2018-2019 Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine (Carolinas)

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jessasaurus said:
To reiterate with CanISleepYet?, last year I interviewed in January and there were still a decent amount of seats left. I think we filled this past cycle around March/April (with the exception of any last minute seats being dropped).
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Thanks for sharing! It seems like the Carolina campus takes more time to fill their seats as opposed to other schools. Makes me feel much better!
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Any news??? I interviewed on 11/19. They told me I should hear back from them by today but I haven't gotten any calls or emails. Does that mean I am on the waitlist???? :(
 
I interviewed 11/8 and was accepted 11/20.


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My online portal says complete for the past month, but I did not get an email saying my file is complete. Should I email them to make sure?
 
mp219 said:
My online portal says complete for the past month, but I did not get an email saying my file is complete. Should I email them to make sure?
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It took nine days between my secondary application receipt emails to receive the "application complete" email. So it wouldn't hurt to email them just to double-check. I emailed them a few times asking about editing and timing, and they were quite responsive.
 
southflts said:
I'll be interviewing here soon, any advice or tips on what to accept?
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The interviewers were all pleasant and didn't ask any curve-ball questions. Two of them actually spoke for the majority of the interview.

I looked up the current studies being conducted at VCOM, and that came in handy during one of the interviews when I was able to ask specific questions about the interviewer's own study that he/she was conducting.

You are going to be doing a lot of walking, because they not only take you around the school, they also took us on a tour of the local YMCA.
 
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southflts said:
I'll be interviewing here soon, any advice or tips on what to accept?
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tbh my interviewers didn't really ask me many questions and the ones they did were like "tell me about this activity you participated in on your application" and things like that. I think only one asked me why I wanted to be a doctor. It was more of a conversation and I asked them far more questions than they asked me. Definitely my most laid back interview.
 
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Does anyone know how long it takes to receive financial aid info from the school after you submit your deposit and your info is released to the financial aid department?
 
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Anaphase said:
Does anyone know how long it takes to receive financial aid info from the school after you submit your deposit and your info is released to the financial aid department?
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If I remember correctly, you won't find out much about financial aid until pretty late in the game. You can do your FAFSA at any time, but you likely won't hear anything until about May. I think I did my FAFSA in November, then in May they finally released the application for financial aid. You will get a lengthy presentation about financial aid at Accepted Students Day in March and Ms. Belton will make sure that you've done everything you need to do. It takes them a while to sit down and determine the cost of attendance for the year which they likely won't do until the spring. Hope that helps!
 
brywigh said:
If I remember correctly, you won't find out much about financial aid until pretty late in the game. You can do your FAFSA at any time, but you likely won't hear anything until about May. I think I did my FAFSA in November, then in May they finally released the application for financial aid. You will get a lengthy presentation about financial aid at Accepted Students Day in March and Ms. Belton will make sure that you've done everything you need to do. It takes them a while to sit down and determine the cost of attendance for the year which they likely won't do until the spring. Hope that helps!
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Thank you!! Do they typically give out much financial aid/scholarships?
 
Anaphase said:
Thank you!! Do they typically give out much financial aid/scholarships?
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As far as I’m aware, no. It’s very different from undergrad. Unless you’re in the military or are fortunate enough to afford tuition, most of us just pay and live off of loans which we get in July and January.
 
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Anyone get an II? I haven't heard for a few months. Maybe they are behind.
 
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Sent secondary early October and barely got a complete email last week. I was wondering how long it takes to receive an interview after completion email. Thank you!
 
I just relinquished my seat here. Tough decision, but I had to decide between schools before I was out $3000 dollars for two deposits. The campus here is absolutely beautiful, and everyone there was extremely friendly and warm. Best wishes to everyone else applying and interviewing - there is now a seat open, haha. :happy:
 
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I have been complete since October as well. Still haven't heard anything from them.
 
JustWnt2BeADoctor said:
Sent secondary early October and barely got a complete email last week. I was wondering how long it takes to receive an interview after completion email. Thank you!
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I submitted my secondary on 10/19, got the complete email on 11/12 and received an II on 11/20, I'm not sure what order they're going through the applications but they must have a lot of interviews still to hand out because this board as been quiet for awhile! I was supposed to interview on 12/10 but they rescheduled me for 01/07 because of the bad weather they received (almost a month later). Maybe they are pausing for the holiday season?
 
