Hi everyone! Congrats on your acceptance to UCSF 🙂
I'm a current MS1, and although I should be studying I decided for some reason to look around SDN for the first time since . . . starting med school. I'm one of the organizers of the Accepted Students' Weekend, so I can answer some of the lingering questions you guys had about that:
- The Friday (5/4) night dinner is for Underrepresented in Medicine students only. If you're not here on Friday and you're not UIM, don't worry about registration. We'll have it on Saturday (5/5) morning too. Sign-ups for Saturday afternoon activities and Saturday night dinners will take place on Saturday morning as well. If you are here on Friday and aren't going to the dinner, never fear. Your hosts will help you find food/fun that night.
- After the Saturday night dinners, there will be an "unofficial" Saturday night activity (party) at a MS1 house. More details on that will be announced ad nauseum during the weekend once we actually figure it out. The party should finish early and then some of us were talking about going to a few of the Inner Sunset pubs, although you guys are free to do anything at all.
- You'll be getting more information on hosting as more hosts sign up.
- Please participate in the Big Buddy emailing program if you want to ask specific questions; it's a great way to get to know an MS1 or two and to learn more about the details of school/life at UCSF. There was a form in your packet, just fill out and mail or fax it in!
- The housing tour/progressive breakfast will be on Sunday morning (5/6). Again, the specifics will be revealed to you on Saturday of ASW.
As far as other questions . . .
- Most students, especially MS1s and MS2s, live in the Inner Sunset. Mission Bay is very nice and has a killer gym, but it's not much cheaper than most Inner Sunset housing, and it's about a 20-30 minute shuttle ride away. Student housing near Parnassus (the campus where you'll be for MS1/MS2) doesn't have parking; at Mission Bay I believe you can buy a permit but I'm not 100% (it may be included).
- "On-campus" (touching an edge of campus) housing is hit-or-miss . . . the new building is really nice; the older ones are basically dorm rooms in a house, with a mixture of students from all schools (med/pharm/dent/nursing). On-campus housing is cheap but it's pretty limited and not everyone's cup of tea, so most people live off-campus.
- Off-campus housing ranges from not-so-expensive (for SF = 800-900) to pretty expensive (1000+). Craigslist is 100% the best way to find housing. I had a hard time because I have a dog, but I was still able to do it. It's not fun, but it's kind of a rite of passage for living in the city I guess 🙂 Some apartments will let you rent a parking spot; I have one in the garage of my house. The further out in the Sunset you get (away from school), the easier parking becomes.
- I don't know much about it, but I think PRIME-US is a tuition-free program.
I can say with absolute confidence that I couldn't have chosen a better school than UCSF. I love everything about it. We're so excited to meet you all at Accepted Students' Weekend! It should be fun and casual, and a great way to meet the class of 2010 as well as the class of 2011 🙂
PS: I know you guys started a facebook group, which is awesome. I also saw an email list floating around . . . one thing that's been really useful for our class is a Yahoo group that was started in the summer before we entered school. A lot of people havec worked out housing, meeting people, and just general fun stuff (going to events, going to clubs, sharing a funny Youtube video, whatever) on that group, and we still use it all the time. It's kind of like our unofficial class listserve. So that's something to think about.
(God I write a lot. I'm going to bed so I can take full advantage of my reading day tomorrow and get Thursday's final over with!)
