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So has anyone heard back from AZCOM? I'm wondering who else will be there this year?
Midwestern-AZ SMP Discussion
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They apparently meet once a month for now, usually first or second week that is for the selection committee. If you have had an interview recently in March I would think that hearing back in early April is realistic.
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I had the opportunity to apply early on so I have already heard back. I was just curious if anyone else had heard.
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I didn't get an email or anything but I checked online.midwestern.edu and I saw that I was accepted. I had my phone interview on the 19th.
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Congratulations! From here on out, MWU seems to be fairly "hands off" when it comes to their BMS program. You'll probably be getting your acceptance letter shortly and it's only two pages, IIRC. All of their stuff is online and they kind of just expect you to figure it out on your own. Good look and I look forward to meeting you in August!
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Congrats! Hey when did you complete your application?
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it took 3 weeks for me to get an email about a phone interview after my file was complete, and you should hear back about acceptance a week after the interview
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Biochem was not taken with Pharmacy last year (fall 08). It was the same format as the fall of 09 course.
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^ whoops... that might have been two or three years ago then. I heard Dr. Hull tell me that and I assumed it was last year. Sorry for the misinformation
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Hey what type of questions do they ask over the phone interview? I've yet to get one but I'm just curious about what they may ask over the phone.
- "Tell me about yourself"
- "Are you interested in research"
- "Tell me about your research background"
- "What questions do you have about the program"
- "Why are you applying to this program"
- "I'm reading your file and my main concern is *blah*, how have you addressed it since"
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thnx jslo!
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Thats not the case at all, I talked about that during my interview. I guess a lot of people plan on applying after the program is completed so that they have a full year of grades to apply with, but applying after the first quarter is very common
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I was also told that I am able to apply during the MA program. If you are in the MS program, it is my understanding that you are not eligible to apply until you complete. They were having too much turn over after the first year was what I was told.
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According to AACOMAS, my science was 2.71 and overall was 2.85. MCAT was 27S. Good letters, tons of clinical volunteer, worked in healthcare for ~10 years.
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I was debating about applying to both at the same time, with the intention of starting the MA program Fall 2011, and their DO school in Fall 2012. Dose that mean I need to wait to apply to DO school until after the first quarter of the MA program? Wouldn't that make for a very late application (somewhere around October / November)?
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Yeah its a little late, but they are expecting that from MA students. If you have the stats for an automatic interview (3.0 in the MA and MCAT within one SD from last years average, which was 27, confirmed by my interviewer)then its not too big of a deal. I guess a lot of people wait til after the 2nd quarter to apply to AZCOM, especially if they are guaranteed an interview. 2 quarters worth of good grades and a decent MCAT could make your chances of getting into AZCOM way better.
Actually, if you are in the MA program, apply to AZCOM early as if you were not in the program. This way adcom can look at your application and may invite you for an interview based on your current stats or even after 1 quarter of work. If you are not invited then, you will get the automatic interview after 2 quarters in the program and meeting the requirements. The key is still to apply early before spots fill up!
You are guaranteed an interview (not acceptance) if you meet all these:
1. is currently in good standing in the academic program in which the student is enrolled and does not have any pending misconduct charges against him/her;
2. meets all admission requirements for the professional program of interest;
3. after a minimum of two full time quarters of study, achieves a minimum Midwestern University grade point average, derived from all courses completed at Midwestern, that is equal to or greater than 3.0; AND
4. achieves a score on the professional entrance exam (if required) that is not less than one standard deviation below the mean score for students that matriculated into the professional degree program in the previous year.
That's interesting coolslugs and I would definitely take your advice over mine.
In my phone interview though with Dr. Jones I was told that AZCOM did have a guaranteed acceptance which was a full standard deviation on the MCAT above that of the MS1 class average and a 3.75+ in the program. If you were in the MBS program and not the MA that it would be a 3.5+. Maybe I misheard him and it was for an interview and not acceptance but I was pretty confident it was the prior. Oh well thanks for the information and correction made.
