VCOM/BLUEFIELD POST BACC 2018-2019

[DrToon]

Books were 100% never needed. I used one I “obtained for free” for nutrition and reading the chapters maybe gave me 1-2 extra questions right per exam. Probably wasn’t worth the time.

I hope your right. My only concern is that they consider it a new program. How much diff are they going to make it from previous years? Will they use the books more? Hopefully, since its the first year, they don't change too much.

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[kelminak]

I hope your right. My only concern is that they consider it a new program. How much diff are they going to make it from previous years? Will they use the books more? Hopefully, since its the first year, they don't change too much.

I looked at the course list and it's exactly the same as last year except they swapped two classes between the semesters. Our list was "mandatory" too.

 

[mak1993]

I actually came here to ask about books as well, but seems like they arnt really needed. Does anyone have access to maybe PDF versions of the books in a google drive that we could use just in case? Those books are really expensive :/

Someone did tell me that the anatomy book is needed and will be helpful, as well as the first aid book.

 

[kelminak]

@mak1993 You need to not ask for PDFs of books.

There is literally no book that you need for any of these classes. What is given through Powerpoints or what you could Google beyond is it absolutely sufficient. First Aid is so overkill I can't even imagine lol.

 

[mak1993]

@mak1993 You need to not ask for PDFs of books.

There is literally no book that you need for any of these classes. What is given through Powerpoints or what you could Google beyond is it absolutely sufficient. First Aid is so overkill I can't even imagine lol.

Thank you for bringing that to my attention. That was a mistake on my part. And thank you for your insight about the books!

 

[NicoleBryant]

Nice thread!

 

[WHEscribble]

I found some older editions on Valore Books for REALLY cheap. I've only ever ordered 2-3 books from there, but they've been pretty reliable! Got the anatomy book for $5, and that includes shipping!

 

[Doctor365]

I don’t have any courses listed under my schedule and have not gotten any emails to myBC or regular email with a book list. Anyone else in the same boat?

 

[strugglequeen]

I don’t have any courses listed under my schedule and have not gotten any emails to myBC or regular email with a book list. Anyone else in the same boat?

For course listing, change summer session to Fall MABS or MABS GRADUATE to see your fall schedule. Right now it is defaulted to show summer classes of Bluefield students, we don't have those.


There have been problems with multiple students not getting emails. Contact the IT department of Bluefield, not VCOM.

 

[giguerex35]

Anyone still looking for a roommate (male)

 

[kelminak]

Hi, wonderful people!

I'm planning on applying to the VCOM Post-Bacc this fall, but I have a few questions (since the app is currently closed til October) -

1. Is it possible to get admitted to the program and DEFER a year?
2. I heard it's not exactly guaranteed admittance with the right grades/MCAT (as advertised) - my friend had the right scores and was waitlisted, and then didn't get off the waitlist. Has anybody heard things like this? Or know the stats of people who get in out of the pool of people with the right scores?
3. Is the application basically like the AMCAS application?
4. When do classes officially start each summer?

Thanks for any help

1. Not that I'm aware of. I'd wait to apply the year you want to get in.
2. It is absolutely is and always has been guaranteed admission. If you get in in the Spring, you're actually on a waitlist to get in. They have a technical rule that if they don't have enough seats for the post-bacc students and someone has to wait, they have guaranteed admission next year. This doesn't happen anymore since they opened the Auburn campus and they have a large amount of seats available. Your friend was not honest in some capacity.
3. They use Postbaccas now.
4. End of july.

 

[kelminak]

thanks for your help!

Do you know if it's possible to defer the guaranteed acceptance? Trying to figure out how to schedule my double gap years

I don't follow. Why are you needing to defer an acceptance? If you get accepted, they will expect you to start immediately barring a drastic circumstance.

 

[ChiDr]

Well, I found out about this program a bit late for. What are the stats of people who have been accepted? Considering this program for next year.

 

[needforspeed]

@kelminak do you know of any supplemental help/sources/problems for the biochem course? Somebody mentioned an online resource with practice questions that past students had used...

 

[kelminak]

@kelminak do you know of any supplemental help/sources/problems for the biochem course? Somebody mentioned an online resource with practice questions that past students had used...