Withdrew my acceptance yesterday, hopefully it will go to one of you, best of luck to everyone!
 
Does anyone know the post-interview acceptance rate here? Interviewing Monday - super excited :)
 
futurepatho said:
Does anyone know the post-interview acceptance rate here? Interviewing Monday - super excited :)
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I don’t have any actual stats, but as long as you are a decent human the % is pretty high. At this point they just want to get to know you a little. I will add though that it gets hairy as the seats get closer to being filled (Feb-Mar). Good luck to you!
 
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Posting again with some updates:

I posted in this thread a few months ago with some concerns over the carolinas campus and many of you reached out and I then tried to answer as many of you as I could. A couple of you even decided to switch your decisions based on that so I am happy that I could help some out. I am here posting again with some updated concerns and still relevant concerns as to why anyone applying here should seriously consider their decision.

First off, if you are set on DO school and this is the only one you get into then it is an easy decision, come here. But to those on the fence or looking at other schools consider you options and do your research..

Here are some of the biggest red flags over VCOM-Carolinas and VCOM in general:

Specific to VCOM Carolinas:
- Ours is the only campus NOT associated with another undergraduate school (VCOM virginia, auburn and Louisiana all are) this means an immense lack of resources, studying areas, campus resources, etc.. I also believe the quality of professors goes down as when you have an associated undergraduate campus you also have access to a much better group of professors, that being said our school does have some exceptional professors.
- Still no head of the anatomy department
- immense faculty turn over, probably 1 head of the department a block and 1 professor a block. In the last few months we have had: pathology head fired, anatomy head demoted and rumored to be leaving, Pharm head fired, one other head of department left in the last week (we don't know who yet), and more on the horizon.
- many of our "departments" consist of 1 person. Yes the entire pathology department (which is not taught) is 1 professor, same for surgery. These should be huge red flags for a medical school
- professors speak poorly of the school - instead of taking my word for it reach out to some professors at vcom the best ones we have are Dr. Paulman, Dr. Ables, Dr. Augustyniak, Dr. Lindsey, Dr. Cashman, Dr. Attance, Dr. Jaynes - reach out to any of these professors and hear what they have to say, emails can be found online.
- Dean (Dr. K) is maybe the most aloof person on campus and hardly ever knows what is going on
- Dr. Januchowski, Dean of curriculum who is charge of most things student related will only ever give you one answer " depends on virginia"
- Lower board scores than the other campuses and national averages

AND this last piece above is the most important take away - anything carried out at any of our campuses must first be approved by virginia and all decisions are made by virginia. We are essentially a franchise, another wendys in a large corporation and anytime something happens all we are told is "because virginia said so". When our pathology head got fired we were told they did not even know it was going to happen and one day virginia told them to make the changes. We have little control over our own school and again, faculty will tell you this. They are just as frustrated as we are. Thus I believe that VCOM virginia's may actually be a good school, but ours suffers because of this franchise model.


Feel free to reach out with questions.
 
mmjones01 said:
Posting again with some updates:

I posted in this thread a few months ago with some concerns over the carolinas campus and many of you reached out and I then tried to answer as many of you as I could. A couple of you even decided to switch your decisions based on that so I am happy that I could help some out. I am here posting again with some updated concerns and still relevant concerns as to why anyone applying here should seriously consider their decision.

First off, if you are set on DO school and this is the only one you get into then it is an easy decision, come here. But to those on the fence or looking at other schools consider you options and do your research..

Here are some of the biggest red flags over VCOM-Carolinas and VCOM in general:

Specific to VCOM Carolinas:
- Ours is the only campus NOT associated with another undergraduate school (VCOM virginia, auburn and Louisiana all are) this means an immense lack of resources, studying areas, campus resources, etc.. I also believe the quality of professors goes down as when you have an associated undergraduate campus you also have access to a much better group of professors, that being said our school does have some exceptional professors.
- Still no head of the anatomy department
- immense faculty turn over, probably 1 head of the department a block and 1 professor a block. In the last few months we have had: pathology head fired, anatomy head demoted and rumored to be leaving, Pharm head fired, one other head of department left in the last week (we don't know who yet), and more on the horizon.
- many of our "departments" consist of 1 person. Yes the entire pathology department (which is not taught) is 1 professor, same for surgery. These should be huge red flags for a medical school
- professors speak poorly of the school - instead of taking my word for it reach out to some professors at vcom the best ones we have are Dr. Paulman, Dr. Ables, Dr. Augustyniak, Dr. Lindsey, Dr. Cashman, Dr. Attance, Dr. Jaynes - reach out to any of these professors and hear what they have to say, emails can be found online.
- Dean (Dr. K) is maybe the most aloof person on campus and hardly ever knows what is going on
- Dr. Januchowski, Dean of curriculum who is charge of most things student related will only ever give you one answer " depends on virginia"
- Lower board scores than the other campuses and national averages

