What was your stats if you don't mind sharing?
Hi! I got accepted to the program 2019-2020 and I wanted to ask a couple of questions to get an idea of how to prepare!!
1) The schedule changes dramatically with classes. You still start off only taking molecular cell biology with is typically only two hours once per day every day. (it was 9-11am for us). Once you get into anatomy you will have lecture and labs and is very time consuming (but my favorite class). Spring semester is generally about 4 hours of lecture a day. The rest of your day will be spent studying and/or working in your research lab.
Yeah, thank you so much! As a follow-up question, did you or any classmates get any publications out of your lab work? Or were you mostly doing gruntwork.
I applied a couple months back, but they were pretty prompt about it so I'm assuming you should hear back in a week or two if it was anything like mine! I got a 507 on my MCAT, from what I've heard that should be enough to not have to retake it, but I'll probably ask a little more about it once the year starts.
No. Some have great undergrad grades (though many, like me, did not). Many had little to no researcher experience, little to no medical exposure, and/or little to no volunteer experience.
This program would help address both the GPA and provide lots of opportunity for volunteering and medical exposure. If those are your weaknesses, a program that addresses those weaknesses and gives you a guaranteed interview if you don't screw around would seem like a good fit to me. A 510 is the exact average MCAT of UTCOM.
Some research experence is better than nothing, but pubs are gold. Some med schools I interviewed at don't want to hear about your research experience unless you got pubs. The Toledo MSBS program has a very heavy research component, and many students got pubs, though many students who were accepted into UTCOM didn't end up with pubs (yet).
We are not in competition with each other, and the year is extremely difficult and stressful. Most people bond pretty well through the shared
You mean UT? Reasons can be anything from:
We're pretty spread out. Only a couple of us lived together during MSBS, though quite a few of us will be for M1 year. A few of us lived with med students.
The M1's that are former MSBS students are all mentors for us, and work with us quite a lot over the year. A few of us are close to other M1's for other reasons (room mates, hanging out at bars, etc).
It's expensive, especially if you are from out of state. Though you can get in-state tuition as a medical student making it overall cheaper than going to a private med school.
Yes indeed.
While I think Cinci has a really good program, there were a few key differences that prevented my from applying. Their medical school has tougher admissions stats compared to Toledo's (if i couldn't get into Toledo's, med school from their SMP, I probably wouldn't get into Cinci), without significantly better step scores or residency placement. At the time they also were not offering a guaranteed interview either if you did well in their program (i hear they are now). It's a smaller program and a bit harder to get into compared to Toledo's MSBS. They also have a bit of emphasis on MCAT prep, (I didn't need or want that), and not as much emphasis on doing research (I needed more research experience, and it will be helpful in the future when applying to competitive residencies). I've also got the impression over the last year while interviewing at med schools around the state (including at Cinci) that their med school has a bit more cut-throat / gunner atmosphere compared to Toledo, and I just can't do that (but others do really well in that environment... im a delicate flower).
Not at Toledo.
Short answer: a person who has weaknesses not addressed by the Toledo program, or doesn't do well in Toledo's culture.
To SMPs? Yeah, I had a 35 MCAT from the old school format, and a 508 from new school. 3.2 cGPA, 3.9 sGPA. 2 years of no-one-cares research with drosophila (NO ONE at any medical school I interviewed at cared. "Do rodents or you are wasting everyone's time." I was told at one point.). A stupid ton of medical exposure. OK amount of volunteering. 4 years of striking out on wait-lists at medical schools. But I am an N of 1. What is more important is the MSBS class ranges and averages. Our average MCAT was like a 505 I think with a range of 500-512ish? I don't remember. Undergrad cGPA of like 3.4-3.5 with a range of like 2.8-3.9? I should have stats of successful MSBS students over the past 2 years in a few weeks.
Yeah, I think everyone in my class did. Since you get a guaranteed interview during your MSBS year, you might as well. Why put it off and chance it after MSBS? Probably 70% or more of my class also applied to other MD/DO schools and many of us got outside acceptances (some even pulled their UTCOM applications when they got into their first choice schools).
This is a super important question and one that was most important to me in choosing a SMP. The short and official answer from UTCOM is "no - you are not starting over", and "yes-there is a chance of getting rejected based on pre-MSBS performance".
