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Hellooo everyone,
I am a current ACLP student at Tulane, and I thought I would go ahead and start this year’s thread! I know it’s a painful to be thinking about ACLP or PB/SMPs if you’re currently waitlisted at schools and hoping to get in, but ACLP is a really excellent opportunity for applicants who have had a rough cycle to turn their luck around and get into a well-regarded medical school with the opportunity to TA gross anatomy! All 20 2018-2019 ACLP students received and completed an interview this year are currently awaiting a response from the admissions committee.
Last year’s thread (Tulane ACLP 2018-2019) contains a few really awesome posts by former ACLP students about the program. In fact, Perineal_buddy522’s post pretty much contains almost everything I could possibly say, information-wise, about all the logistics of ACLP, so I’ll spend a little time summarizing what he’s already said/what’s different this year and then move on to my own personal experience with ACLP:
ACLP Timeline:
Complete your ACLP application by May 31, 2019. You do need to have been waitlisted at an MD or DO school during the 2018-2019 application cycle to be considered for ACLP. (More information can be found on the website about applying: Structural & Cellular Biology-Anatomy Certification & Leadership Program | Medicine)
Submit your AMCAS application in the Summer before beginning ACLP. You will NOT want to be doing this during anatomy. (Though the deadline for Tulane’s secondary app is in December or January and some ACLP students opt to complete it after anatomy, if you have any other schools you’re applying to, you’ll want to have your secondaries for those schools already completed or at least drafted for other schools before ACLP begins as well.)
From August through October or early November, take gross anatomy alongside medical students. Gross Anatomy is a full-time academic schedule.
Immediately after Anatomy, Histology begins. ACLP students take only Histology, while medical students take Physiology, Biochemistry, Genetics, and Foundations in Medicine, so the time commitment of taking only Histology is pretty low. Most students take this time to get a job, get involved in research, shadowing, etc. Histology runs through the end of March.
In January, Leadership in Healthcare begins. This class is a new addition to the program as of last year. It is not a huge time commitment, but it runs through late April concurrently with Histology. This means ACLP students now have class commitments through April instead of through the end of March as they had in previous years.
Interview at TUSOM in late February, or whenever TUSOM’s last interview date falls.
Matriculate into TUSOM in August and serve as a TA for gross anatomy
Reasons why ACLP was a good fit for me:
To really improve my application, I would have wanted to take an application cycle off, meaning it would be another two years before I could possibly matriculate. This would also mean that I would have to retake the MCAT which I did NOT want to do. ACLP is one of the few PB/SMP programs that leads directly into matriculation after completion of the program, which is really what I was looking for, since I felt that if I was going to take another year before applying, I could probably improve my application significantly without having to go through/pay for an PB/SMP. I was also considering a DO application cycle, but I had been rejected from the two DO schools I applied to that year, which discouraged me.
ACLP appealed to me not only because of the half-time course load after anatomy ends, but because the bar of having to beat the M1 average in one course sounded a lot less stressful to me than FIU’s full-time, two-semester course load and their requirement of maintaining a specific GPA (FIU’s SMP was the other program that I got into and was considering, and is also very similar to most programs out there). ACLP also had the benefit of actually enrolling you in the same classes that the M1s are taking, so you are essentially starting medical school along with them. In the smallest, most cynical voice in the back of my mind, ACLP appealed to me because I saw it as a medical school trial-run. If, in some strange twist of fate, I decided that medical school was just not for me after testing it out (which one of the TUSOM matriculants did about halfway through anatomy), backing out of ACLP would be a lot easier than backing out of medical school, haha.
And, of course, the admission rate of 87% to TUSOM! The more I researched PB/SMP programs, the more I realized that many of them do not provide a direct path to medical school. Most of the non-career-changing-focused programs simply do nothing more than provide you with more data for your application and some connections. The more I considered many of these programs, the more I doubted that they would truly improve my application more than taking a year to get some publications and do some community service would. ACLP, however, had a simple requirement (beat the anatomy average) and, though not a guarantee, an advertised 87% matriculation rate into TUSOM, a well-established and highly-regarded allopathic medical school. That, combined with the fact that it was thousands of dollars cheaper than comparable programs (Tuition costs of FIU: $21,000; Temple: $34,000; Tulane ACLP: $16,000), and the low-stress second semester made it the perfect choice for me.
Let me know if you have any questions about the application process, the program, or anything else!
