Podiatric College Appeal Index

[bobtheweazel]

UPDATE: I've added the 4-year graduation rate into the equations, updated cost figures, and made two separate overall indexes—a quality index which is independent of cost and an appeal index which is dependent of cost.

I've been trying to find an objective comparison of the podiatric colleges and couldn't find much so I've scrabbled this together. Let's call it the Podiatric College Appeal Index (I was gonna call it the Quality Index, but then I factored in cost and that's not so much related to quality). It is based entirely on objective data collected from the 2013-2014 Information Book as well as from the websites of each of the colleges. Links below.

It is assumed here that the appeal of a college is (1) proportional to the APMLE step 1 first-time pass rate, APMLE step 2 first-time pass rate, residency placement rate, and 4-year graduation rate and is (2) inversely proportional to the average yearly cost of attendance. An index for each of these factors was used rather than the actual factor itself to allow direct comparison to the average APMLE step 1 first-time pass rate, APMLE step 2 first-time pass rate, residency placement rate, and yearly cost of attendance across all nine colleges. In the equation used, the APMLE 1, APMLE 2, and Residency Placement Indexes were averaged and then multiplied by the Cost Index for an overall sort of "bang for your buck" metric. Also, I threw a constant into the mix to bring the final Appeal Indexes to average 1.00 for the sake of simplicity. Therefore, the "average" podiatric college according to this method would have an Appeal Index equal to 1.00 and those colleges with an Appeal Index greater than 1.00 should be considered more appealing than average and those colleges with an Appeal Index less than 1.00 should be considered less appealing than average.

AZPod Quality Index = 1.08
DMU-CPMS Quality Index = 1.07
NYCPM Quality Index = 1.02
SCPM Quality Index = 1.02
CSPM Quality Index = 1.00
AVERAGE Quality Index = 1.00
TUSPM Quality Index = 0.99
KSUCPM Quality Index = 0.99
WUCPM Quality Index = 0.94
BUSPM Quality Index = 0.90


KSUCPM Appeal Index = 1.20
DMU-CPMS Appeal Index = 1.07
TUSPM Appeal Index = 1.05
NYCPM Appeal Index = 1.04
BUSPM Appeal Index = 1.04
AVERAGE Appeal Index = 1.00
CSPM Appeal Index = 0.96
SCPM Appeal Index = 0.93
AZPod Appeal Index = 0.86
WUCPM Appeal Index = 0.86​

The data, tables, and equations used are attached in pdf format. Hope someone finds these useful. BTW, I realize that some of the date ranges for some of the data used aren't all from the exact same time period, but I think this is probably the best we could do with the information that the colleges currently have available.

References:
1. http://www.aacpm.org/html/careerzone/pdfs/AACPM CIB-2013 Entering Class.pdf
2. https://www.midwestern.edu/programs-and-admission/az-podiatric-medicine.html
3. https://www.midwestern.edu/Documents/Financial Aid documents/COA Forms/2015-16 AZ/Podiatry _AZ 1516 final.pdf
4. https://www.dmu.edu/cpms/program-outcomes/
5. https://www.dmu.edu/financial-aid/c...get-information/doctor-of-podiatric-medicine/
6. http://podiatry.temple.edu/sites/podiatry/files/Program Outcome Measures.pdf
7. http://podiatry.temple.edu/admissions/tuition-and-fees
8. http://www.nycpm.edu/outcomes.asp
9. http://www.nycpm.edu/tuition.pdf
10. http://www.rosalindfranklin.edu/scholl/SCPMProgramOutcomes.aspx
11. http://www.rosalindfranklin.edu/Portals/0/Documents/SFS/Billing/2013-2014 Tuition/Scholl College of Podiatric Medicine.pdf
12. http://www.rosalindfranklin.edu/pro...alServices/financialaid/CostofAttendance.aspx
13. https://www.kent.edu/cpm/admissions-faqs-0
14. http://www.kent.edu/bursar/tuition-and-fees
15. http://www.kent.edu/financialaid/coa
16. https://www.westernu.edu/bin/podiatry/dashboard2015.pdf
17. https://www.westernu.edu/financial/financial-budgets/financial-budgets-podiatry/
18. https://www.barry.edu/podiatry/podiatry-medicine-school/about-the-program/cpme-outcome-data.html
19. https://www.barry.edu/future-students/undergraduate/admissions/tuition-and-fees.html
20. https://www.barry.edu/podiatry/podiatry-medicine-school/financial-aid/tuition-fees.html
21. https://www.samuelmerritt.edu/podiatric_medicine/performance
22. http://www.aacpm.org/html/careerzone/CSPM_Viewbook.pdf

