Actually the person I spoke to was NOT Heather Kim -- it was a guy, and embarrassingly, I can't think of his name right now.
In terms of education quality at AZCOM, from just being in the SMP, I do agree with my classmates' assessment that the teachers are great, it is really nice having all the notes directly delivered into the mailbox, and open door policy of office hours is awesome. It really gives you the opportunity to bond with your profs, and I've even had a few look up my grades (for exams they didn't teach!) and personally congratulate me via email. I also feel like they make a real effort in getting to know you personally -- each office has little print-outs of our faces and names and what programs we're enrolled in, which they never did at my undergrad (I went to UA). And I do feel the education here is superior to what I learned from undergrad at UA, although I never did a master's at UA either so perhaps that's not the best basis for comparison. For example, when I took biochem in undergrad at UA, I never really understood the relationships and pathways, just memorized as much as I could for each exam, and happily scraped by with a B. Here, did much better in a class that went by at least twice as quickly (from being on the quarter system and being 5 credits a week vs 4). I will say it is MUCH harder here to get an A than it was at UA, but again, I never did a master's at UA so this may not be a fair assessment. It's harder I think because of the quarter system and also the +/- letter grading (93% is an A 4.0., 92-90% is an A- or only 3.75, etc.) whereas at UA for my undergrad I can't even tell you how many times I scraped by with 89.5%'s that rounded up to "A's"
In terms of the medical schools, I think I would be happier at UA for many reasons, but if we're talking about grades, I would feel more comfortable with the P/F than starting off with the letter grade +/- system. Like I mentioned previously, I didn't do too hot during my first quarter here, and I worked my ass off, literally -- attended class full-time, then studied every night for 4-6 hours. I ended up finishing with 5 A's and 1 C+, and I can only imagine that medschool will be even harder. I know a lot of the first years here study at least 6+ hours/day after lecture and 10-12 hours per day on weekends, which sounds about right considering how much time I've been putting in for the SMP (which only teaches about 75% of the first year medschool material).
And finally for me, cost is a huge issue, so I'd be much happier at either Phx/Tucson UA than AZCOM's 43k tuition. Anyway, I hope we both hear some good news soon!!
" smilie before I could even have the chance to use it!!! I saw it earlier on another thread today and was waiting for an excuse to use it, and this thread would have been the perfect opportunity, but oh well.