I don't remember using much outside of what they provide, but as described before, I turned most stuff into Anki flashcards and studied them. The only things I didn't do that for were big chemical reactions with multiple steps. Those I drew out step by step over and over again (just destroying trees) until I could list every single part. They gave us some practice problems before a test and I did all of them until I understood each one. Some of the practice problems were more relevant than others...

 

[needforspeed]

I don't remember using much outside of what they provide, but as described before, I turned most stuff into Anki flashcards and studied them. The only things I didn't do that for were big chemical reactions with multiple steps. Those I drew out step by step over and over again (just destroying trees) until I could list every single part. They gave us some practice problems before a test and I did all of them until I understood each one. Some of the practice problems were more relevant than others...

Gotcha. Thank you!

 

[PTPuser]

Does anyone know if PostBacCAS accept letters via Interfolio???

 

[Dr. Extra]

I was wondering how hard are the classes? Like its 17 hours semester in the fall. My undergraduate institution had a tendency of screwing us over at the final because it was a major university. Does this program have some behaviors like that?

Also, what percentage of the incoming class weren't part of the "rural" or "minority" community?

 

[Vokounfan]

I was wondering how hard are the classes? Like its 17 hours semester in the fall. My undergraduate institution had a tendency of screwing us over at the final because it was a major university. Does this program have some behaviors like that?

Also, what percentage of the incoming class weren't part of the "rural" or "minority" community?

The classes are tough because of the volume of information you are trying to learn in a short period of time. You are learning what first years are learning. Prioritize and you will be just fine.
The program is not trying to screw you over. If you meet requirements, they want you in medical school (notice I did not put the word their).

Your last question is irrelevant because I dont think statstics were provided for that.

 

[mmjones01]

Posting again with some updates:

I posted in this thread a few months ago with some concerns over the carolinas campus and many of you reached out and I then tried to answer as many of you as I could. A couple of you even decided to switch your decisions based on that so I am happy that I could help some out. I am here posting again with some updated concerns and still relevant concerns as to why anyone applying here should seriously consider their decision.

First off, if you are set on DO school and this is the only one you get into then it is an easy decision, come here. But to those on the fence or looking at other schools consider you options and do your research..

Here are some of the biggest red flags over VCOM-Carolinas and VCOM in general:

Specific to VCOM Carolinas:
- Ours is the only campus NOT associated with another undergraduate school (VCOM virginia, auburn and Louisiana all are) this means an immense lack of resources, studying areas, campus resources, etc.. I also believe the quality of professors goes down as when you have an associated undergraduate campus you also have access to a much better group of professors, that being said our school does have some exceptional professors.
- Still no head of the anatomy department
- immense faculty turn over, probably 1 head of the department a block and 1 professor a block. In the last few months we have had: pathology head fired, anatomy head demoted and rumored to be leaving, Pharm head fired, one other head of department left in the last week (we don't know who yet), and more on the horizon.
- many of our "departments" consist of 1 person. Yes the entire pathology department (which is not taught) is 1 professor, same for surgery. These should be huge red flags for a medical school
- professors speak poorly of the school - instead of taking my word for it reach out to some professors at vcom the best ones we have are Dr. Paulman, Dr. Ables, Dr. Augustyniak, Dr. Lindsey, Dr. Cashman, Dr. Attance, Dr. Jaynes - reach out to any of these professors and hear what they have to say, emails can be found online.
- Dean (Dr. K) is maybe the most aloof person on campus and hardly ever knows what is going on
- Dr. Januchowski, Dean of curriculum who is charge of most things student related will only ever give you one answer " depends on virginia"
- Lower board scores than the other campuses and national averages

AND this last piece above is the most important take away - anything carried out at any of our campuses must first be approved by virginia and all decisions are made by virginia. We are essentially a franchise, another wendys in a large corporation and anytime something happens all we are told is "because virginia said so". When our pathology head got fired we were told they did not even know it was going to happen and one day virginia told them to make the changes. We have little control over our own school and again, faculty will tell you this. They are just as frustrated as we are. Thus I believe that VCOM virginia's may actually be a good school, but ours suffers because of this franchise model.


