RFU Biomedical Sciences 2018-2019

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Dochopeful13 said:
Idk I’m not the most competitive person but the way I see it as long as you get a B your fine.
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I hope so otherwise this program is going to be a stinker. Part of the allure of it now is that the objective is reasonably attainable. Get Bs or better and do well on the interview. But if they change it, no bueno.


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calvangri said:
I hope so otherwise this program is going to be a stinker. Part of the allure of it now is that the objective is reasonably attainable. Get Bs or better and do well on the interview. But if they change it, no bueno.

What do you think they would change it to?


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calvangri said:
I hope so otherwise this program is going to be a stinker. Part of the allure of it now is that the objective is reasonably attainable. Get Bs or better and do well on the interview. But if they change it, no bueno.


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What do you think they would change it to?
 
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Personally, I think that there will still be a sense of comradery between the BMS students next year. And also know that the medical students, podiatry students, and any other professional students that have done BMS in the past will be tremendously supportive. There will always be some ultra-competitive “gunners” in these SMP programs/medical schools, but part of higher education in general involves coping/dealing with people like that.
People need to understand that next year there will be no time for a student to “sabotage” another student, so that shouldn’t be part of anyone’s worries. And any student that tries to do that will most likely do poorly in the program themselves, and fail the interview due to their terrible character traits.
As for curving the exams, the BMS students usually do as well as or better than the M1’s on exams. The largest curve we had on an exam this year was 7 percent I believe, and we usually get a curve of between 2 to 3 percent.
Lastly, if for the past 12 years or whatever, CMS has been admitting BMS students left and right, why would they change it now? The courses are going to be the exact same, the professors will be same, and the criteria for getting into the BMS program in the first place is only getting higher. Also you’ll have to retake all the courses your M1 year, hopefully leading to a better STEP score.
 
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What’s the difference between “Topics in Physiology (TIPS)” and “Medical Physiology” ? And do we take medical physiology in the same quarter as biochem & CMCB or is it just biochem, CMCB, TIPS, HIPS, certificate course then neuro, physio, TIPS, HIPS, certificate course?
 
I spoke with an advisor with the program, she assured me the linkage between BMS and CMS will remain unchanged. She said the classes will still be taught by CMS faculty and that there was nothing to worry about.
 
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lauradk96 said:
What’s the difference between “Topics in Physiology (TIPS)” and “Medical Physiology” ? And do we take medical physiology in the same quarter as biochem & CMCB or is it just biochem, CMCB, TIPS, HIPS, certificate course then neuro, physio, TIPS, HIPS, certificate course?
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TIPS is only for BMS students, and medical physiology is for medical/BMS/pre-matriculation program students. TIPS is taught by the same professors as the med phys course. In the beginning of the year, TIPS is kind of all over the place, teaching you things that don't seem relevant to the medical physiology course material, but it gets much better though. Towards the middle/end of the year, you'll get TIPS classes where they basically give you a big preview of upcoming medical physiology material, so you have a great grasp of it by the time you hear it from the more difficult med phys course. TIPS also contains clicker quizzes, which act to buffer your grade quite a bit.
You will take one physiology test during the time you are taking cell bio/biochem. That test was terrible for me, and quite a few of my colleagues. That's the only time in the year where you will have a combined exam with 3 subjects. It's weird, they incorporate med phys for the 3rd combined exam, then it doesn't come back until the 6th combined exam i believe, for cardiology. That will be the week after winter break. Oh and I also did bad on the cardio exam lol. After that, things started to get much better though.
 
arkansas420 said:
TIPS is only for BMS students, and medical physiology is for medical/BMS/pre-matriculation program students. TIPS is taught by the same professors as the med phys course. In the beginning of the year, TIPS is kind of all over the place, teaching you things that don't seem relevant to the medical physiology course material, but it gets much better though. Towards the middle/end of the year, you'll get TIPS classes where they basically give you a big preview of upcoming medical physiology material, so you have a great grasp of it by the time you hear it from the more difficult med phys course. TIPS also contains clicker quizzes, which act to buffer your grade quite a bit.
You will take one physiology test during the time you are taking cell bio/biochem. That test was terrible for me, and quite a few of my colleagues. That's the only time in the year where you will have a combined exam with 3 subjects. It's weird, they incorporate med phys for the 3rd combined exam, then it doesn't come back until the 6th combined exam i believe, for cardiology. That will be the week after winter break. Oh and I also did bad on the cardio exam lol. After that, things started to get much better though.
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Are there separate exams just for TIPS?
 
arkansas420 said:
From what I remember, I think i had around 400 hours of hospital volunteering, 400 hours of shadowing, and 200 hours of volunteering at a firestation... those numbers aren't exact though.


