Marian University (MU-COM) Discussion Thread 2016-2017

[marianstudent101]

Are they receptive to feedback from students? Since this is a new school, I think that would be really important.

In my experience I think that it depends on who you're talking to. Some of the faculty are very open to hearing student feedback while others ignore it all together. So it really depends on who you're talking to.

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[21193]

I don't know all that much about that because it occurred the year before I got here. It hasn't affected my education at all.

What are the other issues that are concerning to you? I'd be happy to comment on anything else

Just seems like people are dogging on marian a lot. and I got a follow up email from Dr. Moody that made it seem likejresidency options weren't as good as they were positioning at the interview invites, and the education may not be as good as advertised either.

 

[marianstudent101]

Just seems like people are dogging on marian a lot. and I got a follow up email from Dr. Moody that made it seem likejresidency options weren't as good as they were positioning at the interview invites, and the education may not be as good as advertised either.

So as a second year after having gone through most of the curriculum and having started studying for boards, I think they've done a pretty good job with what you need to know for the USMLE/COMLEX. I'm never confused about anything during my review and nothing is new information to me. Now its just a matter of reviewing and memorizing everything for the boards. I will add that they are making improvements to the curriculum every year and I think that they are doing a fantastic job in regards to making changes.

Really though if you are relying on the school to get you into residency you're doing it wrong. Nothing matters other than your board score and its up to you to study for it and do well. No school is going to hold your hand through the process and carry you there. That burden is on you. Residency directors and chief residents seriously don't care where you went to school. All they care is your score. If you don't meet the cut then they throw your application out.

I think its too early to speak in regards to residency options our first graduating class is just starting to hear back. I know the AOA match was today and it looks like most people from MU-COM that applied got a match. However most of the fourth years seem to be holding out to match into MD residencies. That should be released in about a months time so we'll see how that turns out.

 

[Dick Hall]

Does anybody have an idea of the time frame from complete email to possible II or rejection?

 

[td2016]

Does anybody have an idea of the time frame from complete email to possible II or rejection?

I was complete late Aug and received an II late October.

 

[Medic741]

e-mail about adcom not getting to my app during today's review. Arrrrgh. Good luck to everyone!

 

[kipper68]

Accepted just now. Interviewed 2/4. Gotta give them credit for that turn around time.

 

[FutureSomeone]

completed in early January, still haven't heard anything. Good or bad sign?

 

[marianstudent101]

completed in early January, still haven't heard anything. Good or bad sign?

There might be one or two more rounds of interviews next month but January is really late to be submitting secondaries. I wish you the best of luck.

 

[FutureSomeone]

Would submitting a letter of intent benefit?

 

[sportsdoc14]

Withdrew my acceptance here. Hopefully someone deserving on the alternate list will get the spot!

 

[Boety17]

Just seems like people are dogging on marian a lot. and I got a follow up email from Dr. Moody that made it seem likejresidency options weren't as good as they were positioning at the interview invites, and the education may not be as good as advertised either.

4th year MU-COM student here, matched into my 1st choice FM program. Being part of the first class of students, I think we got the worse education, but it was still good. Every year since, they have tweaked the curriculum to get better. That being said, I don't think we were at a disadvantage for getting into residency. There is more competition locally here in Indiana though. We are now graduating 140+ students a year, but no new residency programs have opened up.

 

[vrggvhbvr]

4th year MU-COM student here, matched into my 1st choice FM program. Being part of the first class of students, I think we got the worse education, but it was still good. Every year since, they have tweaked the curriculum to get better. That being said, I don't think we were at a disadvantage for getting into residency. There is more competition locally here in Indiana though. We are now graduating 140+ students a year, but no new residency programs have opened up.

How do you feel you were prepared for boards? Did you find the school's tests contents and frequency to be fair? How did you like Indy?

 

[Boety17]

How do you feel you were prepared for boards? Did you find the school's tests contents and frequency to be fair? How did you like Indy?

In my opinion I felt that they prepared us ok. After we took our boards, the school saw that we were weak in some areas so that has helped them make changes to the curriculum so I imagine subsequent classes have been better prepared in some areas. In terms of test contents and frequency, I felt they were fair. Tests were at least every two weeks more or less. The questions for the most part are not first order questions so it takes some amount of synthesis and thought on top of the memorized facts to do well.