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[CardsFan92]

This is awesome. I wish I had had something this helpful six months ago

 

[Sweatshirt]

How bored were you last night

 

[Podseidon]

My top 3 are above the appeal index ayyyy

 

[bobtheweazel]

How bored were you last night

Pretty bored, lol

 

[pharmbl]

Nice! It is interesting that there is a relatively large gap between the top five and bottom four schools.

 

[Surf and study]

This is really informative. Thank you. It's a shame Berry University is second to last. ( It's my first choice school since I want to stay living in Florida.)

 

[bobtheweazel]

Nice! It is interesting that there is a relatively large gap between the top five and bottom four schools.

Right, those bottom four all have relatively poor performance on APMLE and all four of those are more expensive than any one of the top five. The two biggest outliers here are Temple and CSPM since Temple is the cheapest school and CSPM is by far the most expensive. The way that I've calculated it all Temple's low cost somewhat makes up for its below average academic performance and CSPMs outrageous cost just exacerbates its poor academic performance.

 

[bobtheweazel]

This is really informative. Thank you. It's a shame Berry University is second to last. ( It's my first choice school since I want to stay living in Florida.)

Well, Barry at least isn't the most expensive and still most of the students that go there do pass their boards, do get placed in residency, and do go on to become fine DPMs. The Appeal Index is just something to keep in mind. This data is based on a few years worth of board pass rates and residency placements and the underlying cause is an ongoing problem, whatever it is. If you do go to Barry, don't expect to just scrape by in the bottom 20-30% of the class and come out of the other side as a DPM. While you could probably get away with that at Arizona or DMU, if you perform poorly within an already academically poorly performing group you will not pass your boards within the chances allotted or you will not be matched into a residency.

From what I hear Barry has had both administrative and faculty problems in the past with disorganization throughout the school. If you go there, you'd better be very self-sufficient because I doubt that the academic or administrative support that is available at the top five schools is available at Barry.

 

[ArchiePod]

Interesting, I would think all cost aside, Graduation rate and Residency placement would hold the greatest weight considering you cannot do either without passing APMLE. Especially considering the past/current shortage of residency spots. I know CSPM has 10-20 thousand dollars in annual scholarships available for their students good for all 4 years if you just maintain a 3.0 and they have had 100% residency placement the last few years, and I am a little confused on your annual cost figures as well, just browsed AZPOD and their 2015-2016 total cost estimates are around $70k, and as far as I know most programs tuition for their podiatry programs are about the same. Temple, CSPM, and AZPOD are all 37-39k/year, and DMU, SCPM, and NYCPM are at/around 32-33k/year. I think this is a nice thing for you to do to try and give others a little insight into all the schools in one place, but personally I don't believe the gaps are as large as it seems. Just research the schools, see if you like them, and the interviews will give you the best insight as to what the school is really about. But really this is all just my opinion.

