School characteristics

Started by avivace
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avivace

avivace

Full Member
7+ Year Member
I interviewed at two different DO schools last week, and the social differences between the schools were both striking and unclear from the websites. I couldn't find any centralized descriptions through search, and the interview feedback doesn't seem to say why people liked or disliked a school. I thought it could be helpful if we combined our impressions of the sorts of non-academic qualities of schools that go into who they are a good fit for.

AZCOM seemed to have a lot of bright and friendly introverts. The faculty and staff were proud of their open door policy, and came across as somewhat granola, professional, and sincerely interested in the students. The cafeteria was filled with students who conversed at low enough volumes that it was easy to hear the people at your table. As a geeky and social introvert, I felt very comfortable at AZCOM.

Western-Lebanon was much more extroverted. Students, staff and faculty were very friendly and there was a lot of laughter. The pizza social got fairly loud, and the students were enthusiastic. The current students described a family atmosphere at the school, and there is much school involvement in the town. It was a warm, welcoming school and seemed like a great place for more extroverted students.
 
MSUCOM's Detroit campus only has ~50 students per class and I sat in on a few of their OMM labs. I got talking to a couple students and they said everyone really knows everyone at this campus and they were amazed going to East Lansing that not everyone knew all their classmates names. The Detroit campus is a lot more like a large family than anything and students interacted a lot with the faculty even outside of class. Before and after the lab students would come in just to say hi to the professors and hang out for a few. Students also mentioned they all study a lot together, they have a study room at the DMC which is only accessible to students so they all leave their books and laptops in there so everyone seems to have trust in their classmates. Overall everyone was really friendly and it may have been because it was OMM lab but everyone seemed really chill with everyone else. I think for people who want a more tight-knit class, Detroit would be a good fit (possibly Macomb as well, same class size).
 
True, Awesome, but it'd be nice to have an idea about which schools might be a good fit for various people before the interview.

Thank you, Pollos.

Does anyone have any comments on PNWU, CCOM, or DMU? Or other schools?
 
VCOM-CC seemed like a big family. Students had great relationships with professors and they genuinely seemed happy at the school. Overall the vibe was comfortable and welcoming, a little on the laid back side. Student guides also seemed more introverted but very social and interactive with us. Being in a smaller town (Spartanburg, SC) may have to do with the laid back atmosphere also.
 
avivace said:
True, Awesome, but it'd be nice to have an idea about which schools might be a good fit for various people before the interview.

Thank you, Pollos.

Does anyone have any comments on PNWU, CCOM, or DMU? Or other schools?
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I can only speak to my personal experience here at DMU as a first year student. The atmosphere is a good mix of introverts and extroverts along with everyone from 22 year olds to 38 year olds, married, single, engaged, divorced, we have it all there. Great mix of out of state students from across the country and a healthy mix of military medicine individuals as well.

As one of the interview tour guides, I would say the DMU interview day is typical of the day to day atmosphere, which is very extroverted and you get interprofessional experience with podiatry students, PT, and PA students. DMU tries to get individuals to relax a bit and not worry so much about the interview, and you get to talk to a multitude of students throughout the day as people will just stop by to say hi and answer any questions you may have. We love to talk to the interview candidates even if we aren't guiding the tours or anything that day.

This is a bit random of a response, if you have any more questions about DMU feel free to PM me.
 
Details please, Synaptic and Awesome? What did you love? What did you dislike?

Ouch, Awesome. I hope you had the KCUMB interview first.
 
I did have the KCUMB interview first but I had not been accepted until like 3 days after my MUCOM interview. So yea, I almost walked out of my MUCOM interview even without any acceptances in hand.

So for MUCOM, maybe it was just that the stars aligned or something, but there were gunners galore. Gunners interviewing with me, gunners giving us the tour (err I guess technically just gunner, one girl giving us the tour was really chill), then they mentioned gunners are in their program (giving people the wrong answers on purpose to make people do worse). It was like being around a bunch of robotic 14 year olds whose entire life depended on getting into med school, even if it meant they had to eat your first born child. I want to be a doctor and have been working hard on it for a good couple years but good Lord, there are other important things in life. My hopes definitely are in becoming a solid physician but my existence is not defined by beating everyone at everything every day for the rest of my life. ***I will add that obviously not every single person interviewing with me were gunners (I am sure some of you are here on SDN). But those that were not gunning tended to be more reserved and quiet (probably to try and not fit in with the gunners) which resulted in half the group being arrogant pricks and half the group not saying anything, so on every level it just made things awkward.

I actually really liked the interview itself, I enjoyed the MMI; when they called to accept me they said I had like the highest score overall in my group (or on certain hard interviewers? idk) which I guess shows how much I enjoyed it. I think MMI is a cool way to interview, especially combined with a traditional interview which they give as a 20 min section of the MMI. I think its probably the most fair way to gauge people - seeing as you basically are being judged by 7 separate people.

