I'm a second year at NYCOM.
1) Glen Cove, about 5-10 minutes from school on the North Shore. I'd say about 2/3 of the class lives in Glen Cove or the surrounding area (Sea Cliff, Glen Head, Oyster Bay, Greenvale).
2) Last year I went to probably 75% of 8am lectures. In the spring, every thursday morning at 8am is mandatory attendance for FP. The streaming video online is very, very helpful, but we didnt have that last year, so we made it to class more. Biochem, histo, genetics, etc would be dry even if Watson and Crick themselves got up there to teach, hence that tends to play a role in first year attendance. Second year attendance usually goes up a bit because the material is all new to everyone, whereas in first year you may have seen some of the basics before. Plus, the professors are pretty good in second year and there's alot of them, some only offer 1 lecture in their sub-specialty, so its hard to get a handle on what lectures you can skip beforehand. 90% of second year classes have started at 8am and go to 5pm.
You'll figure it out pretty quickly when it comes to what classes to get to and ones that you can skip. Some learn better by hearing it once, others can just read it on their own and do fine. Dont sweat it yet, enjoy life from now till august.