AND this last piece above is the most important take away - anything carried out at any of our campuses must first be approved by virginia and all decisions are made by virginia. We are essentially a franchise, another wendys in a large corporation and anytime something happens all we are told is "because virginia said so". When our pathology head got fired we were told they did not even know it was going to happen and one day virginia told them to make the changes. We have little control over our own school and again, faculty will tell you this. They are just as frustrated as we are. Thus I believe that VCOM virginia's may actually be a good school, but ours suffers because of this franchise model.


Feel free to reach out with questions.
Click to expand...
:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
Okay, to start, it seems to be your mission to diss our school on here and discourage applicants, which I personally do not understand how that is beneficial to you. It certainly isn't to our school or to applicants who may do very well at VCOM and find themselves discouraged by you. If that makes you happy as you stated, you might want to re-evaluate yourself...
Is our school perfect? No.
Is any school perfect? No.
Are the issues with our school as terrible as you make them seem with all these negative generalizations and statements? No.

To address the things you specifically have mentioned for any applicants/accepted students reading this:
- No, we do not have an affiliated undergraduate institution. Would that be advantageous, sure. Does it affect my every day life? Not slightly. Also, Louisiana is still only a proposed campus at this point so it shouldn't even be a part of the discussion right now.
- We do have an interim anatomy chair. Dr. Paulman is amazing and it is very unfortunate that he will be leaving; however, that has nothing to do with VCOM's stability or credibility and that is all I will say about that (and yes I know the reason, it is just not appropriate/relevant to the discussion, promise).
- In regards to the faculty turnover, some of the statements you made are frankly not true. We certainly do not have a new head of a department every block, unless that suddenly stopped since I started at VCOM (doubtful). Our pathology head has not changed in the "past few months". Professor/staff turnover is part of life. It happens at every school, job, hospital etc. People have lives and they take us different places. I do not feel my class has really "felt" any changes in faculty, at least not yet.
-Having more faculty in the surgery and pathology departments would be helpful. However, we are a DO school with the goal of producing primary care graduates. We also regularly have surgeons lecture with us who are not full-time faculty.
-I find it hard to believe all the faculty you listed openly speak poorly about our institution. Do they have negative things to say at times when things don't go smoothly? Sure, but I highly, highly doubt they would discourage applicants from coming to our school.
- As far as the dean goes, that man is one of the nicest people I have met and although we don't see him much, I am sure he has a lot on his plate. Would it be great for him to seem more involved? Yes. Do I think it would do much? No, because as you have stated repeatedly, faculty's hands are often tied because of Virginia. Same thought with Dr. J.

-Now, to avoid sounding like I am spreading solely froo-froo lovey-dovey BS, the issue with having to go through Virginia is definitely problematic at times. Our school does need more independence as a satellite campus, since we have unique issues and considerations. In my personal experience, I have only encountered this being openly used a reason for an issue that affected my class in one circumstance so far, which was relatively minor since there are other resources (recording OMM labs).
Are there issues with pathology? Well, many will say yes. If student-directed learning is NOT for you, it will be difficult. I personally do not like student-directed learning as much, but I figured out what works for me and I am doing just fine with it. It can definitely be done.

Now to address what I believe to be one of the more important topics being discussed, below is a screenshot of our current college outcomes report of COMLEX level 1 scores. As of this past year, we are right on the national average and matched up with Virginia's average. You guys are smart people and can make your own conclusions with this data. Personally, I am a strong believer that your experience is what you make of it, and personally these were stats that I was comfortable with when I decided to come to VCOM.
Screen Shot 2019-01-17 at 8.54.48 PM.png

(Not sure what happened with the class of 2018, but since then we have gotten it together as a campus it seems)

IN CONCLUSION: Please, please feel free to reach out with any questions. I will be straight up with you. Any of you who are interviewing or visiting are welcome to meet for coffee or whatever and I will answer any questions honestly and to the best of my knowledge, show you what a pathology SDL entails, show you VCOM TV, whatever.

