Hi there,
So ultimately I chose Toledo because I felt it best addressed my application weaknesses, and gave me the best chance to get into med school right away.
Here are a few of the things that made me choose Toledo.
- It's only 1 year long (well, more like 10 months). I don't got time to do a 2 year program.
- You get a degree. I ended up applying to teach (and got a job offer) at community colleges (in one of those freak out moments when I didn't know if I would get into med school) and a masters degree opens up more opportunities than does a non-degree post-bac.
- It opened another state for me that had many schools I could get in-state tuition as a med student. Was also looking at SMPs in a few other states that did this, but Ohio is a good state to get that in-state tuition in.
- It has a guaranteed med school interview. Many programs have this though.
- It has a legacy of success. Very consistently 60%+ of MSBS students matriculate at UTCOM, and over 80% matriculate somewhere straight out of MSBS. Those are odds I can live with . My class had 60% UTCOM matriculation rate with 80% overall matriculation rate into med schools.
- You are not competing against your classmates for a set number of spots in the medical school. They were very up front with us that they could take the entire MSBS class if they wanted to (and in the past have come really close to taking the entire class). They have the room (and to this day are still accepting people off waitlists).
- They recruit a pretty diverse class. I'm quite possibly the most bland / non-diverse person in the class, but I do much better when I'm around people with completely different backgrounds than my own, and I felt that they did an overall good job putting together a pretty diverse class.
- The classes were separate from med students. This was actually important to me. I don't thrive in competition. I just want to go in and do my best and not have to compare myself to others. There are other really great SMPs around that have you take classes side-by-side with med students, and you are compared to them. Wasn't for me, but is a big deal for others.
- The same PhDs and MDs that lecture in the med school give the same lectures to the MSBS program, and overall the curriculum is super rigorous. By the end of MSBS, you will know if you gonna make it in Med School. I had a low cGPA from undergrad, so I needed pretty rigorous medical academics to convince AdComs that I don't suck.
- Research is a large component of the program, and another area I was fairly weak in. This is where we start to see a lot of divergence from Toledo to other SMPs. Some SMPs will do MCAT prep (which I didn't want), some will even get you CPR and BLS certified (I figured whats the point since i'm hopefully going off to med school anyways), but Toledo gets you REAL research experience. Many of us got sent (all expenses paid) to various conferences around the country to present our research and network. And research experience, and pubs in particular, are freaking GOLD to AdComs. Every single medical school interview (except for Toledo) I went to asked me about my research. And if I want to do a competitive residency, I'm gonna need some research. I plan to continue on with my lab through med school and crank out them pubs.
- Full cadaver dissection in anatomy. None of that sheep heart/brain BS. Many students also stayed on in the cadaver lab to help prepare professional quality plastination specimens. Another crazy cool opportunity.
- Free coffee.
- Really good volunteer opportunities in the teaching hospital right were we take classes and outpatient clinics. This was also a big deal for me as I got to know many physicians and various people on staff. This helped me line up shadowing opportunities.
- Good cost-of-living. Comparing Toledo to Boston, NY, Chicago, or even Cleveland or Cinci, cost of living here can't be beat.
- Close enough to a few big cities that I can do anything, but far enough away to not get distracted.
- The medical school is high quality, has great perks, has higher than average board pass rates, and puts a larger percent than average into specialty residency programs.
All that said, it really worked out for me, and I got into multiple medical schools. I decided to stick with Toledo for medical school as it is such a great and super underrated school. I mean, we take Step1 right here on campus in our own testing facility while the test proctors give us home made cookies. There are like only 4 other schools in the nation that do that.
