Hey all! I got into Marist a few months ago and was so excited to come, but last week I got into Thomas Jefferson and I need to decide by tomorrow which one I will go with. Can anyone tell me a little about their experience at Marist, what you liked and didn't like, what you thought would be a big deal but isn't. Or what you didn't realize is a big deal, but turned out to be? Also maybe some about your experience with clinicals. I just want to know more about the school and how the students feel about it. Thank you!
Hi,
I just graduated from Marist.
I was part of the inaugural cohort so my experience was rather unique, given the growing pains of a new program. So, some of my more negative experiences aren't worth recounting as a LOT of it were unique to the first cohort, and probably the second cohort as well.
- The faculty is quite diverse - ortho specialists, neuro specialists, peds specialists, a wounds specialist...some have special boards certs...they brought on a cardio specialist to teach cardio as an adjunct, just to make sure we got the best education possible for that topic.
- Clinicals. We were allowed to choose our own, which I think is incredibly important. There are also no rules around having to geographically go far away (I read a lot about schools requiring you go far away which is expensive, inconvenient, and dumb) but your first two clinics they require you stay close by to the school and you can ask for an exception. They are interspersed between didactic, which I greatly preferred (vs your third year being nothing but clinic). It allows you to get out of the classroom, and return to class with a new perspective and much more to talk about in class. Being interspersed between didactic is an example of something I never considered that I think is really important.
- It is expensive af, and had I the choice, I would have gone to a cheaper school. Nothing personal against Marist, it is just a stupid amount of money. My bf owns both his home and practice (he's a chiro) so me moving was not an option. I was lucky in that Marist was the only school I applied to and got accepted.
- I have 4 degrees (AS, BS, MS, DPT), 3 different schools, and every program and every school has amazing and terrible teachers. Marist is no exception.
- I passed all of my clinicals and also got a 715 on my boards first try, so I feel my education was more than adequate. Also, my entire cohort remained intact and graduated. The other cohorts have lost some students along the way (and a lot of that is due to covid/zoom university), but I think it speaks volumes that we all graduated. 4 of my cohort are taking their boards next week so we do not yet have data regarding our pass rate. The next cohort does not graduate until next December so it will be awhile before further data is available.
I realize it's late in the day and you may have already made your decision, but feel free to reply or DM me if you think of any questions or just want to talk it out! Congrats either way!
