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So I thought why don't we have our own thread?
PNWU Class of 2012 Thread
- Thread starter Tachymeter
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Tachymeter,
For the benefit of all the people who are applying this cycle would you please give us your general impressions of Yakima, PNWA's facilities, staff and curriculum? I realize that this question is rather vague and you just got there but I'd bet that lots of people are chomping at the bit for that information.
The other thing I'd like to know is if you could discern a real strong bias in favor of students from the northwest during the admissions process. Was there a big MCAT and GPA difference on the average between northwest students and the others who were admitted?
Good luck to you in all of your endeavors!
Obnoxious
For the benefit of all the people who are applying this cycle would you please give us your general impressions of Yakima, PNWA's facilities, staff and curriculum? I realize that this question is rather vague and you just got there but I'd bet that lots of people are chomping at the bit for that information.
The other thing I'd like to know is if you could discern a real strong bias in favor of students from the northwest during the admissions process. Was there a big MCAT and GPA difference on the average between northwest students and the others who were admitted?
Good luck to you in all of your endeavors!
Obnoxious
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I'll try to give you some of my first week impressions of PNWU.
Yakima- From what I have seen so far, the community is very excited to have us here. There have been numerous newspaper articles and some television spots about the school. It seems like the majority of the people I meet have heard of the school and quite a few seem to know what osteopathic medicine is. (Nobody's mentioned naturopath to me yet). The area also doesn't seem to have as bad a crime rate as I had come to expect from talking to friends. The area where the school is located (Terrace Heights) is an especially low crime rate area and I feel perfectly safe in it. One thing I really don't like though is that it is so hot over here. Its been in the 90's and 100's recently, and I'm really not used to that.
PNWA's facilities- The facilities of the school are pretty state of the art. We have smart boards in the classrooms and everyone has Dell Latitude D630 laptops. They have cameras for recording. They are trying to streamline the learning experience and have online databases for us to access from both at the school and from home. There are practice physician offices (At least 5, I didn't count), the gross anatomy lab is very nice and has an excellent ventilation system. There is a nice open atrium area where you can eat lunch. There are many study areas and lots of classrooms, large and small. Since there are only 75 of us in the first class we don't use alot of these rooms. If I remember correctly the school was built for around 240 students so we really have alot of room. There are lots of lockers upstairs and downstairs. There is a library but I didn't go look at it, there is also supposedly some lockerrooms but I didn't look for them either. There is no cafeteria, but they have microwaves and fridges for us to use as well as a lot of vending machines. They are also adding things as we ask for them because they didn't realize some things that students would want. (Example we are getting a cross walk to the school, and they put in some bike racks.)
While they don't have a student gym, they have provided us as part of our tuition with a gym membership to the local gym which is nice (Its about 10 minutes by walking from the school)
Staff- The staff has been the most pleasing part of the first week of classes. Without a doubt they really want to be part of this school for the reason of training the next generation of doctors. They have moved from all over the country to come to this school, and left other schools to come here. (Sorry Pikeville (only one I remember)). The one commonality among them so far has been that they were chosen to come to this school because they have a long record of teaching experience and knowledge in a specific discipline.
Curriculum- I'm kinda of iffy here because I only had one week of class so far and its been alot of material to take in. (The drinking from a firehose analogy is starting to make sense to me) But one thing that they have done they I really like is to divide the different courses amongst teachers that compliment each other. For example for something like gross anatomy we will have a phd, a do, an md, and a dpt teaching us about the body from each of the different perspectives. From what I understand as well there will also be integration amongst all the different classes so when we are studying the heart all the different classes will be focused on some aspect of the cardiovascular system. (Don't hold me to that, I'm kind of disorganized so I might be thinking wrong.)
Also as you may know from others, the books, laptop, scrubs, medical equipment, SOMA, WOMA (Wash. Osteo. Med. Assoc.), as well as comlex boards are paid for as part of the tuition and fees, which is very nice.
Based on the school's mission to create primary care physicians for the Northwest, there is a strong bias in favor of students from this area. The school site says that 76% of students are from the Northwest. Regarding MCAT and GPA's I wouldn't know.