In my phone interview though with Dr. Jones I was told that AZCOM did have a guaranteed acceptance which was a full standard deviation on the MCAT above that of the MS1 class average and a 3.75+ in the program. If you were in the MBS program and not the MA that it would be a 3.5+. Maybe I misheard him and it was for an interview and not acceptance but I was pretty confident it was the prior. Oh well thanks for the information and correction made.
There are no guaranteed acceptances. However, there are guaranteed interviews. I am currently in the MA program so I could help answer some of your questions.
My advice would be to apply this summer before coming to the program and then submitting your 1st quarter grades as soon as you get them. I got an interview after my 1st quarter grades came out as did a couple of others. Others didn't get interviews until after second quarter grades came out. Also, make sure your MCAT is up to par. Admission to med school, especially AZCOM is getting really competitive so don't expect to walk into an acceptance just by doing this program with a low 20s MCAT.
The average MCAT for AZCOM is 27. To tell you the honest truth only about 4 people have gotten into AZCOM this year. There are about 12-15 of us on the waitlist. A lot of people are pretty upset because they thought the program would pull a lot of weight in getting in but the majority of us are on the waitlist. From word of mouth, I guess this was the case last year as well with many people getting put on waitlist and only a small majority getting in right away. I wouldn't let this statistic scare you though because I have to believe a better number of us will be moved off of the waitlist. Some people have gotten in at other schools. I have heard Nova, Touro-NV and CCOM to name some off of the top of my head.
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A friend of mine who is a third year at AZCOM said that this was the situation for his class as well. He ended up getting in to AZCOM (and other programs) as well as most of his classmates save one.
In my cynical perspective, I would think it wouldn't benefit their biomedical sciences program to have a lot of students not get into professional school somewhere. They need to have a high placement percentage for recruitment purposes.
It kind of shocks me that they only accepted 4 out of their own SMP type program when isn't their class size 220+?
What I think is more pertinent is why these students who got into other decent-good schools waitlisted at the same institution they took their SMP from. Getting into other programs is not something they can control but if they were good enough elsewhere, they should be more than good enough for an enlarged medical school class after doing well in the SMP program for AZCOM.
Do you know roughly how many of biomeds in your class are pre-Meds? As some are probably dental, pharm etc. That's quite discouraging to hear. Do you know if some people in the program are applying after they finish? Thanks.
I'd say we were about 50/50 with pre med and dental kids. There are a significant amount of people that are going to wait and apply this summer. My personal estimate would guess that only about 20 people applied to azcom this year and probably another 10-15 are waiting to apply in June. Keep in mind, there were probably close to 8 people that left the program in the 1st or 2nd quarter because they got in somewhere so our class size shrunk quite a bit from the first day of class.
Well that's not so bad then! Also, would you be able to tell me about the grading system for biomed courses (I appologize if this has already been mentioned and I'm just not seeing it on this thread).
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What difference does it make to AZCOM who on their waitlist is accepted elsewhere? They don't know that information anyway unless the student tells them. Maybe I'm misunderstanding your point.
Just for clarification, those 8 or so people got into both med and dental programs of their choice. Not all of them were pre-med.
Grading is the standard scale. Above a 92.5 is an A, 90 to 92.5 is an A-...etc. A- does not count as a 4.0 so keep that in mind. Getting a solid A in each class is pretty difficult but can be done. Nothing is graded on a curve so everyone can theoretically get an A. From personal experience getting a solid A in physiology is probably the toughest. I missed a solid A by 2 exam questions and I know others that missed an A by 1.
I think you pretty much are misunderstanding because the whole "point" was they shouldn't even be on the waiting list and this is supported by their acceptances to other medical schools.
One of the main advantages that an osteopathic SMP has over allopathic ones is they are generally high linkage programs back to their own medical school. If you want to bring up other schools, yes NSU accepts only 9 but if all 9 successfully complete it, either of the school's professional schools are open to them. KCOM MBS operates under the same principle.
