Which school is best? Overall ratings? Pros and cons?

[Worrywart41]

Hey guys. I have applied to Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine, VCOM in Auburn, William Carey, and PCOM in Georgia.

A little background: 3.8 GPA at Birmingham Southern College. Student athlete. Loads of observational hours in Cardiology, Pathology, General Surgery, Urology, Internal Medicine, and Orthopedics. Loads of volunteer work and work experience (medical and non medical). I made a 500 on my MCAT but am going to take it again this Saturday and show STRONG signs of improvement on my practice tests. If all goes well, should be a 506 to 510. Alabama resident (born and raised)

I was hoping you all could tell me what are my chances, as well as a personal review of each school. I Would love to go to any off them, but William Carey is close to home and close to my girlfriend. If you all have any information on William Carey especially, please let me know. I do not know much about their ranking of education levels, residency statistics, and overall success of the program. Please let me know anything you have!!!

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[SLU Student]

There's no rank or overall rating for D.O. programs. Of course some are better than others, but there's no actual "rank" to dictate that.

ACOM is too new, so they have no statistics at all. As with all new schools, they will have kinks and bugs they will have to work out and deal with. It's really just a wildcard and can be unpredictable for a few years.

WCUCOM has pretty high attrition rates and low COMLEX pass rates, but they are not terrible. Also they are recovering from a tornado that flattened their campus a while back. This may be fixed already, however.

PCOM and VCOM are established schools, so if it were up to me, I would probably choose one of these over the other two

Just my two cents.

You have a good chance at many D.O. school, and you'll be competitive for all D.O. schools of you score 505+ on your retake. Your GPA is solid.

 

[Betabet]

Out of those schools, I'd say PCOM or VCOM are your best choices. However, PCOM is the most established. I'm not sure that VCOM Auburn has graduated their first class yet. I have friends at both institutions so I'll tell you what they told me:

VCOM Auburn has university affiliation, so you will probably have a lot more academic opportunities (research, etc). If you're not interested in OMM, a few of my friends say it's a joke there. You can to choose which techniques you want to perform and you get to know your partners a week in advanced.

PCOM in Georgia is the most established out of the schools you listed. It's not a super heavy research institution, but there are definitely a handful of professors there that do research. OMM is significantly harder than VCOM. I'm told they set it up board style and the patients you get are randomized. The professors there take OMM super seriously. Although OMM isn't terribly hard, the fact that they take it so seriously probably means you'll sink more time into studying it. And that can suck when you take boards.

I hear mixed things about WCUCOM. But, coming from someone who moved across the country for med school, I can tell you that having a support group is really important. You definitely don't want to go through a breakup during med school. I've done long distance with a time difference for almost 2 years now and it's manageable but hard.

I went to ACOM for an interview and thought it was great. They had nice facilities, all of the students seemed very happy there. However, they have mandatory attendance. Some people think that they learn from lecture and I was one of those people. But med school and undergrad is very different. I don't attend lectures at all and I'm very happy that I chose a school without mandatory attendance. It makes a big difference.

 

[Peach Newport]

Cheapest school = school near family and friends > State schools > original 5 > All others > LUCOM

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

You need to apply to more than 4 schools

 

[Xavieous]

Agree with AnatomyGrey12. Apply broadly as the acceptance percentages are getting smaller every year for each school. Remember, what you think now may be different in 6 months if say all of your top 4 schools rejected you but a school in kansas loves you. Med. school is Med. school no matter where it is and if you are confident you can succeed, then just get in first. Be picky after you have 2 schools to choose from.

As to what is best for you, medical school is extremely individual, so the school itself isn't as big of a deal as your ability to absorb the information they will throw at you. You can do to the newest, worse school in the US and as long as you rock your boards you will move on to residency. My only two cents on choosing schools is be careful on schools with shorter track records. Schools that are only 5 years old are a little less safe than schools that have been around for 150 years. Had a friend went to a brand new school, the school lost it's accredidation b/c they couldn't keep it all together and they had to drop their students. She went to another school after a year of frustration and started all over again. doing fine now. so beware the young schools still new to the game.

