I have spent some time researching the forums and perusing anything mildly related to this discussion. I would love to hear updated comments/opinions ESPECIALLY from OMS-IIIs or IVs if they are willing to take the time. The latest thread that I could find that discussed RVU v. LECOM Seton Hill was back from 2012ish. While not forever ago, it was before RVU became fully accredited.
These are my two acceptances to date. Waiting to hear back from in-state MD (#1 of course) and KCOM.
RVU pros:
-The faculty I interviewed with left such a great impression. They were genuinely interested in learning about me instead of grilling me on anything.
-I liked the facilities a lot - new building was beautiful
-Not mandatory lectures
-Anat lab room was awesome
-Curriculum is structured in a way that clearly indicated they cared about the material being learned well. I love the idea of seeing the material twice before boards
-I like the OMM and anat fellowship opportunity
-Require USMLE and COMLEX (also kind of a con if you weren't already planning to do this...but I am)
Cons:
-The location in general is fine (CO) but I wasn't really a huge fan...kind of in a desolate barren area IMO
-49ishk/yr ($$$) this is the biggest con for me. If it were 30k I would go no doubt.
-Scholarship opportunities are abysmal and very limited to minorities or to those from rural/undeserved areas
-Fairly expensive cost of living as it seems. Could live in Denver but then a 30 minute drive from school sounds awful.
-Full dissection (as someone who has experienced it before, I am not a believer in its usefulness)
LECOM-SH pros:
-CHEAP (31k/yr)
-BEAUTIFUL. PA is gorgeous and I would love to live there. I'm more of a greenery person than a mountains person.
-Pretty campus
-Reminiscent of the midwest (where I'm from)
-More scholarship options that I would be eligible for (not a huge deal since it's so inexpensive)
-No full dissection
Cons:
-No cadaver at all
-Tiny campus
-PBL only a con because I'm very unsure of the learning mechanism and have seen all over SDN that it's worthless/waste of time/not preparing you for boards...:/
-Strict rules...I love to avoid class and go everywhere in athletic pants and eat when I am hungry (which I had to sneak during the interview day or I thought I would pass out)
-No fellowship opportunities?
Both are 12 hours from home in opposite directions so that is not a deciding factor for me.
I feel that they are comparable in match and boards, but correct me if I'm wrong. I realize RVU had 100% pass rate and number two in mean score, but I am less concerned with this as I feel this does not affect how an individual will perform on these tests.
This is long. Please let me know your opinions or how you all weighed each of these variables in your decisions.
Here is a post I made a couple of months ago for RVU in this thread -->
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/threads/pros-and-cons-of-your-do-school.407104/page-25
Let me know if you have any other questions!
Update for RVUCOM - From a current OMS-I (So take the things I say about clinical years with a grain of salt. I only have my own experience.)
Curriculum: This is arguably the strongest asset of our school. Our curriculum is pretty unique in that we cover all of the systems twice in blocks in our first two years. We have year long classes (OMM, Clinical Medicine, Medical Ethics, Medical Informatics, Anatomy), and then we have our specific systems courses.
First year we start with Molecular and Cellular Mechanisms --> Immuno/Heme/Lymph --> Musculoskeletal (Anatomy and clinical correlations of the back, upper limb and lower limb) --> Cardiovascular --> Respiratory --> Renal -->
Holiday Break --> GI --> Endo -->
Spring Break (1 week) --> Neuroscience --> Pathologic Basis of Disease I --> Pathologic Basis of Disease II -->
Summer (Last day June 15th)
Our first year curriculum focuses primarily on normal anatomy and physiology (with clinical correlations thrown in) until PBD I and II, and then the whole second year curriculum is Pathology and Pharmacology. So for instance, for the CV system, you will see normal anatomy and physiology in year I, talk about some pathology at the end of year I and then have a whole additional block that, after reviewing normal quickly, will focus on CV pathology, labs, pharm, etc. in Year II. So by the time you prepare for boards, you have seen all of systems 3 times before you even start board review. Because of this (IMHO), RVU had the best 1st time COMLEX pass rate in the nation this past year, with the second highest average COMLEX I score (by 2 points). The curriculum really does prepare us well for the future, so if you do poorly on boards, it's your fault and yours alone.
A few details:
- Passing for each class is 70% (no letter grades).
- Most lectures are not mandatory, with only special interactive sessions and labs being mandatory.
- Lectures are recorded and are posted within 15 minutes of the lecturer finishing up.
- We have standardized patients in our simulation labs on campus to test us on Clinical Medicine skills (pass/fail grading)
- We have 4 honors tracks: Rural and Wilderness Medicine, Global, Physician Scientist/Research, and Military Medicine (for all HPSP students)
- We have CutSuits! (for military and rural/wilderness tracks) -->
Location: RVU is located in a suburb of Denver called Parker. Parker itself is a very suburban community. If you're into that kind of thing (ultra safe neighborhoods, lots of shopping, etc.), awesome! You can live right next to school. I am a city guy myself, so I live in Aurora, which has cheaper rent, and is closer to downtown Denver, which has everything anyone could want from a big city (awesome food, good nightlife, all kinds of stuff to do, etc.). The beauty of it is that no matter what type of living situation you want, you can make it happen. I have classmates who are boarding their horses at ranches nearby that they go ride every day.
