I want to know if anyone is choosing COMP for reasons other than location. If you put Western in Montana, with many other good schools out there, would you still choose COMP and why?
-
CycleTrack and SDN are teaming up to make medical school admissions more transparent and accessible! Read the announcement to learn how we’re supporting the future of CycleTrack’s free application-tracking tools .
Why Western/COMP?
Started by furtherDOjr
Get help with your application
Use all the free resources available to you from SDN: articles, guides, expert advising, forums discussions, and school research.
Location is a big factor many, and not a big factor many others. To give you some insight on my experience, on my COMP interview... some interviewees and I were interested in the same questions and we asked 7 - 10 students why they chose COMP and all of them said location.furtherDOjr said:
furtherDOjr said:
You have to like living around millions of people, I don't. I grew up in Los Angeles until I left for the Army. I can only visit L.A. now max 5 days before I get annoyed by all the traffic.
Static Line said:
L.A. is awesome, but Pomona certainly isn't L.A. It's only a suburb because L.A. itself is so huge, and I'm guessing that even though I have tons of friends in L.A. proper and its immediate "burbs" (from living there for two years recently) that I might make it into the city once or twice a year. Traffic that far east doesn't seem like an issue to me, having driven out for an OMAC last summer and my interview last month.
I'm stuck between AZCOM and COMP right now: do I choose AZCOM becuase the school kicks ass and I could live across the street, or do I choose COMP because the school is good and I'd rather live in Southern Cali even though I have to commute?
Another good thing about COMP is that it offers international rotations in alot of different countries, especially developing countries like India, the Phillipines, various African countries, etc.. They also have a free clinic for the poor in Montclair. Some people actually choose to go there because of the free clinics and the fact that they can actually impact the lives of the poor and disadvantaged while still in school.
Hope this helps
(You can probably guess that I'm going to COMP next year... 🙂 )
Hope this helps
(You can probably guess that I'm going to COMP next year... 🙂 )
Truce57 said:
👍 I think that Pomona is def not LA thats why I didnt like Western in the first place....well actually before even applying I thought I would be lucky to go there. No I know better...
If I had to choose between AZCOM and COMP, I would definitely pick AZCOM. Everyone seemed so much happier there. In the end....pick a place that would make you the most happiest, overall.
Oh I also liked AZCOM early clinicals.
For COMP I was impressed with the clinical rotations.
uclabruin2003 said:
In fact, ask any current residents and they will tell you that your grades/coursework in the first two years don't really matter when you apply for residency programs. Of course you want to do the best you can in all of your classes. But it is your clinical rotations that will matter the most by far far far. Many applicants don't know this fact and factor in too much of what they see during their interviews(lecture hall, the campus, ...basically life in the first two years) and end up not so happy in their 3rd/4th year.
Not only does COMP have good rotations, only 3 months out of the entire 4th year are required rotations. The rest of the year which adds up to I believe 8 Rotation blocks are ELECTIVES. It means that you are able to choose your rotations based on the type of specialty that you want.
When a residency director sees that you have more experience in that particular specialty than most of the other applicants, the chances are higher that you'll be picked.
