I didn’t get to include a few statements as this logged off so here it is again with the added statements:
Please see Bigredmed’s statement above that corroborates what I have said. First off, no offense, but you are only starting as a Year 3 (which is really the first year of the “medical school” part) in the program right now. Wait till you have to start studying for USMLE Step 1 and please come back and tell us on this board, how well you were prepared to take Step 1 WITHOUT needing to take an outside commercial course, which almost everyone at UMKC ends up having to take unlike MOST medical students at other schools. Please tell us the average USMLE Step 1 score of UMKC as Froggie2009 had emailed and NEVER got a response from the admissions person. Do you even know what the average UMKC score is? I do. Froggie emailed the person twice and didn’t get a response to that or even to give a contact email of someone she could talk to more about the program who is actually in it? Does that not raise a red flag to you?
You have a long way to go. You will see how your prospects of matching coming from UMKC will be, of course this also depends on what field you eventually choose to pursue as well. There are many clinical departments not available at UMKC that are available at most schools - which is important as your home program is most likely to take you if all else fails, which is a problem if you DON’T have one, right?
Regardless of what school you go to you have to work hard, but you’ll see later how even being at the very top at UMKC, you are no where seen as equivalent even to a middle of the road applicant at a top school - sorry, that’s the truth. That doesn’t mean it’s impossible, but it’s a lot steeper of a climb for a UMKC student than a student who is in Northwestern’s or Brown’s program. Residencies don’t give you extra credit for graduating in 6 years (the only ones who care are your parents and your parents friends who they brag to). Residency program directors don’t care how many years you took, if anything they question UMKC students, as you are much younger about your maturity. They care MUCH more about the quality of your medical school education as well as rankings, which UMKC is neither ranked in the research rankings or the primary care rankings as UMKC chooses not to participate. So if UMKC was pumping out such great physicians, why doesn’t it choose to at least be ranked in the primary care physician category? I understand not in research as UMKC is not a strong research institution, but why not the primary care rank list? If they’ve never heard of your school before don’t you think that’s a problem?
“look, a lot of us (in my class) got excepted into UPenn, Northwestern, UConn’s program, Johns Hopkins, Berkley…we’re not dumb kids.” — First of all let’s compare apples to apples. First, out of that list only UConn and Northwestern have combined med programs. The curriculum and quality of the med school at UMKC is not AT ALL a reflection on the students themselves at all and I NEVER said that. Most BA/MD or BS/MD applicants are smart already to begin with. Especially the out of state students are cream of the crop.
Students in this program pay one of the highest tuitions in the country for this program and you know it. Please tell us, as almost all medical schools have students dissect in order to learn Gross Anatomy properly, tell us, do you YOURSELF dissect in the HSF course? Prosected cadavers by the instructors which you just look at, does not count. You know very well UMKC can not afford to buy cadavers for the entire class to work on in groups, and in HSF you instead “learn” anatomy by looking at Grant’s Atlas pictures.
High school students who are applying now have the FULL RIGHT to know the quality of the undergraduate curriculum as well as the quality of the basic sciences curriculum. Since the program is very compressed to where courses, like Pharmacology, are taught in 2 months rather than spread out over a semester is something that they should know. They have the full right to know that there is a science GPA to promote even though you don’t take that many undergraduate science courses. They also have the right to know that the medical school basic science courses are letter graded and a 3.0 GPA is needed there as well, and is not a variation of Pass/Fail grading which happens at most medical schools, even at Mizzou and WashU.
That statement is the most overused statement being a variant of , “What is the person who graduates last in your class called? Doctor”. Of course, EVERYONE will be a doctor, I never denied that, but for most people, WHAT TYPE of doctor you will be is what is the real question, which can be anywhere from Family Practice all the way to Neurosurgery. If someone wants to go into Neurosurgery, and there is no Neurosurgery residency program at UMKC, don’t you think that person should know that? And don’t you think it’s a LOT harder to match into that field then as you don’t get to interact with faculty and get involved in research opportunities if that person wants to?
If you know at this age or from the beginning that you want to do Internal Medicine - that’s great. But what if you are like 98% of people who don’t know and are considering a competitive specialty? Please tell us, as many out-of-staters are interested to know in their PMs to me, esp. may be interested in competitive specialties, the number of people who match into: Derm, Radation Oncology, Urology, Plastics, Neurosurgery, etc. Very few.
“these past two years have gone by so fast for me. and yes, i agree with happytograduate, there are many unsatisfying points with this program but you know what? i can live with it. and that’s fine, bc i knew coming in that umkc had no name. so it lies on my shoulders.” –> but that’s what I am saying, babanana, that there are TONS of applicants who do not know about it and/or specifics about the strengths/weaknesses of the program, and would have changed their mind completely if they actually knew. It has more to do with just “a name” as you say. It has to do with proper funding.
Which is why I list about financial aid, as you know when it comes to UMKC’s medical program - there is literally almost NO financial aid given to medical students, besides loans. Please see vs. the [MDapplicants.com</a> - Home](<a href=“http://www.mdapplicants.com%5DMDapplicants.com”>http://www.mdapplicants.com) page, where tons of students are getting great financial aid packages - even full tuition paid - and these aren’t astronomically stellar students. That’s why I list actual LINKS and source my data. Please once again if I’m wrong please be forthcoming about the financial aid situation for medical students. Isn’t it true that a LOT of the scholarships at UMKC exclude medical students? If you see my posts before where I actually post links from the UMKC website showing this. You should know that the bad economy tends to affect state schools A LOT more as they are dependent on state/federal funding, unlike private institutions. That doesn’t mean private schools aren’t affected, but where you say, “it’s gonna cost u money wherever you choose to go. whether it’s a state school where u’ll have to work ur ass to make urself shine or a top private university that’s gonna cut ur financial aid bc of the economic crisis,” is not responsible.