I really don't know much about how the MSBS program chooses who they accept and not. Things that I think were helpful for me were:
In my opinion it's just common sense stuff. However it shocked me how many people had no common sense, or any sense of professionalism what so ever. I wore sweatpants/sweatshirts to class, but bis-cas when meeting with faculty. I always followed instructions, showed up on time, and wasn't disruptive (that I know of), wasn't disrespectful to faculty or other students (again that I'm aware of). The stories we have about other students you wouldn't even believe. Never felt like I was stepping on egg-shells.
oops. didn't see the second message from you Vanilla98 Thanks for the tag egj15
Here are my (and the classes) biggest gripes.
I got involved in too much volunteer stuff too early on. We think doing volunteering while in MSBS is important (looks like it's statistically significant variable in who got accepted vs who didnt), but doing too much can impact your grades. The first class starts off kinda slow, but then 2 weeks in, bam, im drowning, and have like 3 other volunteer commitments and a side hustle for money... I would have held off on signing up for volunteer stuff and my side hustle.
I guess if I had to describe the admin staff culture in 1 word, it's "chill".
Here is an excerpt about attendance from the Unofficial MSBS Survival guide that incoming MSBS students will get:
We interviewed on 4 different Fridays in March. Mixed 50/50 with non-MSBSers. Actually, quite a few of the gen applicants I interviewed with got in. In the past this interview was done with only MSBS students in April. No idea what it's gonna look like next year. We found out a few at a time through June (later than last year) which was somewhat obnoxious for those of us who were sitting on other acceptances that needed firm commitments. But it worked out.
No. In the past they did do this, but a few years ago they separated the programs. We get many of the same lecturers, with the same slides, and some of the same test questions. Super excited to get the same test questions wrong in M1 that I botched in MSBS.
It's weird. We are on a semester schedule, but MCB (molecular cellular bio) goes from August through October, then A&P and BioStats goes from October until we got out in Dec. In Spring, Organ Patho goes from Jan to April, and Immuno/Micro goes from March through April (though in the past it has been an intense couple week crash course). We also had to be doing 10hrs in the research lab throughout both the first and second semesters, and 20hrs in the summer. This summer we had mandatory seminars and lectures we had to go do. Present on our research and write up a manuscript. Other than that, we all live in the labs (unless youre like me who does computer based research and just chill at Starbs all day).
Certainly didn't affect me. Might have changed how they present info in the MSBS curriculum, but I wouldn't know any different.
I was not very clear here and I can see how my responses are confusing. I actually think they do a good job with opportunity to get "clinical experience." From working in an outpatient clinic, to doing rounds on inpatient floors, to shadowing, there is tons of opportunity to get clinical experience (and we collectively as a class highly recommend doing it in MSBS). What Toledo doesn't do that some SMPs do is offer any kind of training in "clinical skills". One of the SMPs I got accepted to gets all their students trained as EMTs (which I am already one so that didn't interest me much, plus I am gonna be a doctor, so whats the point.). One of the SMPs I was looking at gets everyone BLS certified (again I already got that and would rather spend my time boning up for med school). For the Toledo MSBS program, you won't be learning "clinical skills" like CPR on dummies, learning how to place IVs, doing stitches, or anything like that. If you want to spend your SMP time learning how to shove tubes up robot urethras, Toldeo is not gonna be for you (unless you get into med school at Toledo... then you do all sorts of stuff with robots).
So this kinda depends on the school. Some schools will straight up filter out people with GPA less than whatever their cutoff is. However, many schools like to sort applicants into different pools. You got the killer MCAT/GPA pool, non-traditional pool, and possibly a grad degree pool. While no school is going to tell you how they decide who they do and don't interview, having a grad degree improves your odds of getting into med school (https://www.usnews.com/education/bl...programs-can-help-you-get-into-medical-school), without even touching your undergrad GPA. So, while your MSBS grades do not directly boost your undergrad GPA, it can help you get you looked at by AdComs. I wasted 4 years of my life applying to med school and getting rejected or waitlisted with my only real huge weakness being my undergrad cGPA. In one year in an SMP, I got multiple acceptances from DO and MD schools. SMPs aren't for everyone. But if undergrad grades are holding you back, it's certainly something to think about. Wish I would have done it straight out of undergrad.
Join the facebook group? ...https://www.facebook.com/groups/305563087015897
My personal recommendation is that you have your primary AMCAS/AACOMAS app out and submitted to everywhere you want to apply. Turn secondaries in everywhere as quick as you can EXCEPT to Toledo. Hold off on the Toledo secondary (more info on this in the survival guide linked in the facebook group). In your secondaries I'd mention the masters program that you will be doing and how it has a rigorous curriculum and research. It got brought up in every interview I went on last year (minus UTCOM obviously).
