Agreed. Your first quarter, which is probably when you spend the most time in the med school building, you only have 3 hours a day that are just straight lecture. MWF, even though it's "8:30-5", it's actually lectures from 8:30-10:30, 3 hours off, then one lecture from 1:30-2:30, and lab from 2:30-5. Keep in mind that's the time scheduled for lab - most days don't last that long, some days last longer. Plus, I always find that lab time flies by. TTh we had our clinical skills "lecture" scheduled from 11:30-12, but there was usually only a lecture on Tuesdays (and there were maybe 5 or 6 in the 10 weeks of the quarter), and Thursdays is small group interactive stuff, like learning how to do heart and lung exams - something that's really rare to get in your first year, never mind your first quarter!
Winter quarter your schedule eases considerably - especially since you only have anatomy lab 3 times a week instead of 5, and if i remember corretly it's an hour shorter.
On top of all that, it's 8:30-5 assuming you GO to everything, all the time. I'd say that's pretty rare. People do tend to generally go to class, but many people choose to spend that time studying on their own and do just fine. When I was in undergrad, this idea sounded completely abhorrent to me - I thought when I got to med school I'd go to every lecture, that that was the only way to learn. I learnt differently very quickly, and while I did go to most lectures, you figure out very quickly which ones are worthwhile and which ones to miss, and my test grades were still consistently above average. And I'm definitely NOT someone who spends every free moment studying, or is just "incredibly smart" naturally (I know that tends to be the write-off when people on this site hear "I don't have study 8 hrs a day").
Just to put in my two cents compared to other curriculums - I'd say you sometimes have to beware of schools that cut back significantly on lecture time. Remember that starting medical school is a *huge* transition (it really will be unlike anything you've ever done before), and you're essentially learning how to speak an entirely new language. Lecture time really helps with that, and I often find when talking with med students at schools with more PBL-type cirriculua that those students are essentially left to fend for themselves. I really feel like that's not the case here, the profs and TAs are amazing and always ready and willing to help. Just a thought.