Just like Drexel or BU MAMS gives preference when reviewing their own students' files, I would have imagined AZCOM would have done the same. Especially with students who did very well in the program by achieving over a B (med school students only need a 70% to pass) but MBS students are held to a higher standard. To do well and be only given a "formality interview" and then waitlisted just seemed rather terrible to me which was why I made that initial comment. I don't think I even need to really mention that AZCOM has one of the if not the largest medical student body sizes of all the osteopathic schools as well at 200 some.
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Since when is it AZCOM's responsibility to accept students from their masters program? I mean, as someone who is going to attend the program and is hoping to matriculate at AZCOM's medical school, I would appreciate it if they did, but come on...The onus is on me to kick ass and make it impossible not to accept me. AZCOM the institution doesn't owe me anything.
I still don't see the big deal that AZCOM waitlisted students that were accepted elsewhere. There are a lot of factors we don't know: Maybe they interviewed poorly at AZCOM. Maybe they interviewed better at the other schools based upon their AZCOM interview performance. Maybe they found they hated AZCOM during their masters and weren't all that interested in attending. Maybe the other schools they interviewed at were their first choice but that school either 1) didn't have an SMP or 2) they didn't get into that school's SMP. Who knows? I'm just saying there is no correlation between the two points you're making. I understand that you wish AZCOM were a bit more gracious with their masters students. From the single AZCOM masters student I've spoken with, this is in fact the case but I can see it doesn't seem that way from the previous posts.
I appreciate the time you took to write out a well thought response of how you feel the situation is so I'll respond. I respect your viewpoint and feel that it is a good mindset to go into the graduate program with, but I do feel that you are somewhat misinformed. I just ask that you read the entire response before commenting because I'll try to answer potential questions about certain statements I make throughout the post.
Osteopathic "SMPs" or certificate programs can't be compared to allopathic equivalent programs because osteopathic schools have no formal ranking nor do their programs have a great reputation (possible because of the former) outside of their own school. Everyone recognizes Georgetown SMP and programs such as Tufts MBS or BU MAMS as top tier SMP programs for the reason that they are widely recognized by Adcoms and school officials across the nation. Unfortunately for osteopathic programs, this is not the case because most osteopathic schools, if their name is not KCOM/PCOM/CCOM or DMU-COM, are mainly recognized/reputable within their own region. Just the same, students who are aiming for allopathic schools generally stay away from osteopathic SMPs and choose to attend allopathic SMPs for the general reasoning that Adcoms will not place as high of an emphasis on their graduate grades/coursework since osteopathic schools are generally not as well known.
Thus the question is raised why would someone choose to attend an osteopathic SMP? Osteopathic SMPs in general have traditionally been regarded as offering a strong linkage into their medical school off of their Masters/certificate programs by using it as a screening/stepping stone program.
Examples below:
Excerpts from ATSU KCOM Handbook
http://www.atsu.edu/kcom/admissions/preparing_MS_admission/pdfs/BMS%20Admissions%20Process_1,%2011.7.08.pdf
"In addition, the prescreening process will attempt to ascertain your suitability for the program. Since the majority of applicants aspire to move from the Masters program to the Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine program (or another professional program, such as dental), it is important to discern your potential to move into such programs at the conclusion of the Masters program."
"Graduate students who are interested in applying for admission to either the DO program or another post-graduate program, are encouraged to submit their application at the conclusion of the spring quarter. At this time, the student's DO courses and most of the Graduate Program courses have been completed, which helps ensure that the Admissions Committee will have a good sense of the student's academic ability, as well as their personal and professional characteristics." (During interviews, this was translated into "we treat the program as a year long interview")
Touro NV
E-mail correspondence with the Director of Admissions
4. Q: Is the program relatively new because I would like to learn about
Touro-NV MHS' acceptance rate into medical school if such a thing were
available.
