
). Has anyone received anything that's NOT good news post-interview? (Rejection or Alternate List). Also for people accepted, has your portal changed at all?