At the end of the day, I want to be a DOCTOR. VCOM-CC can make that happen, and regardless of the issues that arise from time to time, I am still very happy with my decision to come to VCOM. I wish you all the best of luck wherever you end up!
 
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Can anyone tell me what there is for a gym/wellness center at the Carolinas campus? Do they still have a partnership with wofford to use their facilities?


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cvbmed said:
Can anyone tell me what there is for a gym/wellness center at the Carolinas campus? Do they still have a partnership with wofford to use their facilities?


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Not sure about Wofford, but we have memberships to the Y. It is huge and very nice and has everything you could possibly want.
 
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I was wondering if someone could please explain how VCOM's clinical sites work in 3rd and 4th year. For example, if you choose to do rotations in Charleston, SC, would you move to this area since it is so far away or travel there temporarily? Do students usually have one site that they stick with or a few different ones? Thanks!
 
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futuremdordo said:
I was wondering if someone could please explain how VCOM's clinical sites work in 3rd and 4th year. For example, if you choose to do rotations in Charleston, SC, would you move to this area since it is so far away or travel there temporarily? Do students usually have one site that they stick with or a few different ones? Thanks!
Click to expand...

Hello. Yes, you would move to Charleston for 3rd year. You have to come back to VCOM for a handful of things, but you'll be living and working in Charleston. There are a few sites that require some traveling.

edit: if you go to VCOM's website under Carolinas you can see the 3rd year core rotations. There are information sheets for most sites.
Hospital Clinical Sites | VCOM - The Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine
 
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CanISleepYet? said:
Hello. Yes, you would move to Charleston for 3rd year. You have to come back to VCOM for a handful of things, but you'll be living and working in Charleston. There are a few sites that require some traveling.

edit: if you go to VCOM's website under Carolinas you can see the 3rd year core rotations. There are information sheets for most sites.
Hospital Clinical Sites | VCOM - The Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine
Click to expand...

Thank you! That is really helpful. So would you stay there for 4th year too?
 
futuremdordo said:
Thank you! That is really helpful. So would you stay there for 4th year too?
Click to expand...
Your fourth year you would mostly be traveling for audition rotations/interviews, but you have to complete some required rotations at a VCOM site.
 
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jessasaurus said:
:rolleyes::rolleyes::rolleyes:
Okay, to start, it seems to be your mission to diss our school on here and discourage applicants, which I personally do not understand how that is beneficial to you. It certainly isn't to our school or to applicants who may do very well at VCOM and find themselves discouraged by you. If that makes you happy as you stated, you might want to re-evaluate yourself...
Is our school perfect? No.
Is any school perfect? No.
Are the issues with our school as terrible as you make them seem with all these negative generalizations and statements? No.

To address the things you specifically have mentioned for any applicants/accepted students reading this:
- No, we do not have an affiliated undergraduate institution. Would that be advantageous, sure. Does it affect my every day life? Not slightly. Also, Louisiana is still only a proposed campus at this point so it shouldn't even be a part of the discussion right now.
- We do have an interim anatomy chair. Dr. Paulman is amazing and it is very unfortunate that he will be leaving; however, that has nothing to do with VCOM's stability or credibility and that is all I will say about that (and yes I know the reason, it is just not appropriate/relevant to the discussion, promise).
- In regards to the faculty turnover, some of the statements you made are frankly not true. We certainly do not have a new head of a department every block, unless that suddenly stopped since I started at VCOM (doubtful). Our pathology head has not changed in the "past few months". Professor/staff turnover is part of life. It happens at every school, job, hospital etc. People have lives and they take us different places. I do not feel my class has really "felt" any changes in faculty, at least not yet.
-Having more faculty in the surgery and pathology departments would be helpful. However, we are a DO school with the goal of producing primary care graduates. We also regularly have surgeons lecture with us who are not full-time faculty.
-I find it hard to believe all the faculty you listed openly speak poorly about our institution. Do they have negative things to say at times when things don't go smoothly? Sure, but I highly, highly doubt they would discourage applicants from coming to our school.
- As far as the dean goes, that man is one of the nicest people I have met and although we don't see him much, I am sure he has a lot on his plate. Would it be great for him to seem more involved? Yes. Do I think it would do much? No, because as you have stated repeatedly, faculty's hands are often tied because of Virginia. Same thought with Dr. J.