With respect to Bio I and II, the reason this course is not taken is already you are taking 2 sciences per semester. If you go on the Curriculum Council website, when they did the curriculum review of the Cell Biology and Genetics courses, the main complaint from the professors was they felt the med class as a whole was very unprepared as they had not had General Bio I and II and recommended that students should take it, as it is a prerequisites for undergraduates. While I got a long just fine as I went to a school that offered AP Bio, MANY who are in the program’s only exposure to Biology was in sophomore year, and never took AP Bio and had a difficult time in Cell Bio and thus ended up extending. The evolutionary biology/botany is only a small segment of the Gen Bio course: it’s the other parts cellular and molecular biology, and animal physiology which med students don’t get as they didn’t take the course and thus they don’t have that foundation to build on in Cell Biology. Once again please clarify about the extension rate in the program esp. after the rigorous summer semester. If you see the prior link from the article the attrition rate is TWENTY percent. That is VERY high and applicants have the right to know that, whether you like it or not. Please tell us what percent of YOUR ORIGINAL CLASS from Year 1 has either extended or left the program? I guarantee the number is high.
“, about 10 ppl get into AMAZINGLY competitive programs (like the top 15 programs: hopkins, barnes jewish, mayo, etc)” – yes and what you leave out is that these were in primary care fields such as Internal Medicine, but certainly not in competitive specialties. UMKC gears students toward primary care specialties hence the Internal Medicine rotation being done 3 times, as well as weekly outpatient medicine clinic for 4 years.
“so stop questioning the credibility of the this program. because marvelous physicians are bred here.” —> I graduated from the program so I know PERFECTLY well, MUCH, MUCH more than you do, about the credibility of this program. I never said marvelous physicians are not bred here either. So once again, don’t put words or your assumptions into my posts. You can also see other people’s experiences from past posts as well from MD2B2012 and JFU.
The only reason you are seem on the defensive in your post, is that your feelings are hurt bc you may actually regret your decision. You wouldn’t have to post to defend the program if the program’s match lists spoke for themselves right? On the other hand, please see that Match Lists from Mizzou and WashU.
For everyone, please see the match Lists here from UMKC in what fields and where people match to:
2004: <a href=“http://www.med.umkc.edu/news/sections/prn/backissues/back_pdfs/Apr04_PRN.pdf[/url]”>http://www.med.umkc.edu/news/sections/prn/backissues/back_pdfs/Apr04_PRN.pdf</a>
2005: <a href=“http://www.med.umkc.edu/news/sections/prn/backissues/back_pdfs/May05_PRN.pdf[/url]”>http://www.med.umkc.edu/news/sections/prn/backissues/back_pdfs/May05_PRN.pdf</a>
2006: <a href=“http://www.med.umkc.edu/news/sections/prn/backissues/back_pdfs/April06_PRN.pdf[/url]”>http://www.med.umkc.edu/news/sections/prn/backissues/back_pdfs/April06_PRN.pdf</a>
2007: <a href=“http://www.med.umkc.edu/news/sections/prn/backissues/back_pdfs/April07_prn.pdf[/url]”>http://www.med.umkc.edu/news/sections/prn/backissues/back_pdfs/April07_prn.pdf</a>
2008: <a href=“http://www.med.umkc.edu/news/sections/prn/backissues/back_pdfs/April08_prn.pdf[/url]”>http://www.med.umkc.edu/news/sections/prn/backissues/back_pdfs/April08_prn.pdf</a>
Now please see the Match Lists at:
St. Louis University: [Matchlist</a> || Saint Louis University School of Medicine](<a href=“http://medschool.slu.edu/matchlist/index.phtml?page=matchlist_2006]Matchlist”>http://medschool.slu.edu/matchlist/index.phtml?page=matchlist_2006)
University of Missouri (Mizzou): [University</a> of Missouri School of Medicine - Match List](<a href=“http://som.missouri.edu/match/]University”>http://som.missouri.edu/match/)
Michigan: [2008</a> Residency Match List](<a href=“http://www.medicineatmichigan.org/magazine/2008/spring/exclusives/matchdaylist.asp]2008”>http://www.medicineatmichigan.org/magazine/2008/spring/exclusives/matchdaylist.asp)
Northwestern: [FSM</a> infoPLEX: Class Homepages - Alumni - Class of 2007 Match Results](<a href=“Northwestern SSO”>Northwestern SSO)
Brown: [Match</a> List](<a href=“http://med.brown.edu/about/match]Match”>http://med.brown.edu/about/match)
Boston University: [Match</a> Results Student Affairs BUMC](<a href=“Student Affairs at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine | Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine”>Student Affairs at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine | Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine)
and there are numerous school match lists posts on SDN as well arranged by year.
See, babanana, I actually post links so that people can see the information FOR THEMSELVES and make a decision. See Froggie2009’s posts as well.