All in all I'm very glad that I chose this school. ( Every student that I have met at the school is great which makes things even better, everyone seems to have that pioneering spirit, which I guess you need if you go to a brand new school.)
Hopefully that's a pretty good synopsis of the school right now. I hope to see some people on here coming to PNWU soon.
Yakima- From what I have seen so far, the community is very excited to have us here. There have been numerous newspaper articles and some television spots about the school. It seems like the majority of the people I meet have heard of the school and quite a few seem to know what osteopathic medicine is. (Nobody's mentioned naturopath to me yet). The area also doesn't seem to have as bad a crime rate as I had come to expect from talking to friends. The area where the school is located (Terrace Heights) is an especially low crime rate area and I feel perfectly safe in it. One thing I really don't like though is that it is so hot over here. Its been in the 90's and 100's recently, and I'm really not used to that.
PNWA's facilities- The facilities of the school are pretty state of the art. We have smart boards in the classrooms and everyone has Dell Latitude D630 laptops. They have cameras for recording. They are trying to streamline the learning experience and have online databases for us to access from both at the school and from home. There are practice physician offices (At least 5, I didn't count), the gross anatomy lab is very nice and has an excellent ventilation system. There is a nice open atrium area where you can eat lunch. There are many study areas and lots of classrooms, large and small. Since there are only 75 of us in the first class we don't use alot of these rooms. If I remember correctly the school was built for around 240 students so we really have alot of room. There are lots of lockers upstairs and downstairs. There is a library but I didn't go look at it, there is also supposedly some lockerrooms but I didn't look for them either. There is no cafeteria, but they have microwaves and fridges for us to use as well as a lot of vending machines. They are also adding things as we ask for them because they didn't realize some things that students would want. (Example we are getting a cross walk to the school, and they put in some bike racks.)
While they don't have a student gym, they have provided us as part of our tuition with a gym membership to the local gym which is nice (Its about 10 minutes by walking from the school)
Staff- The staff has been the most pleasing part of the first week of classes. Without a doubt they really want to be part of this school for the reason of training the next generation of doctors. They have moved from all over the country to come to this school, and left other schools to come here. (Sorry Pikeville (only one I remember)). The one commonality among them so far has been that they were chosen to come to this school because they have a long record of teaching experience and knowledge in a specific discipline.
Curriculum- I'm kinda of iffy here because I only had one week of class so far and its been alot of material to take in. (The drinking from a firehose analogy is starting to make sense to me) But one thing that they have done they I really like is to divide the different courses amongst teachers that compliment each other. For example for something like gross anatomy we will have a phd, a do, an md, and a dpt teaching us about the body from each of the different perspectives. From what I understand as well there will also be integration amongst all the different classes so when we are studying the heart all the different classes will be focused on some aspect of the cardiovascular system. (Don't hold me to that, I'm kind of disorganized so I might be thinking wrong.)
Also as you may know from others, the books, laptop, scrubs, medical equipment, SOMA, WOMA (Wash. Osteo. Med. Assoc.), as well as comlex boards are paid for as part of the tuition and fees, which is very nice.
Based on the school's mission to create primary care physicians for the Northwest, there is a strong bias in favor of students from this area. The school site says that 76% of students are from the Northwest. Regarding MCAT and GPA's I wouldn't know.
All in all I'm very glad that I chose this school. ( Every student that I have met at the school is great which makes things even better, everyone seems to have that pioneering spirit, which I guess you need if you go to a brand new school.)
Hopefully that's a pretty good synopsis of the school right now. I hope to see some people on here coming to PNWU soon.
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Tachymeter,
That was well written, thorough and generous. Thanks for your time. Good luck
Obnoxious
That was well written, thorough and generous. Thanks for your time. Good luck
Obnoxious
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Interviewed there, liked it. Probably going to send my deposit tomorrow. One question I had though...in the tour, it appeared that there was a lack of study space. Where do people study? What's going to happen in a year when there are twice as many students on campus?
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Quote from Tachymeter in case you missed it:
BTW where are most of the students living around the area? Are they staying in apartments or sharing rooms in a house?