I love Indy. My perspective as a family man (wife+kids) is that it is very friendly, with lots of parks/museums/sports/other attractions. Its a big city, but traffic is really not that horrible. Downtown is easy to navigate and you can park and walk everywhere if you wanted to. The social scene (bars/clubs) I am not as familiar with, but from what I hear it is pretty good if you are into that.

 

[Igglybuff]

Has anyone on the alternate list heard anything recently? I remember they said they were starting to review the alternate list back in January.

 

[vrggvhbvr]

In my opinion I felt that they prepared us ok. After we took our boards, the school saw that we were weak in some areas so that has helped them make changes to the curriculum so I imagine subsequent classes have been better prepared in some areas. In terms of test contents and frequency, I felt they were fair. Tests were at least every two weeks more or less. The questions for the most part are not first order questions so it takes some amount of synthesis and thought on top of the memorized facts to do well.

I love Indy. My perspective as a family man (wife+kids) is that it is very friendly, with lots of parks/museums/sports/other attractions. Its a big city, but traffic is really not that horrible. Downtown is easy to navigate and you can park and walk everywhere if you wanted to. The social scene (bars/clubs) I am not as familiar with, but from what I hear it is pretty good if you are into that.

.

 

[21193]

4th year MU-COM student here, matched into my 1st choice FM program. Being part of the first class of students, I think we got the worse education, but it was still good. Every year since, they have tweaked the curriculum to get better. That being said, I don't think we were at a disadvantage for getting into residency. There is more competition locally here in Indiana though. We are now graduating 140+ students a year, but no new residency programs have opened up.

Did you take both the COMLEX and UMLE?

 

[Boety17]

When I was there some students I talked to said the curriculum was good and they didn't feel overwhelmed but it, yet felt they were getting solid board prep. You generally agree?

Also does anyone have an idea what the drop out rate is or can comment on quality of rotations

Yes, I would agree with that.

For my class we started at 162 and are now at 138. Several of those students were held back a year and are OMS III, and a couple more I know took a year off for family reasons, and some decided that medicine wasn't for them.

Rotations have been decent. With two classes now on rotations, I think it was a bit of a struggle for the clerkship coordinators to accomadate everyone's wishes and sometimes students were forced to do a rotation they really didn't want. There are enough rotations to do around, just maybe not enough in certain specialties in certain months. But they have worked hard to add more sites. If you are willing to travel a bit, there are a lot of good rotations not in Indy, but around the state, some of them more rural. My best rotations were IM and EM rotations out in smaller communities in smaller hospitals. There are a lot of good rotations in Indy too. Students will talk and you will know where and who the good rotations are with and the ones you may want to avoid. I know the school is working hard to develop/improve the curriculum for our rotations. We had a curriculum but it was not really followed/enforced as well as it needed to be. But my education in the clinical years was still great.

 

[Boety17]

Did you take both the COMLEX and UMLE?

I did take both and honestly I did way better on COMLEX than USMLE, but that was just me. I knew I wanted to do FM, but I wanted to keep as many options open for residency so I took Step 1. I just took COMLEX level 2. Many of my classmates took both and did quite well on both.

 

[PharmD2DO]

A little late getting application materials submitted while meeting the requirements for application while changing careers, but does anyone know when interviews would be expected to wrap for the year? Per the website, interviews end on April 8th. How many more interview days could be realistically expected at this point?

 

[vrggvhbvr]

I did take both and honestly I did way better on COMLEX than USMLE, but that was just me. I knew I wanted to do FM, but I wanted to keep as many options open for residency so I took Step 1. I just took COMLEX level 2. Many of my classmates took both and did quite well on both.

.

 

[Boety17]

138/162 = 85% meaning that this school has a 15% drop out rate if that is true...
I never heard of a north american med school having a drop out rate more than like 2-3%. This would be a major deal breaker if true because I wanna play it safe with my 250k 4 year education investment. Can you or other students elaborate on this??

PS quoted the wrong thread lol.

To be honest, I can't speak to it. The only thing I can say is that it was the first class at a new school, how does it compare to other inaugural classes?

 

[zcmart]

To those that have interviewed at Marian,
Can you please tell me an overview of the questions you received during the MMI portion and how it went?
(You can PM me if you'd like)
Thank you!

 

[HappyFeet14]

138/162 = 85% meaning that this school has a 15% drop out rate if that is true...
I never heard of a north american med school having a drop out rate more than like 2-3%. This would be a major deal breaker if true because I wanna play it safe with my 250k 4 year education investment. Can you or other students elaborate on this??

