questions to ask med. schools

[Wishbone]

Hi all,

I am applying to medical school (DO/MD) school this coming year. I am hoping some people could give me some advice on what I should look for or question I would want to ask. So far I have the following:

1. Curriculum: Systems or intergrated

2. Where I could be aspect to do my clinicals: rural verses city, hospital vs clinic, all in the same city or dispersed throughout the state.

3. Tutition/ size of class, faculty student ratio, percent of drop outs, passing the boards.

4. How much time out side of lectures could I expect to meet with faculty? I have heard from some schools most of my extra tuturing would be from more advanced students rather then faculty, though one school even said professors would even meet with students on the weekends.

5. The school's affliated hospitals

Anything things else?

-Thanks in advance.

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[Carbon Klein]

It's good to have a few questions to ask during your interviews just so that you can look like you're interested in the school. Most of the questions you've listed will actually be explained during the morning presentation on the day of your interviews. All the schools at which I've interviewed have discussed in great detail their curriculum, their boards pass rates and useful information like that.

The question about academic support is good because most schools don't talk much about their tutoring programs. In fact, none of the schools in which I interviewed mentioned word one about tutoring struggling students, but I would imagine that many if not all of the schools have such a system in place.

In addition to the items you've listed, you can consider my top questions of any school:

1. Can I get a copy of the last year's or the current classe's match list?

2. Do graduates place in the state or do they place all over the country (In particular, I needed to see if graduates get residencies in my home state of California).

3. Are all the specialties well represented in the match, or are they mainly primary care? I'm interested in Surgery and its subspecialties, are there many students from this school which match in surgery programs?

4. What happens to your non-matched students? How does the school take care of graduates who didn't match?

5. Does this school encourage people to find their own specialties or does it funnel students into primary care?

6. what kind of Scholarships are offered and do they apply to out of state applicants?

7. What do students do for fun here?

8. What's the housing situation?

9. Are there research opportunities available during the school year or the summer?

10. Is the AOA honor society (MD schools, not DO schools) represented at this school?

11. Can we choose the order in which we take our rotations or is that fixed? Can I take a 4th year elective in the 3rd year? I want to go into neurosurgery and due to their early Match schedule, I need to take a neurosurgery elective in my 3rd year rather than in my 4th year, is that possible?

If you get a researcher interviewing you, be sure to ask about research (especially their research)....even if it doesn't interest you, then at least you'll score some favorable points with the interviewer.