New school slated to open

[ItsGavinC]

I thought some of you might find this interesting. It is from http://www.midwestern.edu/glendale/

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MWU has announced plans to begin development of a school of podiatric medicine. This four-year doctoral program will be the first of its kind in the state of Arizona and the only program in the Southwest.

"Midwestern University is pleased to bring a program in podiatric medicine to the state of Arizona and make it an integral member of our campus community of health professionals, commented Dr. Goeppinger. "We have received tremendous support from podiatric physicians in the Vally and the state, and we intend to develop one of the strongest academic programs in the profession."

Doctors of Podiatric Medicine (PDMs) are physicians and surgeons who practics on the lower extremities, primarily on feet and ankles. The active lifestyles of Arizonans and the aging population of the state contribute to the need for more podiatric physicians.

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Members don't see this ad.

 

[Toejam]

I'm not trying to be snippy here, but what would be the point of opening another podiatric school when there aren't enough people interested in the already established ones?

 

[ussdfiant]

Speaking of not enough applicants, I just received a flyer from NYCPM (will I ever get off of their mailing list) saying that applications are still being accepted for the Sept 2002 semester (I received this on 8/30) and that they are now offering admissions for the spring semester (just like the foreign MD schools). Now when those poor students who bombed the MCAT in August get their scores back in October, they can still apply to NYCPM in January. Toejam, good luck in the app process. I look forward to seeing you, with me, on the other side.

 

[Temple1st]

There are enough applicants. Temple had 286 apps. out of these 286; 71 were accepted. Thats 4 apps per 1 position.

 

[ussdfiant]

Originally posted by Temple1st
There are enough applicants. Temple had 286 apps. out of these 286; 71 were accepted. Thats 4 apps per 1 position.

Personally, I'd like to see that in print.

 

[efs]

The people who run MWU did not decide to open a podiatry school on a whim. They spent some time, effort and money looking into it. You might also notice that the area they chose to locate the school is nowhere near any of the other schools. I suspect they will be drawing from a different population. Although I am sure there are a number of students who apply to both, I think those who apply to NYCPM are not the same group that apply to CCPM. This new school will have a seperate draw.

It is also likely that it will increase the visibility of the profession in an new area. This can only help.

 

[Temple1st]

I'll email the print if u want it. As a Temple student u have access to all the stats. Call admission office. They'll just ask for your student ID#

 

[goldenpheasant]

Temple had 286 apps.

This number represents all who applied to Temple, but Does Not give a breakdown of students who applied to other schools as well.

The 286 students may have applied to all 7 schools, so it may in fact represent 286 applications for 600+ freshman slots. So, that would represent less than 1/2 a applicant for every open seat, kinda pathetic.

Wow, The ignorance of being a student, it never changes.

 

[thesaurus1]

Good point taken. I applied to Temple via AACPMAS and received an invitation to attend an interview. I did not go or even make an attempt to interview there. Do I count as one of the 286 applicants or is that the actual interview number? Kinda makes you go hmmmm. I'm sure everybody is inflating their numbers, and if you don't think that's the case, you are a damned fool (and haven't done your homework). Statistical data is only valid and reasonable if you understand the parameters for which the data is collected.

 

[dim sum]

apllying to 1 school or all 7 schools, it was still 286 applied to Temple. It's no different than the numbers posted by allopathic or osteopathic school (i'm sure most of the applicants also applied to other med schools). I think Pod schools need to follow D.O. schools, better the clinical educations, better the residencies, increase visibility (Ads maybe). Maybe this new school will do fine, it's connected to AZCOM right? that probably helps.

 

[Toejam]

It is VERY different compared with MD/DO schools.

MD schools have roughly 17,000 applicants for 35,000 slots (this was a year ago or so). DO schools have a similar ratio. Check out the stats on www.positiveprofiles.com. MD schools have about a 45% acceptance rate while DO schools have about a 37% acceptance rate.

DPM schools did not have enough applicants last year or the year before. This is only to fill 600 seats or so. Last year they had something like 350 applicants. TOTAL applicants. Frankly, I still can't get over this number. Out of the entire population of the world (realistically, North America), there were only about 350 people who even considered applying to pod school. And, you know that many of these people also applied to MD and DO school (and who knows what else). It boggles the mind.