 

[bobtheweazel]

Interesting, I would think all cost aside, Graduation rate and Residency placement would hold the greatest weight considering you cannot do either without passing APMLE. Especially considering the past/current shortage of residency spots. I know CSPM has 10-20 thousand dollars in annual scholarships available for their students good for all 4 years if you just maintain a 3.0 and they have had 100% residency placement the last few years, and I am a little confused on your annual cost figures as well, just browsed AZPOD and their 2015-2016 total cost estimates are around $70k, and as far as I know most programs tuition for their podiatry programs are about the same. Temple, CSPM, and AZPOD are all 37-39k/year, and DMU, SCPM, and NYCPM are at/around 32-33k/year. I think this is a nice thing for you to do to try and give others a little insight into all the schools in one place, but personally I don't believe the gaps are as large as it seems. Just research the schools, see if you like them, and the interviews will give you the best insight as to what the school is really about. But really this is all just my opinion.

I appreciate your opinion. I included the links for pretty much all of the information that I used. For the most part the expenses came from the 2013-2014 information book. I can't compare an updated cost from one of the schools if the other schools don't ALL have updated costs on their websites as well since then I'm comparing the 2013 cost of one school to the 2015 cost of another. The cost of AZPod may have increased, and I am aware that the cost of Temple has also gone up and to some extent I am willing to assume that cost has increased across all 9 colleges, but there is no good way to track it. Here is the AZPod estimated cost directly from the information book.

Total cost per year would then be $49,553.00 which is the cost that I used in the calculations.

Also, all schools have merit scholarships for incoming students as well as for students who maintain a certain GPA, however when you are at the stage of choosing a school there is no way to know how you will fare in school over the next few years and what scholarships might be offered, so the base price of the school is a better metric to use than trying to guess how much scholarship you may earn when you don't know how difficult the curriculum will be for you or who your competition will be since at any school there is only a finite amount of scholarship money.

Lastly, interviews will give you some insight into what a school is about, but they are not going to advertise poor academics. They will advertise their strengths to you on interview day, not their weaknesses.

 

[bobtheweazel]

Interesting, I would think all cost aside, Graduation rate and Residency placement would hold the greatest weight considering you cannot do either without passing APMLE. Especially considering the past/current shortage of residency spots. I know CSPM has 10-20 thousand dollars in annual scholarships available for their students good for all 4 years if you just maintain a 3.0 and they have had 100% residency placement the last few years, and I am a little confused on your annual cost figures as well, just browsed AZPOD and their 2015-2016 total cost estimates are around $70k, and as far as I know most programs tuition for their podiatry programs are about the same. Temple, CSPM, and AZPOD are all 37-39k/year, and DMU, SCPM, and NYCPM are at/around 32-33k/year. I think this is a nice thing for you to do to try and give others a little insight into all the schools in one place, but personally I don't believe the gaps are as large as it seems. Just research the schools, see if you like them, and the interviews will give you the best insight as to what the school is really about. But really this is all just my opinion.

Also, there is a problem with putting all costs aside as the lifetime limit on federal loans is somewhere around $220,000. So let's say someone's racked up $40,000 in loans during undergrad. That only leaves $180,000 in potential federal loans. If you're going to a school like CSPM that'll probably cost you at least $80,000 per year in 2016 then that puts you $140,000 over your federal loan limit and into private loan territory which usually have higher interest rates and are very much credit based. The average student probably hasn't accrued some stellar credit level and may need to recruit a co-signer at this point, which is not always easy to find. Cost is definitely a factor for most students.

 

[ArchiePod]

I am not saying scholarships are a guarantee by any means, the point I was trying to make is that the cost of attendance is not that big of a gap between all of the schools and residency placement rates are of significant importance, and of course on an interview they're not going to emphasize any weakness, that's your responsibility to find out everything you need to know about that school. They are not going to lie to you especially considering the information is made public, so ask away.

I guess a lot has changed since 2013...
https://www.midwestern.edu/Document... Forms/2015-16 AZ/Podiatry _AZ 1516 final.pdf

 

[pharmbl]

Also, there is a problem with putting all costs aside as the lifetime limit on federal loans is somewhere around $220,000. So let's say someone's racked up $40,000 in loans during undergrad. That only leaves $180,000 in potential federal loans. If you're going to a school like CSPM that'll probably cost you at least $80,000 per year in 2016 then that puts you $140,000 over your federal loan limit and into private loan territory which usually have higher interest rates and are very much credit based. The average student probably hasn't accrued some stellar credit level and may need to recruit a co-signer at this point, which is not always easy to find. Cost is definitely a factor for most students.

