Touro University - California (TUCOM-CA) Discussion Thread 2014 - 2015

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Lycian said:
I know faculty at Touro have told me they have about 400 applicants for each seat. I don't actually know how that compares to other medical schools (they said it was similar to a high tier MD), or how that correlates to interview acceptance rates, but hopefully it partially answers your question!
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How can that be?

They've got 160 seats.... that would mean they have 64,000 applicants...
 
Lycian said:
I know faculty at Touro have told me they have about 400 applicants for each seat. I don't actually know how that compares to other medical schools (they said it was similar to a high tier MD), or how that correlates to interview acceptance rates, but hopefully it partially answers your question!
Click to expand...
I don't believe this... That would mean Touro has more than 60k applications, which is just flat out wrong. Harvard only got about 8k... even the most popular MD schools (GWU/Drexel/etc) only get about 13-15k.
 
Hmm that is a good point. I will need to ask about this, I may have misheard something and I don't want to spread false information.
 
yanks26dmb said:
Does anyone know how many they interview vs. How many they accept?
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Just interviewed here, 6000 apps, 500 interviews, 135 seats.
And DO NOT stay in Vallejo. I was offered drugs, someone tried to buy me (thought a was a prostitute- accidentally stayed at a drug motel) and the window on my car got smashed in (as did a bunch of others with OOS plates). Aside from the unsafe area- I was very impressed with the school and facilities. I am not trying to talk down on the school, I just want to warn you that if you are interviewing here, stay in Benicia- its a 15 minute drive and MUCH safer.
 
crossfit4lyfe said:
Just interviewed here, 6000 apps, 500 interviews, 135 seats.
And DO NOT stay in Vallejo. I was offered drugs, someone tried to buy me (thought a was a prostitute- accidentally stayed at a drug motel) and the window on my car got smashed in (as did a bunch of others with OOS plates). Aside from the unsafe area- I was very impressed with the school and facilities. I am not trying to talk down on the school, I just want to warn you that if you are interviewing here, stay in Benicia- its a 15 minute drive and MUCH safer.
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Thanks for the tips. Luckily I've got friends in San Francisco so I'll be staying in the marina. Only thing I have to worry about is some sf yuppie spilling coffee on me before the interview.

With a class size of 135 I'd imagine they give around 270 acceptances so about 55ish percent rate of acceptance.
 
Yeah they generally accept twice their class size or more to fill seats 🙂
 
crossfit4lyfe said:
Just interviewed here, 6000 apps, 500 interviews, 135 seats.
And DO NOT stay in Vallejo. I was offered drugs, someone tried to buy me (thought a was a prostitute- accidentally stayed at a drug motel) and the window on my car got smashed in (as did a bunch of others with OOS plates). Aside from the unsafe area- I was very impressed with the school and facilities. I am not trying to talk down on the school, I just want to warn you that if you are interviewing here, stay in Benicia- its a 15 minute drive and MUCH safer.
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Where did you stay??

The hotel the school offers - the Marriott Courtyard Vallejo Napa Valley on Fairgrounds Dr. near the Discovery Kingdom park should be very safe.
  • 5,239 applications were received for the Class of 2018.
  • Each class has 135 seats.
 
For those that have interviewed... Is the interview the same as last year with a panel and 4-5 other applicants in the interview with you?
 
Hey guys,
How long did it take to receive the secondary from Touro? I was verified couple weeks ago, but still have not heard back from them.
 
VanEman said:
It also looks like they have a preference for non-traditional. Over half the new matriculants are over age 25.
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I don't think this indicates they have a "preference" for non traditional. I think those people got in and they happened to be over age 25. I am one of them in this class of 2018, and I would like to think I am here because of my character and other attributes.
 
EmCEm said:
I don't think this indicates they have a "preference" for non traditional. I think those people got in and they happened to be over age 25. I am one of them in this class of 2018, and I would like to think I am here because of my character and other attributes.
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I certainly didn't mean to insult anyone. But the numbers do say something. AACOM reports that applicants to DO schools over the age of 25 represent about 20% of the total pool. They also represent about 20% of the new matriculants. So when one school has a proportion of "over 25 yrs" that's more than double the overall rate, more than 50% instead of the typical 20%, something's different at this school than the others. Perhaps older students simply want to go here and apply in greater numbers. Perhaps the school sees them as a better "fit."
 
I was complete on Sept 23. Should I be expecting an II soon?
 
It's just a small handful of 50+ year olds screwing the average quite a bit.

I can assure you that there is nothing shady going on. Some of these older gentlemen scored over 40 on their MCAT.

These older gentlemen just want to stay in California.
 
Oh I see... then it's probably just the older gentlemen wanting to stay in California. No one wants to be in the cold.
 
I remember seeing my breath while in SF for labor day a few years ago....
 