PS quoted the wrong thread lol.

I do not know where you are getting that 2-3%, but a majority of established schools hover around 5% true attrition rate (some higher, some lower). For example, CCOM's website says they had 206 seats for the entering 2015 class. The AOA match results show 191/206 remaining = 7.28%. Additionally, many new schools have slightly higher attrition rates due to a variety of reasons, including: newness, lower entrance stats profile, etc. 15% is not the true attrition as one of our 4th years have stated that many students have either taken a LOA or were held back.

True attrition can only be calculated after a school has been around for 6+ years as the maximum number of years allowed to obtain a degree is 6 years (so this would include those held back or taking LOA and are not graduating with their original class). As a 2nd year, I know that our class currently has 155/162. I know personally of 3-4 people that were held back to repeat year 1. I do not know about LOA students as that information is not given to us. Assuming those 3-4 people graduate within the 6 years, then 158/162 = 2.45% attrition in the pre-clinical years.

Edit: whoops, quoting messed up for some reason.

 

[vrggvhbvr]

I do not know where you are getting that 2-3%, but a majority of established schools hover around 5% true attrition rate (some higher, some lower). For example, CCOM's website says they had 206 seats for the entering 2015 class. The AOA match results show 191/206 remaining = 7.28%. Additionally, many new schools have slightly higher attrition rates due to a variety of reasons, including: newness, lower entrance stats profile, etc. 15% is not the true attrition as one of our 4th years have stated that many students have either taken a LOA or were held back.

True attrition can only be calculated after a school has been around for 6+ years as the maximum number of years allowed to obtain a degree is 6 years (so this would include those held back or taking LOA and are not graduating with their original class). As a 2nd year, I know that our class currently has 155/162. I know personally of 3-4 people that were held back to repeat year 1. I do not know about LOA students as that information is not given to us. Assuming those 3-4 people graduate within the 6 years, then 158/162 = 2.45% attrition in the pre-clinical years.

Edit: whoops, quoting messed up for some reason.

158/162 = 2.45% sounds like the normal reasonable figure. Also, what are your thoughts on the board relevancy/fairness of the tests and how often they test you?

 

[HappyFeet14]

158/162 = 2.45% sounds like the normal reasonable figure. Also, what are your thoughts on the board relevancy/fairness of the tests and how often they test you?

I feel that they have prepared us relatively well for boards in the pre-clinical years. I have been doing board practice questions sparingly along with 2nd year systems courses and I have noticed that I get around 70-80% of questions correct on that given qbank subject. That % is a bit inflated as the material is fresh, but I think it serves as a good representation that they are teaching a good 80%+ of what could show up on boards.

I also agree with the 4th year in that tests have been pretty fair and tests are approximately every 2 weeks (except for first semester of first year, which are about once every 3-4 weeks). The faculty are VERY receptive of student feedback (as it is a new school) and I can definitely say that it gets better with each passing year. The organization of my graduating class's courses was definitely better than the first graduating class (been told this directly from 3rd and 4th years). I would assume its just going to keep getting better as the school gets more established. For my pre-clinical years, things seemed to run pretty smoothly without many hiccups. I will have to wait and see how the clinical years turn out.

 

[Medic741]

Accepted! No more nights kicking back and 'sleeping' in the passenger seat of no ambulance. You have no idea how grateful I am to never have to do that agin!!!

Now to pick up a motorcycle and get that cross country trip planned . God do I miss that f650GS...

Stats: 7 yrs EMS, 504 MCAT, 3.54 cGPA, 3.58 sGPA, 3.4 nsGPA

 

[21193]

I feel that they have prepared us relatively well for boards in the pre-clinical years. I have been doing board practice questions sparingly along with 2nd year systems courses and I have noticed that I get around 70-80% of questions correct on that given qbank subject. That % is a bit inflated as the material is fresh, but I think it serves as a good representation that they are teaching a good 80%+ of what could show up on boards.

I also agree with the 4th year in that tests have been pretty fair and tests are approximately every 2 weeks (except for first semester of first year, which are about once every 3-4 weeks). The faculty are VERY receptive of student feedback (as it is a new school) and I can definitely say that it gets better with each passing year. The organization of my graduating class's courses was definitely better than the first graduating class (been told this directly from 3rd and 4th years). I would assume its just going to keep getting better as the school gets more established. For my pre-clinical years, things seemed to run pretty smoothly without many hiccups. I will have to wait and see how the clinical years turn out.

