Schools with Strong Communities

[premed1244]

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Community is something very important to me, and I'm curious if there are schools or regions known for having tight-knit ones. I'm not a fan of the everyone for themselves, go it alone style. Does this differ significantly from school to school?

 

[DingoPingo]

i feel like the less prestigious the school the more community there is

 

[aalamruad]

i feel like the less prestigious the school the more community there is

I feel like more prestigious schools are more likely to have grading systems that encourage collaboration, which leads to community. As far as I'm aware, it's the lower-tier schools who don't as frequently have unranked P/F grading systems, which incentivizes competition between classmates that can harm the general sense of community. Just my impression, I could be wrong.

 

[RogueBanana]

George Washington has one of the best communities I've ever seen at an institution.

 

[bananafish94]

I imagine that it does vary between schools, especially if students are graded against each other. A collaborative environment was important to me as well and it's something that you have to feel out in your interviews. Some schools just have a certain vibe.

 

[Frogger27]

I think most of the Jesuit schools have really good communities/community involvement

 

[Goro]

My students are really tight with other. Very altruistic.

 

[Frogger27]

In my experience, Loyola, Creighton, and OUWB (interviewed at all 3, second look at 2, attend one) all had really tight-knit communities oriented around a mission that was very tangible in the curriculum, student services, extracurricular opportunities, etc.

Also, regarding the earlier poster who said all the Jesuit schools, I actually did not get a great community vibe at Georgetown, but of course it could have just been the few people I talked to.

Great post, forgot GT was Jesuit..... Jesuit - GT = great community

 

[WedgeDawg]

My experience leads me to believe that Columbia has an unusually close-knit community.

 

[ChrisMack390]

I got this feeling at UVM

 

[aalamruad]

My experience leads me to believe that Columbia has an unusually close-knit community.

I definitely got that impression

 

[premed1244]

Thanks for the input everyone, I'll definitely be sure to look for P/F schools and I'll be on the lookout at (hopefully) my interviews.

 

[Gryffindor20]

I got this impression at Tulane. It was pretty amazing how supportive everyone seemed of each other.

 

[DrBowtie]

Is "community" some millennial term?

You'll end up with 5-10 people you are close with, 90% of people a good acquaintances, and 5% you'll despise or ignore.

 

[sazerac]

I second Tulane... everyone was just genuinely SO friendly... so many students stopped to say hi and wish me luck on campus that day... haven't seen this everywhere.

We select for friendliness at the student lunch interview.

It seems like there are a lot of med schools with a strong community... I wonder what some examples of schools with low community are.

I definitely went on some interviews where I never met a med student, so I have no idea what their community feels are.

 

[mcatjelly]

EVMS. I mean, I have no idea what other schools are like, but the M2s put together a Google Drive for us M1s of book pdfs, a ton of study aides, anki decks, etc. and organized it according to the new curriculum which is different from theirs, a group of M1s make anki decks for every lecture and send it out to everyone, several times I've gone to lab for self-study I've had someone I've never talked to sit down with me for over an hour and spontaneously tutor me, everyone is posting helpful study aides they've found on our Facebook group, everyone is inviting everyone to every social event... again, maybe this is the norm, and there are certainly people who aren't this way, but overall I'm really impressed with the camaraderie.