Hey guys, I just finished up my first year at the Philly campus and I just wanted to share my experience and some information on linkage from this program. I started this program last fall with the goal of getting into medical school after the first year in the program. I viewed the second year as a backup plan if I did not get in after my first year. I was attracted to this program due to the conditional acceptance with a 3.3. I thought this would be a very reasonable threshold to meet. I had a 504 MCAT going into the program, and 3.5 cGPA, 3.3 sGPA from undergrad.
The first semester I earned a 3.3 and was given an interview for January. Based on the people I have talked to, if you get a 3.0, and meet the other requirements you'll get an interview. The winter semester is hard. It dropped my GPA to under a 3. This past semester was completely online due to coronavirus and had open note exams. This greatly reduced the stress and the difficulty of the classes.
Going back to the linkage, about 100 people started the program in the fall. I know some people who have dropped out, but I am unsure exactly how many. So far, 12 people have been accepted into the DO program, so only small amount find out about their acceptance early. However, I expect there to be another wave of acceptances now that the year has ended. Though I should add, there are a lot of students who want to earn their masters and did not apply this year. During orientation they shared last year 17 first years and 24 second years entered the DO class of 2023 .
I applied broadly to DO schools while in this program. I received 5 interviews and have been accepted to a well regarded DO school. PCOM is my first choice, but I am still waiting for a decision. They want to see my final first year grades, which just ended. Because I applied broadly during my first year, I had to take time away from my classes to work on secondaries during the fall semester, and interviews during the winter semester. I do think this effected my grades, especially in the Winter. I did however, get into med school, so I can't complain.
If you get the masters, I think you have a really good shot at getting in. Almost all the second years that I have talked to have been accepted to the DO program, even ones that earned Cs in a class or had to retake some classes.
After finishing the first year, my feeling is to only do this program if you know you want to go to PCOM and focus on that. Study hard and a 3.3 is attainable, and if you don't get in the first year, you most likely will after the second. Based on my experiences I think that applying broadly takes too much time away from this program, and even if you get a 3.3 GPA it will not be impressive enough to the other schools.
