I submit to you a quote from last year's application thread that echoes everything I'm saying.
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@Ignatius M.D. , any chance of getting another opinion on all the things
@Lifschitz has brought up?"
I've been roused from my 4th year slumber, I'll try not to be too cranky. Those comments have not really been my experience, though what he/she said has
some truth. Our weakest pre-clinical area is in anatomy (strongest is pathology) and some rotations get full. Sometimes you don't get exactly what you want, but this happens at every school in the country essentially, particularly with new schools who are still expanding clinical affiliates. I got >90% of the courses and locations I requested. His/her experience may be what was said, but that is not typical like he/she is making it out to be. Additionally, getting the exact schedule you want for 3rd year is essentially irrelevant. Every school has their rumors about what is the "best" order but that's nonsense, and everyone wants the same few rotation blocks, which cannot happen. I got my 3rd choice and it was perfectly fine. Regarding the former issue, our anatomy
is prosection, without high quality, "fresh" cadavers, so we mix up our learning with computer based systems and physical models. We still use the cadavers for tagging muscles, and some 2nd/3rd degree types of anatomy questions, just not for detailed stuff. If you want more you can do more after 1st year. I though that was fine. Being pimped by surgical attendings on esoteric nth branches of X vessels/nerves is old-school and useless, and I did extremely well just by knowing most essential/clinically important surgical anatomy. Spending months dissecting is a waste and will not help your surgical skill. What does help is the fact that we get to close on a ton of surgeries, be first assist, do minor excisions start to finish, etc., which most other schools' surgically inclined students dream of doing. Some students even do more advanced things after proving themselves capable, but if this person was timid they may have had more "shadowing". You have to be assertive. I almost never had more than a few days of a rotation where I was "shadowing", but actually got much more hands-on experience than most of my 20+ friends at other medical schools (especially highly academic ones where you get to do nothing as a medical student).
Class attrition varies by class, of course, but my class had a normal attrition rate and was extremely strong. If their class had a higher rate than any other class I doubt it was because of the curriculum, which the students help design, or because of a sudden change in admin policy (if it didn't affect other classes, why would it be a cause for his/her's?). Lifschitz is not counting at least 4 people we had do research years, 3-4 who left but did not fail out (some people do just leave), and a couple others. They shouldn't speak about what they don't know. A few unmatched students is normal from nearly every school, can happen for a large variety of reasons, and we ended up with 1 person unmatched to my knowledge. My classmates are excellent, our average step 1 was just below 238, we do well on shelf exams, and we had a great match overall. I got the rotations I wanted, had good clinical hands-on experience, went through the normal frustrations of medical school, and matched high on my list in a competitive field and feel very prepared for residency. This is my experience, and this other student has theirs, but take things with a grain of salt.