A:Out of the last class, five out of the seven were admitted into our DO class of 2014.
"We like to keep our students" ~ Oscar Parra
Nova Southeastern University MBS
Not faculty or handbook but from "credible sources" who are all MBS students or D1-D3s at Nova
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showpost.php?p=8127304&postcount=124
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showpost.php?p=8342475&postcount=139
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showpost.php?p=8523600&postcount=142
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showpost.php?p=8352289&postcount=140
**************************************************
I cited those messages/excerpts/quotes above to show a very common trend that osteopathic SMPs are catered and predisposed to accept back their own students. I don't see why this is so hard of a concept to grasp. They take the same classes/courses as the medical/dental students, the same exams, and the same instructors and are required to score an 80% or better. This translates into they have to score just as well if not better than the current medical school class that was accepted. The whole purpose of the application process and having a complete application is to allow Adcoms to predict/gauge as accurately as possible whether an applicant is capable of successfully making their way through medical school. I can understand that there may be some questions raised about that if you apply to other institutions but not the same medical school where you took the equivalent coursework as their accepted medical students and scored just as well as their current average if not better. You just proved you can be successful and excel and have solid evidence of a year's worth of grades.
You made a point of asking "when is it AZCOM's responsibility to accept students from their master's program." AZCOM's MA program tuition is:
Biomedical Science M.A. $31,421
I don't know about you, but that's a hell of a lot of money in my opinion for a "formality interview" and a 20% acceptance rate (read on to find out where the 20% came from and yes I know this is only at the minute and there may/probably will be mobility on the list in the future). I know of many schools who have an equivalent tuition cost if not cheaper for their medical students. The class size of the MBS program is said to be 17 on their website for Glendale and TheCloser just commented that about 20 people in his class applied. I'll estimate that to be roughly 1/2 of the students in the MA program (forgive me if I'm wrong in this assumption). Of those 20 students, 4 were accepted and 16 waitlisted. Out of 20 who applied (i'm assuming they qualified for the "formality" interview), 20% were accepted. That's saying you at the very least met the medical school average (80%) if not exceeded and had 1 full standard deviation on the MCAT above that of the accepted students. Really? Only 20% for doing that well in an intensive program that costs about 31,000 in tuition? I really do hope that everyone that does qualify ends up getting accepted (even if they got in elsewhere and would rather go elsewhere).
The whole point of my complaint about AZCOM waitlisting students that got into other schools (NSU/CCOM being better schools and yes I do stand by this statement) is very wrong in my opinion. If the students did just as well if not better for a year's worth of medical school classes from AZCOM, possesses as a full standard deviation higher on the MCAT than the accepted students, and takes into consideration that the class size has increased from 150 -> 250 medical students, (breathe for air, long sentence I know), why are proven students being waitlisted yet attending equivalent if not better schools? They paid 31,000 dollars on top of having very valid credentials, this just is hard for me to comprehend the logic behind this.
I am not going to go into detail why these schools are better. If you want to read some "interesting things", here is a link. (again, my point is not to stir up controversy, I just don't want to outline all of CCOM and NSU's board scores, 3rd/4th year rotations, etc):
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=403336
The last point I'm going to address is the one about "schools not having SMPs or people not getting into them." Yes you are absolutely right, not all osteopathic schools have SMPs. The thing is the a large portion of them do.
LECOM-> Biomedical Certificate/ M.S
PCOM -> MBS (GA) MBS (PA) Certificate (PA)
NSU -> MBS
TCOM - GSBS
UMDNJ -> MBS
VCOM -> Biomedical Certificate
Touro NY -> M.S.
Touro NV -> M.H.S
KCUMB -> MBS
WCOMP -> M.H.S
ATSU-KCOM-> MBS
LMU-DCOM -> Medical Sci. post bacc
There's probably more but that's all I could come up off the top of my head for osteopathic SMPs and not osteopathic pre-req post-bacc programs (NYCOM/UNECOM/etc).