Feel free to reach out with questions.

 

[PapaGuava]

Thread moved to the postbaccalaureate Programs forum.

 

[PTPuser]

Hey Carolinas fam!

Also note that everyone's schedule will look different. I certainly didn't study this hard throughout the week, but tremendously hard the day before a test (up until 2, up again at 5-6). It's definitely about finding what works best for you. I keep meaning to post the thing I've sent to people in PMs, so let me post my studying info too:

"I used the program Anki and it was the best decision ever. At the beginning of the year, they give you a recommended study guide. I followed it completely. I would sit in the back of class and convert each Powerpoint into an Anki deck for that lecture hour. When I was done with that, I would follow the study guide and study the recommended decks each day. The day before a test, I would go through every deck for the test a second time. The morning of the test I would wake up at 5 am (ugh) and study every deck again.

I would also make "bonus decks" for a test (e.g. Physiology Exam 3 Bonus Deck) which would be a compilation of other relevant resources such as all of the information that was in the pre-exam reviews, etc. and study that the day before and the morning of as well.

Using this method, I've never had more free time in my life than in this program. It was difficult, but you'll find studying smarter vs. harder really works and you can have way more free time than your peers that listen to the lecturers. I don't have anything against them, but passive learning through listening is just extremely ineffective.

When I say I "converted a lecture into an Anki deck", I mean I would go through each piece of information and figure out how to turn it into a question --> answer flashcard. If a slide said that a Vitamin B12 deficiency caused macrocytic anemia, I would make a flashcard that said "Which does a vitamin B12 deficiency cause (disease)?" and then do that for all of the information in the Powerpoints. Decks would range between 30-100 flash cards depending on how much information there was. Some classes were very light (nutrition) while others had a tremendous amount of information (immunology). Regardless of this, I would just power through and make sure all the decks were created for the lectures we had that day and then took as long as I needed to in order to get through the relevant decks that needed to be studied that day.

Also, if you do choose my method, I strongly recommend buying the $25 Anki app for iPhones if you have one or using the unofficial one for Android. I did almost all of my studying on my phone so that I wasn't distracted by my computer and I could study anywhere. I've studied at the dentist and other weird places where a 20 minute wait would normally be a waste of time and instead was useful studying.

I might have rambled a little, but hopefully this makes sense. Let me know if you have any questions. "

Hi, what kind of setting did you set your anki deck for the powerpoints so that you're studying everyday and ready for exam day? Thank you!

 

[StudentDocGoals]

Hey Carolinas fam!

Also note that everyone's schedule will look different. I certainly didn't study this hard throughout the week, but tremendously hard the day before a test (up until 2, up again at 5-6). It's definitely about finding what works best for you. I keep meaning to post the thing I've sent to people in PMs, so let me post my studying info too:

"I used the program Anki and it was the best decision ever. At the beginning of the year, they give you a recommended study guide. I followed it completely. I would sit in the back of class and convert each Powerpoint into an Anki deck for that lecture hour. When I was done with that, I would follow the study guide and study the recommended decks each day. The day before a test, I would go through every deck for the test a second time. The morning of the test I would wake up at 5 am (ugh) and study every deck again.

I would also make "bonus decks" for a test (e.g. Physiology Exam 3 Bonus Deck) which would be a compilation of other relevant resources such as all of the information that was in the pre-exam reviews, etc. and study that the day before and the morning of as well.

Using this method, I've never had more free time in my life than in this program. It was difficult, but you'll find studying smarter vs. harder really works and you can have way more free time than your peers that listen to the lecturers. I don't have anything against them, but passive learning through listening is just extremely ineffective.

When I say I "converted a lecture into an Anki deck", I mean I would go through each piece of information and figure out how to turn it into a question --> answer flashcard. If a slide said that a Vitamin B12 deficiency caused macrocytic anemia, I would make a flashcard that said "Which does a vitamin B12 deficiency cause (disease)?" and then do that for all of the information in the Powerpoints. Decks would range between 30-100 flash cards depending on how much information there was. Some classes were very light (nutrition) while others had a tremendous amount of information (immunology). Regardless of this, I would just power through and make sure all the decks were created for the lectures we had that day and then took as long as I needed to in order to get through the relevant decks that needed to be studied that day.