Mountains. Duh. The school itself is about an hour and a half-ish from the major ski resorts (Keystone, A Basin, Breckenridge, Vail, Beaver Creek, Copper, etc.) and closer to places to hike, mountain bike, climb, etc. Being active outdoors is a big deal at school. Everyone gets into the mountains. See social scene below.
Cost: $46,000ish?
Faculty: Like any school, there are some professors that are more engaging to listen to in lecture, but the overriding theme is that our faculty knows their stuff, and they are happy to meet with you to go over concepts you may not understand. Every single one of them has an open door policy, and we've even had a prof this year come in on the Saturday before her final and do an interactive whiteboard session to go over the immune response from start to finish with those that wanted to see it again (it took about 3 hours out of her weekend). I'm sure everyone says this, but our faculty really do care about us!
Reputation: RVU is still a fairly new school (first graduating class in 2010), but our reputation is growing really fast. I could tell stories all day of 3rd and 4th years that have received incredible feedback from their preceptors. Additionally, some of the first graduates are starting to land chief resident spots at great locations, so it's only getting better.
Clinical Rotations: This is my weakest area of knowledge. I know we have great rotations set up in the greater Denver area as well as a dedicated program in Colorado Springs, but that's about all I know. I'm originally from MN, and I plan on doing my whole third and as many audition rotations as I can land back there, so my research and time has been spent on those rotation sites. What I do know is that our clinical affairs office is super helpful and accommodating in setting up away rotations. All I need to do is get the OK from a doc that I can rotate with (I already have sites at Mayo, the U of MN, a Neuro Clinic and Abbott Northwestern mostly lined up) and the office will coordinate the relationship and get all of the paperwork that needs to be done lined up for me.
Housing: There is no on-campus housing, but there are all kinds of apartments, houses and condos within 10 minutes from school. Like I said earlier, housing costs are higher in the Parker area, but if you want to save some money, Aurora and Englewood are 15ish minutes from school, and are much more affordable.
Study areas: LOTS! There are 10 study rooms on the third floor equipped with flatscreen TV's that have HDMI hookups, whiteboard walls, and all kinds of plug-ins. There are also probably 25-ish more between the library and study nooks scattered around. There are lots of individual study areas as well all throughout the school, and they put like 87238947928734 plug ins throughout the school, with associated comfy chairs.
Social Scene: The social scene here is whatever you want it to be. We have students who are parents who spend time with other families, we have married couples without kids who group together, we have single people who like to keep to small groups, and we have single/dating/married people who like to hit up the scene in downtown Denver. We've had parties with classmates, etc. etc.
Arguably the best part about our social scene, however, is how active our class is. Any day of the week, there will be someone doing something active where anyone who wants to can get in on. We ski, hike, mountain and road bike, outdoor and indoor climb, play pickup football, basketball, hockey, volleyball, ultimate, disc golf, etc. You name it, there's someone in the class who wants to join. Right now, skiing and boarding are the main players, with groups carpooling up every weekend and many weekdays. Most of our classmates have the EPIC pass in one if its incarnations.
Edit: I forgot my favorite thing about the school. OMG. I'm willing to put money down that our class collaborates as much as or more than any other one in the nation. Our facebook group is filled with mnemonics, helpful videos, etc. So much so, that as a class we're putting together our own version of the classic board review book, First Aid, that is school specific. In other words, we're posting all of these helpful tips and tricks, mnemonics, study resources, full flashcard sets, and more to Google docs where they will become immortalized. We are planning on passing this link down to future classes with the hopes that we will all benefit. We have NO gunners to my knowledge. The people here are really awesome.
Tl;dr for edit: No gunners, we help each other. Seriously.
Local Hospitals: We are not affiliated with a hospital per se, but RVU runs a AOA IM program at skyridge hospital about 10 minutes from the school that we have very close ties to. As far as notable/regarded major hospitals go in the area, National Jewish is in Denver (#1 ranked respiratory medicine hospital in the nation repeatedly), and Denver Children's (in Aurora) was ranked a top 10 overall children's hospital in 2014.
Board Prep: We have board prep built in. To my knowledge, that includes a full KAPLAN course that's integrated into our tuition, and time off for self study. Like I said earlier, it seems to be paying off. We are also required to take both the COMLEX and USMLE, which means we're prepared for both, and therefore keep our options open as we're deciding on what residencies we're interested in.
Grades: 70% is passing, Some classes/competencies are Pass/Fail
For Profit Status: Just gonna address this before I get messages. This is not an issue for us students. We get an awesome education, they have not and are not holding money back instead of spending it on facilities, faculty are great, etc. If anything, this is a positive for students. When we ask for things, instead of having to go through the red tape of getting projects approved, things can be turned around extremely quickly. For example, a few years ago students were concerned that there weren't quite enough group study spaces on campus, they brought this to the administration at the end of their first year (with maybe a month to go?) and by the next year the 10 rooms with TV's and whiteboard walls were built. Quick.
I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff. If you have additional questions PM me and I'll get to them when I have a night off. Cheers!
Curriculum: A+
Location: A
Cost: B
Financial Aid: C
Faculty: A
Reputation: B+
Technology: A
Study Space/Library: A+
Library technology/Resources: A+
Rotations: A-
Social: A
Hospitals: A-
Post Grad: A
Overall Grade: A