In response to your other point of "maybe they didn't get into another SMP." I kind of question how they would get into a program (AZCOM) that has a larger acceptance class and a required phone interview and not any others. It's definitely possible but just perusing through the PCOM thread and of those that posted their stats, I'm seeing people with a 2.8 getting in and on PCOM's website, they state their average for those admitted in 2008-2009 as being:
MCAT: Physical = 6.88 Verbal = 7.01 Biological = 7.48
I would like to think that the AZCOM MA students who passed the "formality interview" requirements having a full standard deviation above the accepted medical school average MCAT as being higher than a 20-21 that PCOM has stated here. Then there's LECOM's 1 year program, KCUMB's program etc. who all have roughly equivalent applicant stats. Oh yes, PCOM only accepts 17 in their MBS class as well according to their website. That's already less than the 50% of the MA class that TheCloser estimates applied to AZCOM. None of the other 1 year programs require a phone interview either
They're all substantially cheaper than 31,000 as well. What's the point I'm trying to get across over this all? It really doesn't seem like AZCOM's MA/MBS program is any easier to get into than its osteopathic counterparts. It's substantially more expensive as well. So it brings me to wonder why would people want to attend AZCOM's MA program if not for the reason that they like the school and want to go there? There may be those who live in the area and wish to stay close to home but I can't seem to imagine there being a majority of these people. TheCloser already stated that many of his fellow students are angry because they thought that their performance on the program would at the very least carry some weight into the admissions process. I think from the very beginning of this incredibly long post, that these programs are regarded very highly by the same school and apparently this is echoed in the sentiments of TheCloser's classmates.
I apologize again for the long post. These are my own viewpoints/opinions that I have gained from spending way too much time on these boards and researching other programs and if you wish to respond, I would very much like to hear your input, but please at least read through my post and provide some concrete/credible evidence if you wish to respond against it.
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Clearly you have some opinions on this. I agree with some of your perspectives and disagree with some of your logic. However, my total investment is this discussion is low-far too low to continue, at least on my behalf.
Hopefully, those students in the MA 2010 program are all accepted into their school of choice. To everyone who is attending for 2011 I look forward to meeting you!
Hopefully, those students in the MA 2010 program are all accepted into their school of choice. To everyone who is attending for 2011 I look forward to meeting you!
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Fair enough. We can agree to disagree
Agreed
and good luck to those who are still waiting to hear from the BMS program.- Joined
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I know its still 4 months til classes start but I'm really bored, and even though there is an outside chance I'm doing a different SMP, I'm going to make a facebook group for the incoming MA class of 2011. I'm gonna need to start looking for roommate if I'm moving all the way to Arizona...
"Midwestern MA-Biomedical Science c/o 2011"
"Midwestern MA-Biomedical Science c/o 2011"
Hi I just found out about my acceptance to the MA program today and I am so excited this has been a long journey and am ready to get started !!!! I think AZCOM is great and I would like to attend their DO school there but I am not closing myself off to other options for DO schools ..I believe what I will get out of this program will mirror what I put in...just my 2 cents to all of the debate going above!!! I am excited to meet whoever will be attending though!!!
I believe they have somewhere around 30 deposits for the one year MA program. Not sure how many for the 2 year MS. This is their busy time of the year so I expect the class to start filling up quickly from here on out.
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Congratulations! Someone started a FB page if you're interested.
I know I have been posting a lot, but I had a question about the lecture style of Midwestern. I was wondering if they had online access to their lectures. I understand attending class is important and I will be there however, these help so much when it comes to studying and reviewing notes. Also do the professors supply notes for students via powerpoint etc. I know some schools such as USC have both and following their site helped a lot with my undergrad Immunology course.
Thanks for the help.
Thanks for the help.
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Based on a tour I had, most (maybe all?) classes publish their PowerPoint slides prior to lecture. I don't know if they have Blackboard, Sakai, or similar for their classes. I agree that having alternatives to lecture is helpful.