Obviously, the 286 applicants to Temple must have applied elsewhere. When I applied, I sent my general app to all 7 schools. That dilutes the numbers significantly.

 

[thesaurus1]

The number is inflated DimSum. 286 people applied and checked off the box on the AACPM form. But I'm sure the actual number that interviewed is much lower than that. I'd be curious to know how many were interviewed and NOT ACCEPTED. That would be a more realistic number. I agree that most students probably applied to all 7 schools which seriously dilutes the applicant numbers.

Dr. Moon, I think your numbers are off a bit. "17K applicants for 35K slots" means there were 2 spots for every applicant. Obviously that's not what you meant. On a positive note, only 600 slots means that there is very little competiton when it comes time to hang your shingle in your special spot of the world.

 

[Toejam]

I know it sounds crazy, thesauras1, but check this out:

www.positiveprofiles.com

 

[efs]

Toejam,

I am a bit confused. What are we supposed to be looking for on that website?

 

[Temple1st]

I checked the website. It's 37K applicants for 17K slots. Acceptance rate of 45% However, like what was said about POD school, how many applied to multiple schools?

 

[Toejam]

Sorry, Eric

There are various sections on it and one has the national profile of the entering DO and MD classes of a recent year.

Frankly, I still find it kind of hard to believe that almost half of applicants get into some MD school. I've asked this question on the other forums and it seems to be true.

 

[efs]

Thanks, I'll take another look when I have a bit more time.

As far as the 45% acceptance, does that take into account for those multiple application people? Do those numbers also take into consideration those applying to both DO and MD school? Just curious, not that it matters, but it does seem quite a bit different than one might have thought.

 

[thesaurus1]

A few comments about that website. First, it is a commercial site, produced by Pfizer. I'm not sure where they get their statistics from, or even if they are correct. A better resource and one which I think is more applicable in this circumstance, is aamc.org or aacom.org. Those sites are the application servicers for MD and DO respectively. All students that apply to any MD or DO school must apply through them, therefore they would have the most pertintent statistics.

Secondly, and this is pasted from the Pfizer site, "For the Class of 2005, students applying to allopathic medical schools submitted an average of 11.3 applications. Students applying to osteopathic medical schools submitted applications to an average of 6.3 medical schools.

The data indicates little difference in acceptance rates for those applying to multiple schools. In 2000, those who applied to seven to nineteen allopathic schools were accepted by 46% of the schools to which they applied, while those who applied to more than twenty schools had an acceptance rate of 53.1%. More important than acceptance rates is choosing schools that match your specific qualifications and interests, and that have historically accepted students from your college." You could conclude that more applications to more schools = a higher (albeit slight) chance of acceptance. That's why most pods apply to all schools; christ - there's only seven of them anyway. It's not going to cost you hundreds or thousands of dollars like it will to send the applications to 100+ MD schools or the 19 DO schools.

Obviously, they have beaten us to the punch in addressing the multiple application question. I believe it would be correct in assuming the same holds true for pods. Thus, you could come to the conclusion that multiple applications count in the grand total of applications sent to each school. Hence, a logical conclusion is that 286 applicants sent an application to Temple. There were not 286 people interviewed, nor were they exclusive applicants to Temple. A significantly smaller number were accepted. This can be attributed to the fact that they went somewhere else, they didn't interview, or whatever.

Again, I believe a more important number would be how many applications were denied. This just doesn't happen in pod school. Or if it does, it's a very low percentage. That's just simply not the case in MD/DO. Many many students are turned away there. Have you ever heard of anyone not receiving an offer to interview at any pod schools after applying thru AACPM? Or better yet, has anyone ever heard of someone being turned down and being refused an interview request? I assure you, this happens frequently in MD/DO circles. Maybe I'm wrong here, but that's what I think. Feel free to chime in here...

 

[thesaurus1]

By the way, for those of you who couldn't find that information on the Pfizer site, go to http://www.positiveprofiles.com/get_involved/manual.html and then click on the various subcategories to peruse the applicable information.

 

[Toejam]

Stats was one of my least favorite classes.