Does this lifetime limit include grad plus loans?

 

[bobtheweazel]

Does this lifetime limit include grad plus loans?

No, don't think so. I'm just going off of memory from my Temple interview though. I'm not 100% sure.

 

[pharmbl]

No, don't think so. I'm just going off of memory from my Temple interview though. I'm not 100% sure.

Hopefully not. From what I understand, the grad plus loans are based on a review of your credit but are still pretty easy to get even if you have bad credit. You just have to have no accounts in collections and no bankruptcies and they will approve you. These will probably be the loans most will turn to after they hit the $224k limit of federal direct loans. I have been searching for the grad plus limit for a while but I have never been able to find one listed.

 

[bobtheweazel]

Hopefully not. From what I understand, the grad plus loans are based on a review of your credit but are still pretty easy to get even if you have bad credit. You just have to have no accounts in collections and no bankruptcies and they will approve you. These will probably be the loans most will turn to after they hit the $224k limit of federal direct loans. I have been searching for the grad plus limit for a while but i have never been able to find one listed.

OK, so Federal Direct Student Loan lifetime limit is $224,000. There is no lifetime limit for Graduate PLUS loans, only annual limits which are set by the college that you attend.

 

[Robert De Niro]

Great job putting all this info together comparing each school's stats. Only concern is the cost of attendance portion. Subjectively, I can't believe Cleveland has a higher cost of living than Philly, as I lived in both cities. Philly was head and shoulders more expensive from renting to groceries. You would have to contact each school and ask them what they used for that estimate. I would assume it would be cheaper to live in school provided housing vs renting an apartment/house throughout your education, but please correct me if I'm wrong. Problem here is that not every school provides housing for students. So some one with a family or who does not want to live in provided housing may have a higher price tag from what's estimated by the school. If that is the case, outside numbers would have to be obtained to see how much a 1 bed/1 bath apartment (or whatever your looking for) costs in each city.

Otherwise, great analytical study on comparing schools. Since the APMA doesn't release an "official" breakdown of stats you used, this is a great start.

 

[SLCpod]

I've been trying to find an objective comparison of the podiatric colleges and couldn't find much so I've scrabbled this together. Let's call it the Podiatric College Appeal Index (I was gonna call it the Quality Index, but then I factored in cost and that's not so much related to quality). It is based entirely on objective data collected from the 2013-2014 Information Book as well as from the websites of each of the colleges. Links below.

It is assumed here that the appeal of a college is (1) proportional to the APMLE step 1 first-time pass rate, APMLE step 2 first-time pass rate, and residency placement rate and is (2) inversely proportional to the average yearly cost of attendance. An index for each of these factors was used rather than the actual factor itself to allow direct comparison to the average APMLE step 1 first-time pass rate, APMLE step 2 first-time pass rate, residency placement rate, and yearly cost of attendance across all nine colleges. In the equation used, the APMLE 1, APMLE 2, and Residency Placement Indexes were averaged and then multiplied by the Cost Index for an overall sort of "bang for your buck" metric. Also, I threw a constant into the mix to bring the final Appeal Indexes to average 1.00 for the sake of simplicity. Therefore, the "average" podiatric college according to this method would have an Appeal Index equal to 1.00 and those colleges with an Appeal Index greater than 1.00 should be considered more appealing than average and those colleges with an Appeal Index less than 1.00 should be considered less appealing than average.

