@jumbletumbles I haven’t received anything as of yet, but who knows. Maybe something will come soon!
If you can, follow up on this thread with the answers to the questions you have had and how the process works.
@bopper When we get any sort of concrete, reliable answers I will post here. Unfortunately, there really isn’t a ton of information out there anecdotal or otherwise. So for now, I feel as if we are the blind leading the blind! Lol
I am a current Case PPSP student. Last year, 20 students were offered admission and 14 accepted. The interview consists of an individual interview with 2 interviewers and 1 table discussions with ~10 other students. Last year, <5 students declined the interview and those spots were not filled, and declined spots from the actual program are also not filled.
I love the Case program; it gives a lot of flexibility to pursue many avenues and interests that will ultimately make the student a better doctor if they choose to take advantage of the opportunity. PPSPs receive a lot of individual advising especially since it is a smaller school, and there is so much opportunity here if they choose to take advantage- research-wise (PPSP students have an easier time finding research and other experiences b/c of the PPSP name). Also, a brand-new med school is being built that will open in 2019; it is slated to have a lot of innovative technology and more pathways for communication etc etc basically it’s going to help students become the next generation of doctors and will be a beautiful innovative building.
Cleveland in general is a great place to learn and do medicine b/c it’s sort of a medical capital- with Cleveland Clinic, UH, the Global Medical Innovation Center, and so many biotech and start-up medical companies. The city is extremely accessible with convenient and safe public transportation.
In short, PPSP is like a dream come true with all the opportunity it offers (a lot of students even choose to finish undergrad in 3 yrs and pursue a different, unique experience before starting med school) and it’s up to the students to really take advantage of the increased flexibility and reassurance.
@dolphin2015 Congrats on PPSP & thank you for the info!
Any advise for those about to interview this year?
My advise would be to prepare a little bit/ collect your thoughts on common interview questions like describing yourself and why you want to be in PPSP. I think one of the most important things in being genuine, because prospectives will be interviewed by multiple people (2 in the individual interview, multiple in the table discussions), so whether or not they are being genuine/honest/sincere will really come through. I think its important for prospectives to think about and know their passions, and really be able to show they’re passionate about something and talk about what it is during the interview.
In my class, each of the PPSP students are very different and have our own niche (though we are all very close with other PPSPs), so I think they try to admit and form a well-rounded class of different people- each of the students in my class had very different backgrounds/hobbies/passions in high school so there is no mold or ‘typical student’ they try to recruit.
Good luck to everyone interviewing in 2 weeks and looking forward to meeting all the prospectives!!
Congrats on being in the PPSP and thanks your for all your insights. I have the following question:
PRE-MED TRACK
I have briefly scan over various CC blogs and in general 2 of the most common academic related concerns at CWRU seem to be:
- Workload intensity
- Maintaining GPA
In the benefit of anyone thinking on Pre-Med track (or PPSP for that matter) please comment on these concerns at CWRU.
All,
In contrast, which university is considered best for pre-med track (currently I am considering CWRU, Duke, Columbia, Brown, Vanderbilt, Emory, Yale, Dartmouth, Princeton)?
All comments are welcome.
Thx
If you want to go pre-med then think about:
- The cheapest reasonable college so you/your parents can use the money for med school
- The college needs to prepare you for MCATs but still allow you to get a good GPA
- Access to volunteering opportunities (e.g., near a hospital)
- Success in graduates getting into med school
- Options if you don’t go to med school
@IfnousWHO if you are a junior, then you need many many more match and safety schools. Truly unless you are a superdupersuperstar, going to an Ivy league school for pre-med is maybe not the way to go.
Also Case will give you merit scholarships, but Ivy’s don’t, as they don’t need the incentrive to get you to come. (they do financial based need scholarships though).
@bopper
Thanks for your comments and I agree. I am currently a senior with the fortune to have been accepted early/LL to CWRU (also a PPSP finalist - interviewed last week, now waiting for final decision but did receive a scholarship for UG), Duke, Brown, Columbia, Vanderbilt, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, Emory, UVA and other safety UF, GT, USF. Waiting on other Ivys. All these options will provide a high quality education thus financial aid will definitely help drive final selection.
Still I want to also start narrowing down the various premed paths in terms of environment (cut throat, workload intensity, efc, GPA inflation/deflation, etc) and appreciate any comments from those more experienced.
@IfnousWHO
As for workload intensity, that’s really determined by the student, not the school. Factors that influence intensity of workload: student’s Major(s) & minors, # credit hours enrolled in per semester (# classes), and the biggest culprit of increasing workload perception - ECs. A student who double majors in two sciences will obviously have a heavier workload but it self inflicted. A single humanities major who only supplements with recommended premed courses will have a lighter workload. A student who does their coursework only will have a lighter overall workload than one who is heavily involved with clubs or sports or research. So workload is completely manageable if you don’t go overboard or try to be a big gunner since the intensity is self inflicted, IMO.
For maintaining GPA, I assume you are concerned with GPA protection against grade inflation. For overall GPA, again this is somewhat self determined by your major. Engineering major for a premed will always be difficult to maintain a high GPA no matter which college you attend for example. I’m sure you’re aware of this already though. For premed science GPA however, it is not and has never been a cakewalk to get A’s at CWRU. It’s not that the school has grade inflation/deflation policies. The thing is at CWRU, the depth & breadth that’s covered in even just the basic premed courses is significant, making those subjects notch up in difficulty. Grades are very merit based. If you rock an exam because you attended classes & studied, you’ll get a grade that reflects that. The opposite is also true. It’s because of the breadth & depth covered in basic courses that even for PPSP kids, maintaining a 3.63 is not something done without significant amounts of work. Doable & not impeded by school grading policy, but by nature of the material presented still a challenge and by no means easy.
If you’re concerned about how easy or hard it is to get & keep a high GPA throughout undergrad, I suggest you take a look the requirements to graduate with honors at each school you’re considering and perhaps compare those stats as a watermark. Comparing these statistics will likely give you a very good idea of a school’s GPA attainability. Unfortunately, they don’t usually list these stats for just premeds. Fortunately, this also allows one to compare the grading policy of the schools as a whole to get an idea of their ideologies pertaining to grading.
CWRU lists this for 2014 Fall - 2015 Spring:
Summa cum laude: 3.903+, top 10 percent
Magma cum laude: 3.795-3.902, next 10%
Cum laude: 3.640-3.794, next 15%
So the 35% of the graduating class as CWRU have GPAs in range of what most SOM adcoms would consider competitive applicants.
I’ll leave it up to you to compare this to the other schools on your list and develop your own rankings of them in regards to GPA do-ability.
Thanks for taking the time and detailed response. Much appreciated.
2 days to go until PPSP results are released…who’s excited??
I am. Anyone know a time?
Potential PPSPer here! anyone else? Does anyone also know how many people got in?
I got alternate status and I’m gonna hold out for as long as possible on making a decision in case a PPSP offer comes my way. I am so thankful for Case even providing me this opportunity!
Make sure to follow up here and let the people who come next year know the process, the type of questions asked, etc tetc.
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I’m a prospective student, as well. I believe that between 20 and 25 of the 59 students who were invited to interview were selected. I am currently deciding between Case and another BS/MD program of lower caliber but also a significantly lower cost (almost full ride for undergrad). If any current students have insight regarding whether the PPSP program is worth the premium, that would be fantastic.