I understand that your chances of getting admitted increase with the number of schools that you apply to. That's kind of a no-brainer. But, correct me if I'm wrong, doesn't it still all come down to "X" number of total applications vs. "Y" number of acceptances? No matter how you slice it, isn't the acceptance number still 45% for MD's and 37% for DO's??

 

[dim sum]

if i remember it correctly, the year that i applied (class of 2005), for the ~15000 spots in US med schools (MD & DO), there were about 35000 applicants and about 535000 applications. So it did come down to about 2-2.5 applicants per spot. My take on the Temple Pod number of applicants is: If 286 applied to Temple, regardless if they applied to other schools, it was still 286 people applied to Temple (unless Temple counted some people twice). So maybe that year the AACPMAS had ~ 286 applicants total for the seven school and had about (286 x 7) number of applications.

 

[Toejam]

We're starting to get into statistics and I'm feeling kinda oogy.

Temple says that 286 applied. I'm sure that's true. But out of these 286, I'm certain that the vast majority applied to 2 or more additional pod schools. Let's say one person applied to Temple and they also applied to 5 others. Of course, these 5 other schools are going to include this person as applying to their school, too. This is what I mean by the numbers being diluted.

In all, it doesn't even matter. It appears that there were roughly 2 seats per application if we are to use Temple's number as an average. No matter how you look at it, there weren't enough applications for all of the seats available. All I can say is that I hope the schools used at least a little bit of discretion as to whom they offered acceptances to.

 

[ADR273]

I would believe that most people would not just apply to one school. The website did say the average number of schools to which students applied. However, it did not state whether it includes cross applications to MD/DO programs.

I know and knew of many pre-meds at my undergrad who applied to both DO and MD programs and got multiple acceptances. In fact, it was very much encouraged!

I would believe that the are a number of people who apply to multiple schools to try to increase their chances of acceptance. This doesn't apply just to DO/MD programs but also to DPM, DDS, DVM, OD, PA, PT, grad school, etc. Get my point!

The fact that they are only 7 DPM schools doesn't mean that everyone who applied checked the box for all 7! I surely wasn't one of them. I also knew that I would be accepted to any of the schools. I only applied to 3 and interviewed only at Scholl and kindly declined the others.

After settling into school, I have become acquainted with most of my class. I definitely know of 14 who only applied to Scholl. I know 3 people who were accepted to 2 MD programs and 1 DO program and declined those acceptances. Our PM1 class has 87 students and I think that is enough! Our new auditoriums at Finch are great but almost every seat is taken.

The Director of Recruiting said they have the capacity for 100 students - absolute max - but want a class size around 75. We have 87. The PM2 class only lost 6 students from last year and I was told 1 of them failed out.

As for multiple applications, the majority of our class did not apply to all seven schools!!! That to me is ludicrous! I got to know everyone in orientation and I asked everyone "Where else did you apply?" The majority of students only applied to 2-3 or LESS.

Each person is different and in my class, I have seen a vast range of personalities. Groups and cliques have formed as we get ready for exams. They're those who will struggle for lack of science classes other than those for pre-reqs and MCAT prep and those who won't have to kill themselves to pass since they were a science major. Again, we all come from different backgrounds- business majors, history, and science. Some are 21 years old and the oldest 41. We know the profession has difficulties and problems, but what other profession doesn't. What you put in is what you get. We have discussed possiblilities of relocation and not holding ourselves to only one geographical area.

I really think that we all need to stop putting down the profession and comparing stats and start focusing what we're doing in our lives. This is only a profession-It's what we do or will do, NOT WHAT WE ARE!

 

[efs]

ADR makes some excellent points. I agree.

For what it's worth I applied to 3 schools, interviewed at 2 and made a well informed decision. And I have not been disappointed. So far, so good. I'll know in mid-March if things are going to work out the way I have been planning since early 1999. I fully expect they will, but you never know what odd quirk might show up.

I can't give any accurate comments on what my classmates might have done as far as applications. As far as I can tell, most are well informed about problems within the profession.

The schools also know they will have a certain attrition rate, and plan for it. More people are accepted for the first year than will be expected to be seen at graduation. It's just a fact, some will quit, some will fail, others may decide that they didn't get into something they wanted to do.