2015-2016 The Commonwealth Medical College Application Thread

Applying to Med School? Get In Or Your Money Back
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mk2015 said:
II this morning!
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Apk13 said:
Same II this morning.
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whitepanda said:
II this morning! Very excited about this school :happy:
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NorthOfBroad said:
II this morning, IS, LizzyM ~76, complete ~7/25
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winterwind_23 said:
Interview invite! What's the best way to get to TCMC? I'll be flying in from California!
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Gregory House the real MD said:
II! 1st one! hopefully many more to come :) interviewing 9/14
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When did you all submit your secondaries? Congrats btw!
 
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Just booked my flight to AVP! How far is AVP from the TCMC campus? I'm getting in Sunday afternoon, and my interview is Monday. Will I need to rent a car to get around on the Sunday (from AVP airport to hotel, from hotel to campus)? Or can I get along fine without a car in Scranton?
 
Safe to assume youve been rejected if you submitted july 2nd and havent heard anything back?
 
winterwind_23 said:
Just booked my flight to AVP! How far is AVP from the TCMC campus? I'm getting in Sunday afternoon, and my interview is Monday. Will I need to rent a car to get around on the Sunday (from AVP airport to hotel, from hotel to campus)? Or can I get along fine without a car in Scranton?
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It's a (about 10 miles) 20 minute ride from the airport to the campus. Scranton is a small city, but if your hotel is close to the school, just get a cab to your hotel.
 
I'm just imagining someone poking her head in my bedroom window and singing, "While weeeeeeee had some excellent applications this yeaaaaarrrrr, we regret to inform youuuuuuuu..."
 
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ciestar said:
It's a (about 10 miles) 20 minute ride from the airport to the campus. Scranton is a small city, but if your hotel is close to the school, just get a cab to your hotel.
Click to expand...

Thanks. Is there a car rental place near TCMC? I'm going to rent a car to drive from Scranton to Philadelphia for my next interview. Would I have to go out of my way to get to the car rental place? In that case, I would just rent the car at the airport on Sunday.
 
Just got my secondary and I'm instate. Here we go!
 
Just to be sure, my app is complete if it says "Your app is ready!" ?
 
Hey! 2 questions: 1. How friendly is this school toward OOS students? and 2. I received secondary last week, if I haven't submitted still, should I even bother??? (stats: 31MCAT, 3.5 gGPA)
 
SweetFast said:
IS
Applied: 903
Interviewed: 456
Matriculated: 78

OOS
Applied: 5027
Interviewed: 362
Matriculated: 22

So they interview 50% of instate apps and their class is 78% instate. They only interview ~7% of OOS applicants.
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The OOS stats seem pretty similar to other privates. I'm from California and received an interview.
 
SweetFast said:
n=1. TCMC is not friendly to OOS. 7% OOS interview rate is extremely low for state schools let alone private schools.
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I'm on my phone now so I can't look up and post the stats right this moment, but I'm fairly certain that at all the schools I've received interviews at, the interview rate is around 8%. That's what I remember when I looked it up on the MSAR after receiving the interviews. So I think the TCMC OOS interview rate is comparable to other privates.
 
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AMCAS verified 23 July
Secondary Submitted 4 August

Still waiting... how much longer?

3.78 sGPA, 3.77 cGPA; 30 MCAT (10/10/10)
 
awetmop said:
AMCAS verified 23 July
Secondary Submitted 4 August

Still waiting... how much longer?

3.78 sGPA, 3.77 cGPA; 30 MCAT (10/10/10)
Click to expand...

patience folks, we're still in august.
 
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Current 3rd year just posting to give more info about the school:

Pre-clinical years pro: A new great anatomy professor, great pharmacology lectures, new building, non-gunnerish environment (exceptions of course), Dr. Iobst is a great student advocate

Pre-clinical years con: Path professor was just OK, microbio had me wishing I had taken it before, too many 'professionalism' courses

Pro/con: community weeks (3 per year, where you do some volunteer service, some inter-professional work with other community members, work with a doctor)...blessing because you get a break, but that also means you're cutting out 6 whole weeks of academic preparation for STEP 1--i believe the average step 1 score for the c/o 2016 was a 220-221; national average was 228.


Now onto 3rd year...
TCMC is going through an experiment currently. They split each of the four campuses (Scranton, Wilke-barre, Williamsport, Sayre) into Team A & Team B. There is a Team A-Scranton, Team B-Scranton, Team A-WB, Team B-WB, etc...