My aacomas primary was released about 2 weeks ago and Touro Ca is the only school that hasn't sent me a secondary. My stats are solid (3.8 overall, 3.6 sci, 34 mcat) and I shouldn't have been screened. How long does it take for them to send secondaries? Should I be concerned yet? All my family is in the bay area and this is one of my top schools.
 
Nelmezzodelcammin said:
My aacomas primary was released about 2 weeks ago and Touro Ca is the only school that hasn't sent me a secondary. My stats are solid (3.8 overall, 3.6 sci, 34 mcat) and I shouldn't have been screened. How long does it take for them to send secondaries? Should I be concerned yet? All my family is in the bay area and this is one of my top schools.
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I would call them.
 
Nelmezzodelcammin said:
My aacomas primary was released about 2 weeks ago and Touro Ca is the only school that hasn't sent me a secondary. My stats are solid (3.8 overall, 3.6 sci, 34 mcat) and I shouldn't have been screened. How long does it take for them to send secondaries? Should I be concerned yet? All my family is in the bay area and this is one of my top schools.
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Touro CA is a very paper-based process (you can't send them on-line LOR's for instance, they have to be paper) and it's also Jewish. The Jewish high holidays just ended, so I wouldn't be too worried. Fed Ex tried to deliver my LOR's on Rosh Hashanah and couldn't, and then tried to deliver them late on Friday---Shabbat---and couldn't. Eventually they got accepted. So I wouldn't worry for about another week. I visited the campus about a month ago and got to chat with a few students---smart, fun, very engaging and helpful.
 
dreday710 said:
Did everyone submit a resume?
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nope at the interview they told us since this is the first year they are doing an online app a lot of stuff for other programs is all on the application, but it's not necessary.
 
Does anyone know about Touro CA's clinical rotations? I've been seeing vague complaints about their quality in older threads but nothing too specific. Can anyone elaborate on this?
 
Complete in 8/11 and it has silent since... did my application get passed over?
 
wh2k13 said:
Does anyone know about Touro CA's clinical rotations? I've been seeing vague complaints about their quality in older threads but nothing too specific. Can anyone elaborate on this?
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If you have another option, go there instead.
 
PlasticBag said:
Is it possible to commute from SF...? That would make the location problem solved
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I've *heard* of people doing it, but it would be very impractical. Also, you would need a car to get to Mare Island. Honestly, I would not recommend it. That would be assuming you take the ferry.

You could also drive but....that's a long-a$$ drive.
 
PlasticBag said:
Is it possible to commute from SF...? That would make the location problem solved
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Silent Cool said:
The rotations suck and the location is awful. So is the match list. So is the "cafeteria."

Go elsewhere.
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I played a round of golf at the Mare Island Golf course right next to the school. The restaurant at the club had really good cheap dishes, and the clientele was a mix of old duffers and young med students----you don't have to eat at the cafeteria! There's a ferry that goes from SF to Vallejo, but San Francisco is so wildly expensive, it's much more reasonable to live in the east bay and just visit SF or view it from Mare Island.
 
Silent Cool said:
If you have another option, go there instead.
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Are you a current student there? I recently had an interview here, but I'm sitting on another acceptance and trying to weigh the two since I have much more of a connection to Norcal. Just wondering your reasons as to why you would say that though.
 
Bea5T said:
Yes.

Berkley and Davis are close aswell
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Silent Cool said:
I've *heard* of people doing it, but it would be very impractical. Also, you would need a car to get to Mare Island. Honestly, I would not recommend it. That would be assuming you take the ferry.

You could also drive but....that's a long-a$$ drive.
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VanEman said:
I played a round of golf at the Mare Island Golf course right next to the school. The restaurant at the club had really good cheap dishes, and the clientele was a mix of old duffers and young med students----you don't have to eat at the cafeteria! There's a ferry that goes from SF to Vallejo, but San Francisco is so wildly expensive, it's much more reasonable to live in the east bay and just visit SF or view it from Mare Island.
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Thanks for your replies. I live in a big city and it takes me about 1,5h by subway to get to class. So a 45-50min drive seems much nicer in comparison. I guess living in Berkeley would be a bit cheaper and closer maybe... Well, either way, apart from a couple of cities in the US, it seems like having a car is pretty much a necessity. I'd better get a driver's license.
 
PlasticBag said:
Thanks for your replies. I live in a big city and it takes me about 1,5h by subway to get to class. So a 45-50min drive seems much nicer in comparison. I guess living in Berkeley would be a bit cheaper and closer maybe... Well, either way, apart from a couple of cities in the US, it seems like having a car is pretty much a necessity. I'd better get a driver's license.
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Living in Berkeley is cheaper than living in SF. However, it's still expensive compared to other surrounding cities like El Cerrito or Albany. Closer cities to Vallejo are Pinole, Crockett, and Hercules but they're much more suburban. Also, yeah you definitely need a car. BART sucks.
 
