2017-2018 Oakland University (Beaumont)

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Lucca

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1. How have your experiences serving others contributed to your personal growth?
2. Optional: Is there anything you want the admissions committee to know about your qualifications for medical school that is not already represented in your application materials? Note: This space is provided for new information only, not to promote qualifications already highlighted in your other materials.
3. If you have already graduated, briefly summarize your activities since graduation.

Good luck to everyone applying!

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Hi guys, I'm a rising M3 at OUWB and just wanted to make myself available to answer your questions if you have any! Feel free to post here or PM me. I do want to stay as anonymous as possible so I can speak freely and not worry about classmates/administrators figuring out who I am. There are a couple other current students who drop by the application thread occasionally as well. Good luck with your applications!

What's life like in Rochester? Are there many students with families?
Thanks in advance!
 
Hi guys, I'm a rising M3 at OUWB and just wanted to make myself available to answer your questions if you have any! Feel free to post here or PM me. I do want to stay as anonymous as possible so I can speak freely and not worry about classmates/administrators figuring out who I am. There are a couple other current students who drop by the application thread occasionally as well. Good luck with your applications!

Hi, can you tell me what you consider to be strengths of the school + what your favorite aspects of the school/community are? Also, reading from a previous year's thread, the environment at Oakland is "unique"?-do you know what they meant by that?
 
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They are the same as last cycle!

@Lucca

400 words

How have your experiences serving others contributed to your personal growth?

Optional: Is there anything you want the admissions committee to know about your qualifications for medical school that is not already represented in your application materials? Note: This space is provided for new information only, not to promote qualifications already highlighted in your other materials.

If you have already graduated, briefly summarize your activities since graduation.
 
I'm a bit confused about the traditional route. My labs were separate grades from my lectures, but it only gives us one space for a lab. Should I input both in the same "lab" space or just input one of my two labs?
 
If you have already graduated, briefly summarize your activities since graduation.

I have just graduated in May, does this still apply to me? or is this geared towards non-trads?
 
Do they screen? I'm OOS and a few friends go to school here so I'd love the chance to go but haven't gotten a secondary.
 
Still waiting on a secondary. Excited to apply!
 
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When were you complete guys verified? I just got verified today and haven't gotten it yet.
 
Prompts are same as last year: @Lucca

400 word limit

1. How have your experiences serving others contributed to your personal growth?
2. Optional: Is there anything you want the admissions committee to know about your qualifications for medical school that is not already represented in your application materials? Note: This space is provided for new information only, not to promote qualifications already highlighted in your other materials.
3. If you have already graduated, briefly summarize your activities since graduation.
 
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where is the secondary at? I was verified early June and do not have this thing. I did not get screened either.
 
where is the secondary at? I was verified early June and do not have this thing. I did not get screened either.

They should send an email with a login if you receive the secondary
 
We seriously need another letter besides the committee letter..how do you even upload a letter to AMCAS and only send it to one school?


Sent from my iPhone using SDN mobile
 
Finally got the secondary. Anyone has an insight if we really need to submit another letter? My committee letter contains 5 already and IDK who else to ask
 
Finally got the secondary. Anyone has an insight if we really need to submit another letter? My committee letter contains 5 already and IDK who else to ask

I know Im in the same spot haha, I think im just gonna ask my DO writer to re-submit his letter to AMCAS and just use that
 
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Finally got the secondary. Anyone has an insight if we really need to submit another letter? My committee letter contains 5 already and IDK who else to ask

I believe as long as you have a letter packet accompanying the committee letter, then you'll be fine. The committee letter alone without the packet is 2/3 of the requirement by the sounds of it.

Addendum: secondary received + submitted
 
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View attachment 221076
A bit confused about my LORs. My school writes a committee letter but includes all of the letters written on your behalf as a packet (I have 4 letters from professors). It says this was received but it still says incomplete on my home page. Anyone have any insight to this?

It takes a little while for schools to enter the letters received from AMCAS and check it off in their own system, i believe. If AMCAS has it, then the school should have it soon :)
 
It takes a little while for schools to enter the letters received from AMCAS and check it off in their own system, i believe. If AMCAS has it, then the school should have it soon :)
Thanks.
 
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Hey everyone, rising M1 here. Just wanted to wish all of you nothing but success this cycle! If you have any questions regarding the application cycle, feel free to post here/PM me and I'll do my best to help.