AZPOD Appeal Index = 1.20
DMU-CPMS Appeal Index = 1.17
TUSPM Appeal Index = 1.11
NYCPM Appeal Index = 1.10
SCPM Appeal Index = 1.10
AVERAGE Appeal Index = 1.00
KSUCPM Appeal Index = 0.92
WUCPM Appeal Index = 0.86
BUSPM Appeal Index = 0.83
CSPM Appeal Index = 0.71​

The data, tables, and equations used are attached in pdf format. Hope someone finds these useful. BTW, I realize that some of the date ranges for some of the data used aren't all from the exact same time period, but I think this is probably the best we could do with the information that the colleges currently have available.

References:
1. http://www.aacpm.org/html/careerzone/pdfs/AACPM CIB-2013 Entering Class.pdf
2. https://www.midwestern.edu/programs-and-admission/az-podiatric-medicine.html
3. https://www.dmu.edu/cpms/program-outcomes/
4. http://podiatry.temple.edu/sites/podiatry/files/Program Outcome Measures.pdf
5. http://www.nycpm.edu/outcomes.asp
6. http://www.rosalindfranklin.edu/scholl/SCPMProgramOutcomes.aspx
7. https://www.kent.edu/cpm/admissions-faqs-0
8. https://www.westernu.edu/bin/podiatry/dashboard2015.pdf
9. https://www.barry.edu/podiatry/podiatry-medicine-school/about-the-program/cpme-outcome-data.html
10. https://www.samuelmerritt.edu/podiatric_medicine/performance

Though you try to be as objective as possible, there may be some digging around that needs to be done to compare schools as you have done. Comparing 3 numbers doesn't make for a very good comparison. While the 3 that are compared are very important, there should be more than three things that go into the decision of which school to attend. You pretty much made this clear but I want you to know that I am on the same page.

As stated above in the thread, scholarships need to be calculated. You might need to consider WICHE for the western schools as well. I know that some schools are able to estimate how many patient encounters every student has before clerkships and that could be an important number. There are some student clinics that are like a ghost town and others that are a madhouse because there is so much to do. It would be important to look at the graduation percent in 4 years. It is easy to get into some schools and then they fail out half the class before they get a chance to take boards.

All in all this is a great start at comparing schools. HOWEVER, when one is deciding on which school to attend it should be done subjectively. It is far more important to go to a school where you know you can learn than to go to a school because of a few stats. Get the best bang for your buck! That might mean you want to go to a school with a DO program or one without. Who cares? Go to a program where YOU can succeed.

As for me, I think the best program is WSCADTNBK School of Podiatric Medicine... Yeah, that's all of them put into one. All your peers will be from different schools. Don't be the person that hates on others because they aren't from your program. I am not directing that to you Bob, but rather to everyone. I can't wait to meet some folks from other schools during my clerks this upcoming year.

 

[bobtheweazel]

Updated the main post, here are the new files.

 

[bobtheweazel]

Though you try to be as objective as possible, there may be some digging around that needs to be done to compare schools as you have done. Comparing 3 numbers doesn't make for a very good comparison. While the 3 that are compared are very important, there should be more than three things that go into the decision of which school to attend. You pretty much made this clear but I want you to know that I am on the same page.

As stated above in the thread, scholarships need to be calculated. You might need to consider WICHE for the western schools as well. I know that some schools are able to estimate how many patient encounters every student has before clerkships and that could be an important number. There are some student clinics that are like a ghost town and others that are a madhouse because there is so much to do. It would be important to look at the graduation percent in 4 years. It is easy to get into some schools and then they fail out half the class before they get a chance to take boards.

All in all this is a great start at comparing schools. HOWEVER, when one is deciding on which school to attend it should be done subjectively. It is far more important to go to a school where you know you can learn than to go to a school because of a few stats. Get the best bang for your buck! That might mean you want to go to a school with a DO program or one without. Who cares? Go to a program where YOU can succeed.

As for me, I think the best program is WSCADTNBK School of Podiatric Medicine... Yeah, that's all of them put into one. All your peers will be from different schools. Don't be the person that hates on others because they aren't from your program. I am not directing that to you Bob, but rather to everyone. I can't wait to meet some folks from other schools during my clerks this upcoming year.