Also, if you do choose my method, I strongly recommend buying the $25 Anki app for iPhones if you have one or using the unofficial one for Android. I did almost all of my studying on my phone so that I wasn't distracted by my computer and I could study anywhere. I've studied at the dentist and other weird places where a 20 minute wait would normally be a waste of time and instead was useful studying.

I might have rambled a little, but hopefully this makes sense. Let me know if you have any questions. "

Do you have Anki decks you made uploaded for us to reference?

 

[giguerex35]

Posting again with some updates:

I posted in this thread a few months ago with some concerns over the carolinas campus and many of you reached out and I then tried to answer as many of you as I could. A couple of you even decided to switch your decisions based on that so I am happy that I could help some out. I am here posting again with some updated concerns and still relevant concerns as to why anyone applying here should seriously consider their decision.

First off, if you are set on DO school and this is the only one you get into then it is an easy decision, come here. But to those on the fence or looking at other schools consider you options and do your research..

Here are some of the biggest red flags over VCOM-Carolinas and VCOM in general:

Specific to VCOM Carolinas:
- Ours is the only campus NOT associated with another undergraduate school (VCOM virginia, auburn and Louisiana all are) this means an immense lack of resources, studying areas, campus resources, etc.. I also believe the quality of professors goes down as when you have an associated undergraduate campus you also have access to a much better group of professors, that being said our school does have some exceptional professors.
- Still no head of the anatomy department
- immense faculty turn over, probably 1 head of the department a block and 1 professor a block. In the last few months we have had: pathology head fired, anatomy head demoted and rumored to be leaving, Pharm head fired, one other head of department left in the last week (we don't know who yet), and more on the horizon.
- many of our "departments" consist of 1 person. Yes the entire pathology department (which is not taught) is 1 professor, same for surgery. These should be huge red flags for a medical school
- professors speak poorly of the school - instead of taking my word for it reach out to some professors at vcom the best ones we have are Dr. Paulman, Dr. Ables, Dr. Augustyniak, Dr. Lindsey, Dr. Cashman, Dr. Attance, Dr. Jaynes - reach out to any of these professors and hear what they have to say, emails can be found online.
- Dean (Dr. K) is maybe the most aloof person on campus and hardly ever knows what is going on
- Dr. Januchowski, Dean of curriculum who is charge of most things student related will only ever give you one answer " depends on virginia"
- Lower board scores than the other campuses and national averages

AND this last piece above is the most important take away - anything carried out at any of our campuses must first be approved by virginia and all decisions are made by virginia. We are essentially a franchise, another wendys in a large corporation and anytime something happens all we are told is "because virginia said so". When our pathology head got fired we were told they did not even know it was going to happen and one day virginia told them to make the changes. We have little control over our own school and again, faculty will tell you this. They are just as frustrated as we are. Thus I believe that VCOM virginia's may actually be a good school, but ours suffers because of this franchise model.


Feel free to reach out with questions.

this is alot of he said she said and i dont think you know whats really going on. Im a vcom student and ill be the first to admit its not perfect but unless you have concrete evidence of any of this you should be careful about what you say. saying a faculty member was fired and the school didnt even know it was happening is ridiculous. and this "franchise" model you speak of if flawed. everything doesn't have to flow through VA first. The deans of all 3 (now 4) campuses meet and discuss changes. In the rubric for education each of them have to follow certain models to be within their accreditation guidelines and are therefore all allowed to be slightly different but have the same base model if that makes sense. Limited resources for CA campus i cant say. id also think long and hard about listing specific professors names and telling people on the internet to email them and ask questions....

 

[kelminak]

Do you have Anki decks you made uploaded for us to reference?

No we decided it was not completely safe to do so.

It wouldn’t really be to anyone’s best interest at this point anyway. They are outdated and were designed in a way that doesn’t necessarily work for everyone. Learning how to make Anki cards for yourself efficiently is a strong skill to have starting day 1 in med school.

Also to other people reading this thread, it’s years old and not worth bumping again.