"Team A" does a block schedule for the first half of the year...
While "Team B" does the old LIC schedule for the first half of the year...
After winter break...they switch

The block schedule is a truncated version of a traditional block schedule school. Your blocks are assigned at random.
4 weeks of inpatient "adult" medicine (paired with either an IM or FM team)--yes, i am sorry for all of you who despise FM
4 weeks of surgery--you can be with a general or specialist...you kind of just get put with one...not really much choice. A big plus is that there are no residents (unless you are a part of the Wilkes-Barre Geisinger cohort or Sayre), so you get more hands on work
3 weeks OBGYN
3 weeks Psych
2 weeks Peds--none of TCMC campuses have great pediatrics 2/2 parents bringing their sick children to big name hospitals like CHOP
4 weeks of "elective", which can be ANY discipline
2 weeks of "selective", which is radiology, pathology or neurology
In the block schedule, every Friday evening is reserved for CED, where you do quizzes once in a while, students do presentations, not many doctors give presentations


The LIC is what they had years before, for the entire 3rd year...
You will rotate through FM/IM/PEDS/OBGYN/SURG/PSYCH (1/2) each throughout the week. For example,

Monday - Peds 8-12; Surgery (office) 1-5
Tuesday - White Space AM; Psych 1-6
Wednesday OBGYN 8-12; IM 1-6
Thursday - White Space AM; FM 1-6
Friday - White Space AM; CED evenings (same CED as the block schedule kids...you go to the same CED as your respective campus)

CED = clinical education days, where they have lectures/student presentations/quizzes (occassionally)/outside groups present...I think they are kind of a waste of time, but some of my friends love the presentations. It's hit or miss.

White space = free time to explore different things such as surgery (you are scheduled on office days...so you need to use white space to actually see surgeries if that's your interest); this is hard sometimes because you have to work around physician schedules...also during summer alot of physicians are on vacation so you are paired with someone else (i.e., another doc, PA, midwife, etc).

Pro: If you don't like something, you only have it one half-day a week and can just sit there // Lots of white space time to concentrate on fields you have interest in ( IF you can find time that works for your physician to teach you & of course a physician willing to work with you) // No "on-call" technically (but, from what I've heard some people do overnights willingly and that's ok too) // Weekends are pretty much free which is nice because I can drive home on the weekends to see family // if you have the LIC during the 2nd semester, you can use all your white space to just study for shelves (more explanation below) and absolutely murder them (if you have LIC in the first semester, sorry)

Con: HIGH variability in quality of preceptors (i.e., the doctor who shows you how to write notes, lets you see the patient before him, do the physical exam, & come up with a dx & tx plan VS shadowing for half a day VS doctors that openly tell you that they are being made to be preceptors & hate teaching)... Unfortunately, TCMC isn't known for their great clinical faculty...I have a 4th year friend that says that she shadowed the ENTIRE YEAR during her obgyn or peds rotations!!!! // Lots of driving (most likely, each office is at a different location, and yes, it could be far) // Surgery rotation (hard to do morning rounds on patients when you have to be at OBGYN on Wed from 8-12... this is ok if you have white space in the mornings)... but it sucks if you can't switch your schedule & you wanted to be a surgeon, or a hospitalist & only got 1/2 the experience compared to other students at otehr schools // Never get to know the 'day in the life' of a certain specialty (by doing half-days, you see only that portion...you don't ever experience an entire day unless you have a full day of white space)... do you really want to work in surgery from 630A-8P 5 or 6 days a week? // not enough preceptors = BIG CON...some students are paired with a PA, NP, or midwife for their LIC experience, which is lame...

Shelves are national core rotation exams that test clinical knowledge. Because our rotations are kinda weird, they let you take them at any time AFTER february. Kinda stupid, but this is what the administration wanted. Problem is... you have to schedule your own appointment for each shelf test at a prometric center, and there aren't many centers around NEPA. If they are full, you'd likely have to travel to Philadelphia just to take a 2-hr test. I really hope they change it this year, as I believe I could take two shelves during fall.