-Now, to avoid sounding like I am spreading solely froo-froo lovey-dovey BS, the issue with having to go through Virginia is definitely problematic at times. Our school does need more independence as a satellite campus, since we have unique issues and considerations. In my personal experience, I have only encountered this being openly used a reason for an issue that affected my class in one circumstance so far, which was relatively minor since there are other resources (recording OMM labs).
Are there issues with pathology? Well, many will say yes. If student-directed learning is NOT for you, it will be difficult. I personally do not like student-directed learning as much, but I figured out what works for me and I am doing just fine with it. It can definitely be done.

Now to address what I believe to be one of the more important topics being discussed, below is a screenshot of our current college outcomes report of COMLEX level 1 scores. As of this past year, we are right on the national average and matched up with Virginia's average. You guys are smart people and can make your own conclusions with this data. Personally, I am a strong believer that your experience is what you make of it, and personally these were stats that I was comfortable with when I decided to come to VCOM.
View attachment 247924
(Not sure what happened with the class of 2018, but since then we have gotten it together as a campus it seems)

IN CONCLUSION: Please, please feel free to reach out with any questions. I will be straight up with you. Any of you who are interviewing or visiting are welcome to meet for coffee or whatever and I will answer any questions honestly and to the best of my knowledge, show you what a pathology SDL entails, show you VCOM TV, whatever.

At the end of the day, I want to be a DOCTOR. VCOM-CC can make that happen, and regardless of the issues that arise from time to time, I am still very happy with my decision to come to VCOM. I wish you all the best of luck wherever you end up!
Click to expand...


I say these things for one reason only: I did not do my due diligence before accepting my position here and there are a lot of walls of privacy up around DO schools for many unfortunate reasons.

I will try and systemically go through and reply, Ive had a number more of you message me so hopefully this answers questions:

1. Board Scores - Im not sure if you understand as marked by your response.. But yes no disagreeing in that we are at or above national pass rates, I was speaking about actual mean scores though. Our schools average COMLEX Level 1 scores are BELOW national average COMLEX Level 1 scores, and have dropped from previous years. Additionally, Virginia Campus has a mean score ABOVE national average and well above our campus. To mitigate this our class actually received an untraditional amount of post bacc students to try and bring up this score.

2. You are correct we do not have a new one every block, but most blocks. We have no anatomy department head, we had a change in pathology heads 6 months ago** not a few months ago, we recently had a change in surgery department head 4-5 months ago, we had a change in clinical medicine head 10-11 months ago, we are about to lose another head of the department, we had a change in pharmacology head of the department (fired 8 months ago?), we had a change in genetics department of head (also fired over 1 year ago). So we have had more departments changed than not.

3. Actually - the professors here are tired of administration and that is why they are leaving. I implore you to go ahead email or ask Dr. Paulman why he is leaving, or for that any of the rest of the anatomy, pharmacology, physiology departments how they feel with the school. Dr. Paulman has told us all that VCOM has ruined teaching for him, he is not leaving to go teach elsewhere he is quitting.

4. Also an added point - for those asking about core rotation sites do not forget it is a lottery system. For those looking at sites like charleston as above, this year there were 20 people who wanted that site and there are 10 available spots. Keep this all in mind.
 
Waitlisted today...interviewed 1/14. Hoping for some decent movement!
 
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Here is something we received in an email a few days ago regarding when we should take comlex. This is based off COMSAE, not comlex, which our school uses to judge whether or not you will pass Level 1. Note the downward trend. The carolinas campus is in Orange. Interpret this as you may.
 

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^ The above charts show my points, VCOM carolinas campus is below national average for Level 1 and below Virginia campus. (the majority of us do pass though). Again, I am a student here my purpose is not to defame the school but to make everything known so everyone can make an informed decision. There are many things that need changing at our school so hopefully this will bring light to it.
 
II yesterday over the phone. I declined. Hopefully it goes to one of you still waiting. Best wishes everyone.
 
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Anyone from the Jan 24th interview or after hear back yet? I've been so anxious since they gave us a timeline!
 
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