Good luck!

 

[Goro]

Hey guys. I have applied to Alabama College of Osteopathic Medicine, VCOM in Auburn, William Carey, and PCOM in Georgia.

A little background: 3.8 GPA at Birmingham Southern College. Student athlete. Loads of observational hours in Cardiology, Pathology, General Surgery, Urology, Internal Medicine, and Orthopedics. Loads of volunteer work and work experience (medical and non medical). I made a 500 on my MCAT but am going to take it again this Saturday and show STRONG signs of improvement on my practice tests. If all goes well, should be a 506 to 510. Alabama resident (born and raised)

I was hoping you all could tell me what are my chances, as well as a personal review of each school. I Would love to go to any off them, but William Carey is close to home and close to my girlfriend. If you all have any information on William Carey especially, please let me know. I do not know much about their ranking of education levels, residency statistics, and overall success of the program. Please let me know anything you have!!!

Whichever school does NOT have required lecture attendance

 

[DO2015CA]

If you get the 506-510 you'll be competitive for USA and UAB. They're big on instate students and don't have outrageous mcat averages for the instate kids.

As for the DO schools they're all going to allow you to be a doctor. From your shadowing experiences, you're less interested in primary care. If that were the case I'd choose PCOM-GA so that you could potentially tap into the PCOM resources/OPTI. ACOM and WCUCOM put out high number of primary care. VCOM-A hasn't graduated a class so we don't know. Saying that, it's not a PC death sentence by going to any specific DO school. It largely depends on your abilities and drives.

 

[DO2015CA]

Agree with AnatomyGrey12. Apply broadly as the acceptance percentages are getting smaller every year for each school. Remember, what you think now may be different in 6 months if say all of your top 4 schools rejected you but a school in kansas loves you. Med. school is Med. school no matter where it is and if you are confident you can succeed, then just get in first. Be picky after you have 2 schools to choose from.

As to what is best for you, medical school is extremely individual, so the school itself isn't as big of a deal as your ability to absorb the information they will throw at you. You can do to the newest, worse school in the US and as long as you rock your boards you will move on to residency. My only two cents on choosing schools is be careful on schools with shorter track records. Schools that are only 5 years old are a little less safe than schools that have been around for 150 years. Had a friend went to a brand new school, the school lost it's accredidation b/c they couldn't keep it all together and they had to drop their students. She went to another school after a year of frustration and started all over again. doing fine now. so beware the young schools still new to the game.

Good luck!

Which school is this? Have heard of any US school doing this in years

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

Which school is this? Have heard of any US school doing this in years

Yeah it can't be a US school because even if this happens part of the original accreditation process includes language that basically says if a school were to ever be de-accredited they need a contingency plan to place their students at other schools. Not to mention that you're right and no US school has lost accreditation like this in a long time.

 

[DO2015CA]

Yeah it can't be a US school because even if this happens part of the original accreditation process includes language that basically says if a school were to ever be de-accredited they need a contingency plan to place their students at other schools. Not to mention that you're right and no US school has lost accreditation like this in a long time.

Ya sorry autocorrect. Haven't heard of it happening*

DO schools are required 30 mil reserves to place students at other school if that happens and MD schools are better prepared so I'm sure they have requirements

 

[Xavieous]

I honestly am not sure, I believe it was in the Ohio, Indiana, Illinois region and it must of been....3-5 years ago now? Maybe she was lying and just failed out, I honestly didn't know much about her situation and took what she said at face value at the time. So, from lack of knowledge I will redact my advice from before and change it to say earlier schools are a hit and miss b/c they are getting their educational system down so take the risk if you want to try new, go with the tried and true with older schools (although they are changing too to stay relevant).

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

I honestly am not sure, I believe it was in the Ohio, Indiana, Illinois region and it must of been....3-5 years ago now?

Yeah I think she was lying because that didn't happen, unless it wasn't actually a medical school and was something else. I agree with your overall advice to try to avoid the newer schools if you can, don't want to be the guinea pig