Hi I have been accepted into the BMS program! I am looking for more information about the program and how a typical day looks like. I know its a lot of questions but I am really anxious about the course.
- Are the classes conducted Monday through Friday?
- What is the duration of a single class and how long is an average day at school?
- Does the coursework include lab sessions? If so, How long are the lab sessions?
- I saw some of the thread messages stating 14 hours of study per day. Does this include the classes?
- Do we have time for volunteering or any other activities during the weekend?
- What are the other options available after the course if rejected at CMS?
- Would there be enough practice sessions for interview because I screwed up my interview for the med school last year. And I am really nervous about the interview.
Hey! Really great questions!
1. Yes, usually there are classes Monday-Friday. Occasionally, the days leading up to an exam will have no classes to give us extra time to study, but for the most part you will have some obligation every single day. The medical classes are held in the mornings, anywhere between 8-12pm, so there's up to 4 classes, each are 50 minutes with 10 minute breaks in between. Sometimes you'll have one class in the morning, sometimes 4. And then on some days you'll have afternoon classes and that includes TIPs (Topics in Physiology) and HIPs (Interprofessional Healthcare). TIPs is usually mandatory because there are 4 point quizzes that you have to go to take and HIPs is also mandatory. For Neuroscience, there are 4 wet labs throughout the quarter. For physiology and neuro, there are small groups in which you have a TA that goes over material with you as well as review questions so it's nice to attend those.
2. The medical classes are 50 min, they are recorded and not mandatory to attend as you can just watch the recordings a few hours later when they are uploaded. Also there are optional review sessions held by student TAs, that are usually in the evening like 5-7 or 6-8, they give a general overview of the material and there are usually 2 sessions for each class per 3 week exam cycle.
3. Coursework does have lab sessions, its only neuroscience that really has the true wet lab where you will be handling brain specimens. Physiology labs are just referred to as small groups, with the TA and the material. A lot of people don't go to those but I preferred to because it helps. For CMCB and Biochem, there really aren't labs, there are just 2 clinical case sessions where attendance is mandatory because it's 1% of your grade to just attend and discuss a case with a group of like 10 people. Only some of the labs are mandatory, none of the small groups are mandatory and the wet labs for neuro are also not mandatory. The only other truly mandatory classes are TIPs and HIPs, and of course the exams that are every 3 weeks. Exams are roughly every 3 weeks, either on a Friday or a Monday. You will take them on an online program called Examplify on your laptop, which has functions such as highlighting, flagging, and calculators. All exams are multiple choice and they are combined, so for example in your first quarter your combined exams will include CMCB and Biochem sections. In the Spring, it is Neuro and Physio. Exams are anywhere between 18-65 questions per class, depending on the amount of lectures that are tested. As a general rule, there are 2.5 questions per lecture on the exam. So for example if you're tested on 10 biochem lectures, the exam will be 25 questions for that class. For neuro, the exam is divided into the content based questions and the neuroanatomy portion, which includes pictures of specimens that you have to identify, and its still multiple choice but there will be many more options, such as A-K for each question. Most courses are generally graded the same way, it just depends on how the exams are weighed. For example, the Neuro, the 4 exams were weighted as follows: Exam 1 was 14.8%, 2 was 25.4%, 3 was 25.4% and exam 4 was 34.4%. For physiology, there are a total of 8 exams. CMCB has 4 exams and Biochem has 5 exams. CMCB has 5 quizzes that all together make up 5% of your grade, so if you get 100% on those it really helps. For neuro, there were 5 extra credit quizzes that totaled 1.25% on top of the 100%. Generally, >89.5% is an A, >79.5% is a B, >69.5% is a C and so on.
4. I would say on top of the 4-5 hours of class work per day, I would study about 5-6 hours. The week before the exam it would maybe increase to 10 hours. You will find a schedule that works for you but I promise there are enough hours a day to study the material you have.
5. Yes definitely! A lot of my friends were involved in intramural sports throughout the year and its highly encouraged! Our class also made a group to go to the local Feed My Starving Children during the weekends for those of us that needed extra volunteering hours. There are countless opportunities to get involved in volunteering and clubs and you'll definitely have time for those things if you choose to do so. The weekend before a Monday exam would be the most stressful time period I would say, and you most likely will spend it studying, but if an exam is on a Friday, you'll have the whole weekend to relax and celebrate and me and most of my friends always took the weekend off to recharge and get ready for the next exam cycle!
6. Many students concurrently apply to other medical schools along with CMS. I highly highly recommend doing that because it gives you back up options in the event that you don't get into CMS, and will put you at ease if you have another acceptance so you have somewhere to go at least. Some of my classmates also apply to other schools within RFUMS, such as the pharmacy school, podiatry, PA, etc. If those interest you, you should take to your advisor about applying to those as well!
7. There will be mock interviews held by M1 students in December, that are mock MMI style and they provide general feedback on improving. All of the advisors also have what are known as drop in MMIs, where they have prompts in their office and you can go to them whenever you want to practice. You can also make an appointment with any of them to discuss interview strategies and how to perform well on the interview. Finally, you can always ask an older student to help you practice a mock MMI. You can get as much help as you need as long as you are willing to seek it! Don't be nervous about the interview! They provide you with resources and practice as well as guidance to make sure you perform your best!
Hope this helps! Good luck!
i submitted late March and was marked complete around 4 weeks later. It took longer than usual because I had some issues with prerequisites that needed to be figured out. A lot of people get marked complete around 2 weeks after submitting