I am on the same page, but beyond these few numbers you start falling into a lot of variables and it becomes a huge complexity issue where for many factors schools aren't directly comparable. I do wish that I could at least put in the patient to student ratio for clinics, but it seems like most of the schools (other than Temple and NYCPM) don't have super busy clinics and don't make that data readily available on their websites. I added the 4-year graduation rate into the calculations and made a cost independent Quality Index based solely on the APMLE step 1 & 2 pass rates, residency placement rates, and 4-year graduation rates.

I agree that there are a lot more subjective factors that should be taken into account when choosing a school, such as the resources available at each school and the overall mission and style of each school. Like I said though, those would be much more difficult to quantify and compare across all 9 schools.

Thanks for your input!

 

[Robert De Niro]

As for me, I think the best program is WSCADTNBK School of Podiatric Medicine... Yeah, that's all of them put into one. All your peers will be from different schools. Don't be the person that hates on others because they aren't from your program. I am not directing that to you Bob, but rather to everyone. I can't wait to meet some folks from other schools during my clerks this upcoming year.

I couldn't agree more! Maybe we cross paths some time during our 4th year.

 

[ExGaucho]

FYI: Western barely has any scholarships available to students & it can get pretty expensive if you want to live around the campus. Students are scared of walking more than a block away from the campus so they tend to live in Chino Hills (meaning car is required) or at the expensive student apartments around the campus. I must also add Pomona is HOT as hell so don't think it's SoCal beach weather at Western.

 

[TheCzechShrek]

In terms of a real-world difference how much does each 0.01 increment make?

Also how far back did residency take into account and was it equal between schools? I see Berry is pretty low but Im fairly certain they recently had a 100% residency placement for the recent grad class

 

[bobtheweazel]

In terms of a real-world difference how much does each 0.01 increment make?

Also how far back did residency take into account and was it equal between schools? I see Berry is pretty low but Im fairly certain they recently had a 100% residency placement for the recent grad class

Real world, there are a lot of subjective factors that something like this can't take into account and for many people those subjective factors may outweigh any objective ones, such as proximity to a school, emphasis of a school on research vs clinical training, etc.

The Barry numbers were averaged from 2013-2015. Up through July of this year, so it should be up to date. If they did have close to 100% placement this year then the last couple of years' placements were very low.

https://www.barry.edu/podiatry/podiatry-medicine-school/about-the-program/cpme-outcome-data.html

 

[babyelephant]

https://www.barry.edu/podiatry/news/article.html?id=25370

 

[bobtheweazel]

https://www.barry.edu/podiatry/news/article.html?id=25370

The pass rates that I used are the first time pass rates. Students who don't pass the first time get a second attempt which brings the schools overall pass rates (1st and 2nd time takers) much higher. I'm not aware of a third chance and I wouldn't wanna be in a spot where I even have to use the second chance.

 

[Doc NaCl]

Bob the weasel. You are the man! very helpful Index. Everything looks very good and thought out, except for the fact that you want to vote for Bernie

 

[TheSwedeness]

Bob the weasel. You are the man! very helpful Index. Everything looks very good and thought out, except for the fact that you want to vote for Bernie

Haha #bernie2016!!

 

[futuredr305]

Feel the Bern! Lol hey we can't all be perfect.

 

[babyelephant]

Is this updated with latest stats?
there are two index tables? top one is score wise and bottom is cost?

 

[bobtheweazel]

Is this updated with latest stats?
there are two index tables? top one is score wise and bottom is cost?

Bottom is stats but tales cost into account. Top one is stats only, regardless of cost. It's as updated as it can be.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using SDN mobile

 

[TXDPM2B]

This is an excellent resource. Great job compiling all the relevant data.

Thanks a lot!

 

[dr.phoot]

Just seeing this thread for the first time ever and... wow!!

Bob, seriously, some day you'll hold a very high position with AACPMAS and you're going to bring about some really great changes to the field!

Unless of course you just want to fly under the radar....