Silent Cool said:
The rotations suck and the location is awful. So is the match list. So is the "cafeteria."

Go elsewhere.
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Im really curious why you would say that. Touro CA seems to pull in a lot of high level students, especially many UCB and UCLA grads. Location is probably a factor but their stats and demograhpics seems to say there's a reason students choose this school?

http://admissions.tu.edu/com/demographics.html
 
jjtheairplane said:
Im really curious why you would say that. Touro CA seems to pull in a lot of high level students, especially many UCB and UCLA grads. Location is probably a factor but their stats and demograhpics seems to say there's a reason students choose this school?

http://admissions.tu.edu/com/demographics.html
Click to expand...

The reason is California.

Honestly, a lot of other DO schools are much better. It is in an absolutely awful location. But yes, it does get a lot of good students.
 
Silent Cool said:
The reason is California.

Honestly, a lot of other DO schools are much better. It is in an absolutely awful location. But yes, it does get a lot of good students.
Click to expand...

I was impressed by the quality of students they pull in, stanford, yale, princeton,berkely 30.4/3.5.
anyway, my interview is coming up here and im oos.
 
I personally think Touro is a very good school. Before I applied, I spent about a year researching and exploring the schools I could go to before decided TUCA was hands down my top choice (MD or DO). I ended up having fairly high numbers, so I only applied there and tailored my application to the school.
Since that point, I've discovered Touro is actually a better school than my initial impression.

Some of the things I like most about the school are as follows:
*Very good student environment. Everyone feels like part of a family and actively tries to support/help each other, rather than gunning and we sometimes go on very cool adventures together over the weekends. I actually like every single person in my class, which was not something I was expecting.
*The school has an exceptionally good OMM department.
*The school puts a very strong focus on training you for being good at doctoring, rather than just learning information for the boards. This was something I specifically cared about in my selection process, but also something a lot of programs have noticed and I believe helps Touro students match well.

I also think these things are very positive attributes:
*Everyone here is very open minded.
*We are in a great location, both for the school and access to the bay area+the nature in the area.
*A lot of the faculty here are super cool, and most are happy to spend 1 on 1 time with you when you need it.

(both of these lists were off the top of my head so I'm missing some things).

Basically, I'm just really happy and thankful to be at this school.

Also since some people have asked, I strongly advocate living on Mare Island.
I had the option of living a 45 minute drive away (no traffic for commute) at free housing in an extremely nice area. I decided against that, partly due to liking Mare Island, but primarily because I didn't want to have to deal with burning my time on a commute. If you want to have fun in the bay area, you can travel to it with minimal effort when you're not in class. The restaurants here are definitely worse than those in San Francisco, but that's the only major difference I've noticed (and cared about).
 
Thanks for
Lycian said:
I personally think Touro is a very good school. Before I applied, I spent about a year researching and exploring the schools I could go to before decided TUCA was hands down my top choice (MD or DO). I ended up having fairly high numbers, so I only applied there and tailored my application to the school.
Since that point, I've discovered Touro is actually a better school than my initial impression.

Some of the things I like most about the school are as follows:
*Very good student environment. Everyone feels like part of a family and actively tries to support/help each other, rather than gunning and we sometimes go on very cool adventures together over the weekends. I actually like every single person in my class, which was not something I was expecting.
*The school has an exceptionally good OMM department.
*The school puts a very strong focus on training you for being good at doctoring, rather than just learning information for the boards. This was something I specifically cared about in my selection process, but also something a lot of programs have noticed and I believe helps Touro students match well.

I also think these things are very positive attributes:
*Everyone here is very open minded.
*We are in a great location, both for the school and access to the bay area+the nature in the area.
*A lot of the faculty here are super cool, and most are happy to spend 1 on 1 time with you when you need it.

(both of these lists were off the top of my head so I'm missing some things).

Basically, I'm just really happy and thankful to be at this school.

Also since some people have asked, I strongly advocate living on Mare Island.
I had the option of living a 45 minute drive away (no traffic for commute) at free housing in an extremely nice area. I decided against that, partly due to liking Mare Island, but primarily because I didn't want to have to deal with burning my time on a commute. If you want to have fun in the bay area, you can travel to it with minimal effort when you're not in class. The restaurants here are definitely worse than those in San Francisco, but that's the only major difference I've noticed (and cared about).
Click to expand...

Thanks for your input.

Silent Cool said:
The rotations suck and the location is awful. So is the match list. So is the "cafeteria."

Go elsewhere.
Click to expand...

Silent Cool, I didn't know you went to Touro-CA!

Anyway, as one of the 2014 grads, I think Touro-CA is a great school. It's obviously not the best. But if you'd like to do medical school and residency in California, especially Northern California, it is a good option for this reason and those stated above.
 
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