Quick bit of advice: Take the OUWB secondary essay regarding service and personal growth very seriously. I honestly cannot stress this enough. There's a reason that this is the one essay they require of everyone. Please do not rush this essay, even if it means submitting the secondary a bit later than you wanted.
 
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Received application complete email!
 
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Did you guys write anything in the optional essay? I know mrslandingham posted that Oakland said they really only want special circumstances or nontraditionals. I am neither, but I feel like a lot of people would use it as a diversity essay... thoughts?
 
Did you guys write anything in the optional essay? I know mrslandingham posted that Oakland said they really only want special circumstances or nontraditionals. I am neither, but I feel like a lot of people would use it as a diversity essay... thoughts?
Nope, any diversity essay I could've written would've rehashed my primary and or things I covered in the required essay.
 
Submitted and file complete. Good luck, everyone!
 
Did you guys write anything in the optional essay? I know mrslandingham posted that Oakland said they really only want special circumstances or nontraditionals. I am neither, but I feel like a lot of people would use it as a diversity essay... thoughts?

There's a reason the admissions team specifically told applicants not to use that space as a diversity essay or a "Why Oakland" essay. Follow their instructions. You don't want to hurt your interview chances because you couldn't follow simple directions.
 
For a suburban white boy, thank you Oakland for not asking a question about diversity
 
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There's a reason the admissions team specifically told applicants not to use that space as a diversity essay or a "Why Oakland" essay. Follow their instructions. You don't want to hurt your interview chances because you couldn't follow simple directions.
Ok, good. Less work for us ;).
 
Hi guys, I'm a rising M3 at OUWB and just wanted to make myself available to answer your questions if you have any! Feel free to post here or PM me. I do want to stay as anonymous as possible so I can speak freely and not worry about classmates/administrators figuring out who I am. There are a couple other current students who drop by the application thread occasionally as well. Good luck with your applications!

ETA: A couple FAQs that have come up in the threads over the years...I'll preface this by saying that we have a new admissions director as of the end of the 2016-2017 academic year, so things may be changing!

Here is the FAQ on the OUWB website that will answer a lot of logistical questions about the application process and the school.

Should I answer the optional secondary question?
Per the admissions committee Twitter account: only for special circumstances.




When will OUWB start making interview offers / when will I hear back about my decision after my interview / when does OUWB make scholarship offers?

I am personally not involved in the admissions process so I can't answer these for you. However, OUWB's admissions office runs a Twitter account that posts about this kind of information - when interviews might be going out, when the adcom is reviewing the applicants who interviewed on a certain date, and when phone calls with scholarship offers are being made. Note: whoever runs the Twitter account tends to keep close tabs on this thread and they will occasionally respond to questions they see asked here.

What is interview day like?
Long, but informative! This is how they have traditionally gone in the past:
  • Breakfast / talk from admissions office
  • Mock TBL - not evaluated or anything and no preparation required, just helps you see what some of your class sessions will be like if you come to OUWB
  • Bus to Beaumont-Royal Oak hospital, where you will have:
    • Lunch with M3s/M4s
    • A tour of the hospital
    • Your interviews
      • Two one-on-one 30-minute interviews with OUWB faculty or Beaumont doctor (there may also be an M4 interviewing you along with the faculty/doctor)
      • Generally, very casual and conversational! They genuinely want to get to know you to see if you are a good fit at OUWB. There are a couple interviewers who tend to ask ethical questions related to your activities, but most won't.
  • Bus back to OU campus
  • Optional: tour of med school facilities at OU (classrooms, student lounge, med library, anatomy lab, etc.). This is truly optional and nobody will fault you for leaving, but I recommend going if you can!
Does OUWB have a student hosting program?
Yes! Here is the website. You should be contacted by the students in charge of the hosting program sometime after you get your interview invitation and can submit a request at that time. If you don't hear back shortly, I'd recommend booking a backup hotel with a refundable cancellation policy just in case - some weeks, it's tough to find a host if both the M1s and M2s have exams coming up or something like that.

I do highly recommend student hosting if it will not significantly disrupt your sleep - it's great to get to know the student body a bit, and it's free! Plus, talking to your host about their experiences at OUWB and on interview day can help ease your nerves a bit and help you come up with better questions to ask at your interview.

If you'd rather stay in a hotel, that's fine! If you'd still like to talk with a current student before your interview day, a group of M1s/M2s traditionally meet up with interviewing students for dinner at a restaurant across from campus the night before the interviews. Just ask your student host about it if you are staying with one, or contact the student hosting coordinators directly.