Onto 4th year from the opinions of my 4th yr friend...
"Does TCMC prepare you for 4th year? Yes and no. It really depends on you, the individual. I had to try really hard to get stuff done and learn medicine. These are community and private practice physicians--they simply don't have the time or want to teach as much as their academic counterparts. I have friends that literally have done nothing during their rotations, and I have friends that have done everything. I think it's probably 2/2 self-motivation, but you could simply just have bad luck and get a really bad preceptor. Having gone through one away audition rotation, I am comfortable to say that I am on the same level as the interns, probably because they took a 6-month vacation before intern year started."

"One thing I wish I knew about tcmc was that the school kind of requires you to do many away rotations, because they don't have enough 4th year rotations. You can do up to 20 weeks of away rotations, and many students do that to get a more "formal" experience. After going to an audition rotation, you can tell the difference between a university vs. community rotation."

Hope this helps! Now off to study for surgery...
 
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nycement1 said:
Current 3rd year just posting to give more info about the school:

Pre-clinical years pro: A new great anatomy professor, great pharmacology lectures, new building, non-gunnerish environment (exceptions of course), Dr. Iobst is a great student advocate

Pre-clinical years con: Path professor was just OK, microbio had me wishing I had taken it before, too many 'professionalism' courses

Pro/con: community weeks (3 per year, where you do some volunteer service, some inter-professional work with other community members, work with a doctor)...blessing because you get a break, but that also means you're cutting out 6 whole weeks of academic preparation for STEP 1--i believe the average step 1 score for the c/o 2016 was a 220-221; national average was 228.


Now onto 3rd year...
TCMC is going through an experiment currently. They split each of the four campuses (Scranton, Wilke-barre, Williamsport, Sayre) into Team A & Team B. There is a Team A-Scranton, Team B-Scranton, Team A-WB, Team B-WB, etc...

"Team A" does a block schedule for the first half of the year...
While "Team B" does the old LIC schedule for the first half of the year...
After winter break...they switch

The block schedule is a truncated version of a traditional block schedule school. Your blocks are assigned at random.
4 weeks of inpatient "adult" medicine (paired with either an IM or FM team)--yes, i am sorry for all of you who despise FM
4 weeks of surgery--you can be with a general or specialist...you kind of just get put with one...not really much choice. A big plus is that there are no residents (unless you are a part of the Wilkes-Barre Geisinger cohort or Sayre), so you get more hands on work
3 weeks OBGYN
3 weeks Psych
2 weeks Peds--none of TCMC campuses have great pediatrics 2/2 parents bringing their sick children to big name hospitals like CHOP
4 weeks of "elective", which can be ANY discipline
2 weeks of "selective", which is radiology, pathology or neurology
In the block schedule, every Friday evening is reserved for CED, where you do quizzes once in a while, students do presentations, not many doctors give presentations


The LIC is what they had years before, for the entire 3rd year...
You will rotate through FM/IM/PEDS/OBGYN/SURG/PSYCH (1/2) each throughout the week. For example,

Monday - Peds 8-12; Surgery (office) 1-5
Tuesday - White Space AM; Psych 1-6
Wednesday OBGYN 8-12; IM 1-6
Thursday - White Space AM; FM 1-6
Friday - White Space AM; CED evenings (same CED as the block schedule kids...you go to the same CED as your respective campus)

CED = clinical education days, where they have lectures/student presentations/quizzes (occassionally)/outside groups present...I think they are kind of a waste of time, but some of my friends love the presentations. It's hit or miss.

White space = free time to explore different things such as surgery (you are scheduled on office days...so you need to use white space to actually see surgeries if that's your interest); this is hard sometimes because you have to work around physician schedules...also during summer alot of physicians are on vacation so you are paired with someone else (i.e., another doc, PA, midwife, etc).

Pro: If you don't like something, you only have it one half-day a week and can just sit there // Lots of white space time to concentrate on fields you have interest in ( IF you can find time that works for your physician to teach you & of course a physician willing to work with you) // No "on-call" technically (but, from what I've heard some people do overnights willingly and that's ok too) // Weekends are pretty much free which is nice because I can drive home on the weekends to see family // if you have the LIC during the 2nd semester, you can use all your white space to just study for shelves (more explanation below) and absolutely murder them (if you have LIC in the first semester, sorry)