I am a current ACLP student at Tulane, and I thought I would go ahead and start this year’s thread! I know it’s a painful to be thinking about ACLP or PB/SMPs if you’re currently waitlisted at schools and hoping to get in, but ACLP is a really excellent opportunity for applicants who have had a rough cycle to turn their luck around and get into a well-regarded medical school with the opportunity to TA gross anatomy! All 20 2018-2019 ACLP students received and completed an interview this year are currently awaiting a response from the admissions committee.
Last year’s thread (Tulane ACLP 2018-2019) contains a few really awesome posts by former ACLP students about the program. In fact, Perineal_buddy522’s post pretty much contains almost everything I could possibly say, information-wise, about all the logistics of ACLP, so I’ll spend a little time summarizing what he’s already said/what’s different this year and then move on to my own personal experience with ACLP:
ACLP Timeline:
Complete your ACLP application by May 31, 2019. You do need to have been waitlisted at an MD or DO school during the 2018-2019 application cycle to be considered for ACLP. (More information can be found on the website about applying: Structural & Cellular Biology-Anatomy Certification & Leadership Program | Medicine)
Submit your AMCAS application in the Summer before beginning ACLP. You will NOT want to be doing this during anatomy. (Though the deadline for Tulane’s secondary app is in December or January and some ACLP students opt to complete it after anatomy, if you have any other schools you’re applying to, you’ll want to have your secondaries for those schools already completed or at least drafted for other schools before ACLP begins as well.)
From August through October or early November, take gross anatomy alongside medical students. Gross Anatomy is a full-time academic schedule.
Immediately after Anatomy, Histology begins. ACLP students take only Histology, while medical students take Physiology, Biochemistry, Genetics, and Foundations in Medicine, so the time commitment of taking only Histology is pretty low. Most students take this time to get a job, get involved in research, shadowing, etc. Histology runs through the end of March.
In January, Leadership in Healthcare begins. This class is a new addition to the program as of last year. It is not a huge time commitment, but it runs through late April concurrently with Histology. This means ACLP students now have class commitments through April instead of through the end of March as they had in previous years.
Interview at TUSOM in late February, or whenever TUSOM’s last interview date falls.
Matriculate into TUSOM in August and serve as a TA for gross anatomy
Reasons why ACLP was a good fit for me:
To really improve my application, I would have wanted to take an application cycle off, meaning it would be another two years before I could possibly matriculate. This would also mean that I would have to retake the MCAT which I did NOT want to do. ACLP is one of the few PB/SMP programs that leads directly into matriculation after completion of the program, which is really what I was looking for, since I felt that if I was going to take another year before applying, I could probably improve my application significantly without having to go through/pay for an PB/SMP. I was also considering a DO application cycle, but I had been rejected from the two DO schools I applied to that year, which discouraged me.
ACLP appealed to me not only because of the half-time course load after anatomy ends, but because the bar of having to beat the M1 average in one course sounded a lot less stressful to me than FIU’s full-time, two-semester course load and their requirement of maintaining a specific GPA (FIU’s SMP was the other program that I got into and was considering, and is also very similar to most programs out there). ACLP also had the benefit of actually enrolling you in the same classes that the M1s are taking, so you are essentially starting medical school along with them. In the smallest, most cynical voice in the back of my mind, ACLP appealed to me because I saw it as a medical school trial-run. If, in some strange twist of fate, I decided that medical school was just not for me after testing it out (which one of the TUSOM matriculants did about halfway through anatomy), backing out of ACLP would be a lot easier than backing out of medical school, haha.
And, of course, the admission rate of 87% to TUSOM! The more I researched PB/SMP programs, the more I realized that many of them do not provide a direct path to medical school. Most of the non-career-changing-focused programs simply do nothing more than provide you with more data for your application and some connections. The more I considered many of these programs, the more I doubted that they would truly improve my application more than taking a year to get some publications and do some community service would. ACLP, however, had a simple requirement (beat the anatomy average) and, though not a guarantee, an advertised 87% matriculation rate into TUSOM, a well-established and highly-regarded allopathic medical school. That, combined with the fact that it was thousands of dollars cheaper than comparable programs (Tuition costs of FIU: $21,000; Temple: $34,000; Tulane ACLP: $16,000), and the low-stress second semester made it the perfect choice for me.
Let me know if you have any questions about the application process, the program, or anything else!