But as for the rest of MUCOM - F that... The facilities are nice and they certainly have the "promise" of solid rotations (I say promise because they could not actually answer any of the 6 questions I had on their plans for rotations). But the overall vibe that I personally felt from there was horrible... Which goes along with my original statement in this thread... Others will go there and fall in love with it - maybe they had an entirely different group of people which resulted in a different experience. Also people naturally are looking for different things in a program. I fit in well with KCUMB because most people there seemed more like me - older and/or non trad. Many people in the MUCOM program seemed like they were fresh out of undergrad (obviously there are non-trads but the amount of them was definitely less). The youthfulness of the program added a competitive spirit that I am not down for. If you love undergrad and are competitive then MUCOM is basically undergrad 2.0 so you would seriously thrive in it. No harm and no foul in that - you have to pick the program that you fit in best at. But I have been out of school and working for a while, I pay taxes, I am a married adult. I want to go to a program that caters to that type of person.

But maybe I am just grumpy... having come from KCUMB a couple days before, it was like everything lined up for me, everything was awesome about that interview day and I truly felt honored to be there as a possible student. It was just interesting, everyone involved in the interview day at KCUMB seemed very humble and down to earth. Which is remarkable because they have graduated more physicians than almost any other DO school... Then at MUCOM it was like this elitist attitude even though they had not even graduated a single class. They are definitely trying to be the "harvard of the osteopathic world" but they dont have anything to back it up with which I guess sort of came off arrogant to me...

And I guess having the confidence that my interview went pretty well at KCUMB, I just thought, if I am meant to be going to KC then it wont matter if I stay at this terrible interview at MUCOM anyways because the only way I would have gone there was if it was my only acceptance... But I ended up pushing through it and finishing the day fine.
 
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Awesome Sauceome said:
I did have the KCUMB interview first but I had not been accepted until like 3 days after my MUCOM interview. So yea, I almost walked out of my MUCOM interview even without any acceptances in hand.

So for MUCOM, maybe it was just that the stars aligned or something, but there were gunners galore. Gunners interviewing with me, gunners giving us the tour (err I guess technically just gunner, one girl giving us the tour was really chill), then they mentioned gunners are in their program (giving people the wrong answers on purpose to make people do worse). It was like being around a bunch of robotic 14 year olds whose entire life depended on getting into med school, even if it meant they had to eat your first born child. I want to be a doctor and have been working hard on it for a good couple years but good Lord, there are other important things in life. My hopes definitely are in becoming a solid physician but my existence is not defined by beating everyone at everything every day for the rest of my life. ***I will add that obviously not every single person interviewing with me were gunners (I am sure some of you are here on SDN). But those that were not gunning tended to be more reserved and quiet (probably to try and not fit in with the gunners) which resulted in half the group being arrogant pricks and half the group not saying anything, so on every level it just made things awkward.

I actually really liked the interview itself, I enjoyed the MMI; when they called to accept me they said I had like the highest score overall in my group (or on certain hard interviewers? idk) which I guess shows how much I enjoyed it. I think MMI is a cool way to interview, especially combined with a traditional interview which they give as a 20 min section of the MMI. I think its probably the most fair way to gauge people - seeing as you basically are being judged by 7 separate people.

But as for the rest of MUCOM - F that... The facilities are nice and they certainly have the "promise" of solid rotations (I say promise because they could not actually answer any of the 6 questions I had on their plans for rotations). But the overall vibe that I personally felt from there was horrible... Which goes along with my original statement in this thread... Others will go there and fall in love with it - maybe they had an entirely different group of people which resulted in a different experience. Also people naturally are looking for different things in a program. I fit in well with KCUMB because most people there seemed more like me - older and/or non trad. Many people in the MUCOM program seemed like they were fresh out of undergrad (obviously there are non-trads but the amount of them was definitely less). The youthfulness of the program added a competitive spirit that I am not down for. If you love undergrad and are competitive then MUCOM is basically undergrad 2.0 so you would seriously thrive in it. No harm and no foul in that - you have to pick the program that you fit in best at. But I have been out of school and working for a while, I pay taxes, I am a married adult. I want to go to a program that caters to that type of person.

But maybe I am just grumpy... having come from KCUMB a couple days before, it was like everything lined up for me, everything was awesome about that interview day and I truly felt honored to be there as a possible student. It was just interesting, everyone involved in the interview day at KCUMB seemed very humble and down to earth. Which is remarkable because they have graduated more physicians than almost any other DO school... Then at MUCOM it was like this elitist attitude even though they had not even graduated a single class. They are definitely trying to be the "harvard of the osteopathic world" but they dont have anything to back it up with which I guess sort of came off arrogant to me...

And I guess having the confidence that my interview went pretty well at KCUMB, I just thought, if I am meant to be going to KC then it wont matter if I stay at this terrible interview at MUCOM anyways because the only way I would have gone there was if it was my only acceptance... But I ended up pushing through it and finishing the day fine.
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