Which airport should I fly into? How do I get to/from OUWB and the airport?
I'd recommend flying into DTW, which is 45-60 minutes south of Rochester. Public transportation is not great in the Detroit area, so your best bet would be to take an Uber/Lyft or a cab. Split with other interviewees if you can. Also please note that there is construction on various parts of 75-south for the next god knows how long, so between that and rush hour traffic, to be safe I think you should allow yourself at least 1.5-2 hours to get to the airport at the end of interview day.

How does the post-interview decision process work?
The adcom meets every other week to review the files of interviewed applicants. Usually, the admissions Twitter account will post what interview dates are being reviewed at a particular adcom meeting. They will review the applicants and you will get one of four responses: acceptance (usually phone call), rejection (email), third tier wait list (email), or silence. Silence means that they have not made a final decision on your application yet. THIS IS NOT BAD NEWS. You are still in the running! OUWB is pretty fair about rejecting people they know they don't want in a timely manner, so you still have a good shot at getting in. At the next adcom meeting, they will review the subsequent interview dates and re-review applicants from previous interview dates who did not receive a decision. So if you get silence, you are getting reviewed every 2 weeks and could receive a decision after any subsequent adcom meeting. At the end of April, they will do a final review of all the remaining interviewees, and you will receive a decision of accept, first tier waitlist, second tier waitlist, or reject. Historically, the school has accepted about 40-50 people from the first tier waitlist.

When do scholarship offers go out?
Last year, it seems that some scholarship offers went out with admissions offers, and others went out separately on random dates via phone call.

What is the grading system? What's the attendance policy?
M1/M2: most classes are honors/pass/fail.
  • Honors = >90% in class/exams + >70% attendance at class sessions.
  • Pass = >70% in class/exams, no attendance requirement other than mandatory sessions.
This is not curved - theoretically everybody in the class could get honors if they scored well enough.

M2/M3: Honors/high pass/pass.
  • Honors = exceeds expectations on clinical performance in rotations and >80th percentile nationally on standardized shelf exam.
  • High pass = exceeds expectations on clinical performance or >80th percentile nationally on standardized shelf exam, but not both.
  • Pass = meets expectations on clinical performance and pass shelf exam
Ranking: We do not know where we stand in the class throughout medical school (but you get a pretty good idea based on your exam scores compared to class averages, etc.). However, every single medical school, regardless of grading scheme or whether they say it's unranked, is required to submit a dean's letter (called the MSPE) as part of your residency application, part of which discusses your performance in comparison to your classmates. To meet this requirement, the school assigns us rankings based on our grades (certain amount of points for honors, less points for high pass, less points for pass), which we do not see. What goes into the MSPE, then, is our quartile - e.g. the letter will say you are in the top quarter of bottom quarter of the class. So bottom line: every school has to rank one way or another, OUWB minimizes it as much as they are allowed to do.



I am not sure whether I should pick the traditional or new requirements, any advice on which is best?
 
For the essay on activities since graduation: does it just want a description of the activities? Or would it be appropriate to explain how the activity (working at a restaurant) can apply to medicine/ medical school? I'd really appreciate some advice!!
 
I'm trying to pay the application fee, and as soon as I click make payment (after inputting all my info), the website crashes and I get a message saying the server unexpectedly dropped the connection. I've tried again, and this happened a second time. Anyone else experiencing this?

UPDATE: Third times the charm ;)
 
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For the essay on activities since graduation: does it just want a description of the activities? Or would it be appropriate to explain how the activity (working at a restaurant) can apply to medicine/ medical school? I'd really appreciate some advice!!
I would say only description, answer the question without mentioning what you learned and how they apply to medicine..
 
For the prerequisite courses? I have no clue, I'm not on the adcom and that wasn't a thing when I applied 3 years ago. It looks to me like the new requirements basically just reflect the new MCAT prerequisites. However, if both are listed as acceptable on the admissions website, I'm sure there is no difference between the two sets of requirements provided you meet at least one of them!
Yea but the thing is I have done enough coursework to fill out both of them so I wanted to pick the one that would be best. But if they are equal I guess I'll go with the traditional. Thank you for the reply
 
I didn't know much about this school when I applied, but after researching it for my secondary it sounds tiiiiiiiiiiight *fingers crossed*
 
I didn't know much about this school when I applied, but after researching it for my secondary it sounds tiiiiiiiiiiight *fingers crossed*

can confirm, very tight ;)
 
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