That's great to hear. Have there been as man you hiccups with the technology and other things that were being mentioned in your class? Like microphones not working, lectures not getting recorded or being accessible, etc ?

 

[deleted827519]

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[HappyFeet14]

That's great to hear. Have there been as man you hiccups with the technology and other things that were being mentioned in your class? Like microphones not working, lectures not getting recorded or being accessible, etc ?

Yes there have been a few technology hiccups that have already been mentioned. The majority of which is with the lecture capturing technology (sound not working, lecture not recording, etc). As I am a student who does not go to class, you could say that these hiccups have affected students like me the most and yet I do not feel that the issues have been frequent enough to cause me personal upset. Most of the time the faculty supplement the info that was lost or they post the same lecture that was recorded for the previous year's class. Further, most of the time the powerpoint is sufficient to understand the information without needing to listen to the lecture.

Edit: I just wanted to reinforce the rarity of this if it was not apparent in my post. We're talking about maybe 5-6 lectures being completely compromised in the 2 years of my education.

 

[Dick Hall]

Received the complete email today. Hopefully there is still some time and love left out there.

 

[Medic741]

Question for you guys -- How did audition rotations work for you? Was it easy to get the auditions you wanted? Was the school supportive or restrictive with helping you match into the auditions that you wanted?

Cheers!

 

[leewolff3]

Received the complete email today. Hopefully there is still some time and love left out there.

I've been marked complete on their portal since January but haven't received a "complete" email. How long did it take for you to receive your email?

 

[Dick Hall]

I've been marked complete on their portal since January but haven't received a "complete" email. How long did it take for you to receive your email?

I was complete earlier this past week and received the email Friday around 3PM or so.

 

[SpaghettiLover]

Accepted just now. Interviewed 2/4. Gotta give them credit for that turn around time.

Congrats! Could you share your mcat score, s.gpa, and c.gpa?

 

[SpaghettiLover]

Accepted this morning! Super excited to join this program!

Congrats! What was you mcat score, cGPA, and sGPA?

 

[Medic741]

Congrats! Could you share your mcat score, s.gpa, and c.gpa?

Also got accepted from that interview day w 3.52 cgpa, 3.56 sgpa // 504

 

[Golfing Doc]

Congrats! What was you mcat score, cGPA, and sGPA?

501, 3.70, 3.65

 

[raiders_91!]

Unfortunately I can't feel 100% comfortable accepting my recent offer to this school with the ongoing sexual misconduct allegations present. I wish everyone the best of luck and I hope they get in their top choices!

 

[Gek08002]

Got the Email saying file complete today and then scroll down and read that my file is on hold for re-review later on. Anyone else have success getting an interview after receiving this?

 

[HoosierDoc1]

Pre-interview hold. Kinda expected since I applied late :/

 

[Medic741]

Pre-interview hold. Kinda expected since I applied late :/

I applied in December I think. Or late November? Have hope!

 

[deleted827370]

.

 

[Dick Hall]

Pre-interview rejection email today. Best of luck to those left in the running.

 

[kipper68]

Gave up my seat here today. Hope it goes to someone on the alternate list who really wants it!

I wasn't super crazy about this school, but I know there are plenty of people who will do great here!

 

[meldo]

Received an email last week to submit my secondary, so i did, and i just received an email saying it's complete and will take two weeks but last interview weekend is end of this month? Do people even get considered for an interview/accepted post interview this late in the game?

 

[Gek08002]

Received an email last week to submit my secondary, so i did, and i just received an email saying it's complete and will take two weeks but last interview weekend is end of this month? Do people even get considered for an interview/accepted post interview this late in the game?

I got a reply saying my application was complete but I'm put on hold for re-review later in the cycle (this was last month). Still haven't heard anything back so maybe their interview cycle is longer this year?

 

[HoosierDoc1]

I got a reply saying my application was complete but I'm put on hold for re-review later in the cycle (this was last month). Still haven't heard anything back so maybe their interview cycle is longer this year?

Per Marian's website, interviews end April 8th.

 

[Gek08002]

Received an email last week to submit my secondary, so i did, and i just received an email saying it's complete and will take two weeks but last interview weekend is end of this month? Do people even get considered for an interview/accepted post interview this late in the game?

I stand corrected. Just got the rejection via Email lol. Good luck to everyone still in the running .

 

[frosted2]

This is directly from their website. Did we ever get word on whether or not the 3.1 is a hard cutoff for a secondary?