Con: HIGH variability in quality of preceptors (i.e., the doctor who shows you how to write notes, lets you see the patient before him, do the physical exam, & come up with a dx & tx plan VS shadowing for half a day VS doctors that openly tell you that they are being made to be preceptors & hate teaching)... Unfortunately, TCMC isn't known for their great clinical faculty...I have a 4th year friend that says that she shadowed the ENTIRE YEAR during her obgyn or peds rotations!!!! // Lots of driving (most likely, each office is at a different location, and yes, it could be far) // Surgery rotation (hard to do morning rounds on patients when you have to be at OBGYN on Wed from 8-12... this is ok if you have white space in the mornings)... but it sucks if you can't switch your schedule & you wanted to be a surgeon, or a hospitalist & only got 1/2 the experience compared to other students at otehr schools // Never get to know the 'day in the life' of a certain specialty (by doing half-days, you see only that portion...you don't ever experience an entire day unless you have a full day of white space)... do you really want to work in surgery from 630A-8P 5 or 6 days a week? // not enough preceptors = BIG CON...some students are paired with a PA, NP, or midwife for their LIC experience, which is lame...

Shelves are national core rotation exams that test clinical knowledge. Because our rotations are kinda weird, they let you take them at any time AFTER february. Kinda stupid, but this is what the administration wanted. Problem is... you have to schedule your own appointment for each shelf test at a prometric center, and there aren't many centers around NEPA. If they are full, you'd likely have to travel to Philadelphia just to take a 2-hr test. I really hope they change it this year, as I believe I could take two shelves during fall.

Onto 4th year from the opinions of my 4th yr friend...
"Does TCMC prepare you for 4th year? Yes and no. It really depends on you, the individual. I had to try really hard to get stuff done and learn medicine. These are community and private practice physicians--they simply don't have the time or want to teach as much as their academic counterparts. I have friends that literally have done nothing during their rotations, and I have friends that have done everything. I think it's probably 2/2 self-motivation, but you could simply just have bad luck and get a really bad preceptor. Having gone through one away audition rotation, I am comfortable to say that I am on the same level as the interns, probably because they took a 6-month vacation before intern year started."

"One thing I wish I knew about tcmc was that the school kind of requires you to do many away rotations, because they don't have enough 4th year rotations. You can do up to 20 weeks of away rotations, and many students do that to get a more "formal" experience. After going to an audition rotation, you can tell the difference between a university vs. community rotation."

Hope this helps! Now off to study for surgery...
Click to expand...

I can definitely see this being an issue at the West Campus...nothing is localized at all. Lots of travel
 
Im an OOS, interview in two weeks, Has anyone interviewed there for this year? does anyone know the interview set up? What questions will they be asking?
 
Submitted my secondary last night. Super late, but it was a last minute addition! OOS hoping for some love.
 
winterwind_23 said:
Just booked my flight to AVP! How far is AVP from the TCMC campus? I'm getting in Sunday afternoon, and my interview is Monday. Will I need to rent a car to get around on the Sunday (from AVP airport to hotel, from hotel to campus)? Or can I get along fine without a car in Scranton?
Click to expand...
Need a car!
 
II! Complete 7/31, IS, LizzyM 65. Anyone who's interviewed want to let us know how it went?
 
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Did anyone submit their secondary app with a fee waiver?
The secondary app portal says:

"If you have received an application fee waiver, please email a PDF copy of your waiver, which should include your AMCAS ID, to[email protected]. You will be able to submit your application after the waiver is processed."

But I checked the AMCAS FAP site and my e-mail and never received a PDF. Did you guys just screenshot it and save it as a PDF?

Thanks :)
 
UCSDMember said:
Did anyone submit their secondary app with a fee waiver?
The secondary app portal says:

"If you have received an application fee waiver, please email a PDF copy of your waiver, which should include your AMCAS ID, to[email protected]. You will be able to submit your application after the waiver is processed."

But I checked the AMCAS FAP site and my e-mail and never received a PDF. Did you guys just screenshot it and save it as a PDF?

Thanks :)
Click to expand...
I just emailed a screen shot of the email!
 
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rachiie01 said:
I just emailed a screen shot of the email!
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They never made me send one... *shrug* It just showed up that my application fee was paid when I logged into the secondary, like most other schools.
 
BeachBaby said:
submitted 7/13, no word yet :)
Click to expand...

I submitted like 7/5...but wasn't complete until 7/25. One of my top choices since it's local for me. So anxious to hear back!
 
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Easonred57 said:
They never made me send one... *shrug* It just showed up that my application fee was paid when I logged into the secondary, like most other schools.
Click to expand...

Same here.
 
how long did it take for them to send you a secondary?? I still haven't got on yet and I don't think they screen....
 
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