Luckily I was able to scramble and find the community center i mentioned earlier in the thread, i worked there for around 8 or 9 hours a day, for the 2 weeks that led up to BMS. It was great actually, it got my mind off stressing about doing well in the BMS program for a little while.

During BMS, I volunteered an extra 15 hours through an organization called feed my starving children. You basically pack food for communities in different countries. It's fulfilling, and a nice break from studying. I'd try to work in around 2 or 3 hours a week.
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Even with all those volunteer hours they still made you do more?
 
lauradk96 said:
Are there separate exams just for TIPS?
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Yes that is correct. They fall usually a few days after combined exams, so you have time to study. For TIPS, people study the day before and do well. This isn't really possible with the med classes though lol.
 
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arkansas420 said:
No they said 25, I didn't need 250 thank god.
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That’s such a weird request. So those 25 hours at a comm center are going to make you a worthy applicant?? ADCOMs make no sense. Puppet masters they are.


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calvangri said:
That’s such a weird request. So those 25 hours at a comm center are going to make you a worthy applicant?? ADCOMs make no sense. Puppet masters they are.


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I wonder how many applicants would eat dog crap if the ADCOMs told them to. I probably would *sigh*


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Had a chance to talk to the program director and we had a class meeting today where he talked a little bit about the upcoming BMS program. He said he is hoping to have a class of 95 students for the next academic school year. Currently, around 24 people have put down a deposit and 46 people have been admitted so far. You will be taking basically the same courses as the current BMS students are right now, but without the medical students next year. You will have similar, if not the same, course directors and lectures as the ones we had this year. One additional course you guys will have is a 5 week course at the start of the school year called introduction to clinical medicine (I think the name is right). They just got all the courses approved by the school last Friday so this is all relatively new information.

Your classes will mostly be BMS students and a few PhD students. Unfortunately, this means that the class curve will be set by the BMS students. The program director seemed to stress that he wanted to program to not be competitive and that he will do what he can to make sure this happens. Furthermore, he stated that BMS students tend to do almost the same within a few percentage point or two of medical students on exams and that this shouldn't be a big concern (sometimes BMS > M1, sometimes M1 > BMS).

Lastly, the automatic interview is still guaranteed with getting all Bs or higher (but I think everyone in the program gets an interview from what I have seen so far). This is a great program and I hope they continue giving lots of people second chances. Hope this clears some information about the new curriculum.

This past year, I know that they offered tutors for those doing below 75% overall in the classes and there are small/large group reviews so you will have a lot of chances to get help to understand the material should you be in trouble or need extra help.
 
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brew said:
Had a chance to talk to the program director and we had a class meeting today where he talked a little bit about the upcoming BMS program. He said he is hoping to have a class of 95 students for the next academic school year. Currently, around 24 people have put down a deposit and 46 people have been admitted so far. You will be taking basically the same courses as the current BMS students are right now, but without the medical students next year. You will have similar, if not the same, course directors and lectures as the ones we had this year. One additional course you guys will have is a 5 week course at the start of the school year called introduction to clinical medicine (I think the name is right). They just got all the courses approved by the school last Friday so this is all relatively new information.

Your classes will mostly be BMS students and a few PhD students. Unfortunately, this means that the class curve will be set by the BMS students. The program director seemed to stress that he wanted to program to not be competitive and that he will do what he can to make sure this happens. Furthermore, he stated that BMS students tend to do almost the same within a few percentage point or two of medical students on exams and that this shouldn't be a big concern (sometimes BMS > M1, sometimes M1 > BMS).

Lastly, the automatic interview is still guaranteed with getting all Bs or higher (but I think everyone in the program gets an interview from what I have seen so far). This is a great program and I hope they continue giving lots of people second chances. Hope this clears some information about the new curriculum.

This past year, I know that they offered tutors for those doing below 75% overall in the classes and there are small/large group reviews so you will have a lot of chances to get help to understand the material should you be in trouble or need extra help.
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why are PhD students in the class? I didnt know RFU had a PhD program.
 
h23 said:
Are the 95 students that he wants to admit like a legit hard limit, as in once RFU reaches that number, they won't accept any more students? Would he be more receptive to more students since it says that 110 people matriculated last year? I'm afraid they're going to stop accepting people once they hit 95
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They will accept way more. People decide not to go or get accepted somewhere else that they want to go to more. There is also a waitlist I'm sure
 
brew said:
They will accept way more. People decide not to go or get accepted somewhere else that they want to go to more. There is also a waitlist I'm sure
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yeah I think they'll probably accept 200 or so. Applying right before the deadline might be late though.

how much would u guys estimate the program costs in terms of living costs + tuition + etc?
 
Just had my last LOR uploaded today and everything else has been submitted- is there a notification that application is complete in the application portal or is it sent by mail?
 
Simba0930 said:
Just had my last LOR uploaded today and everything else has been submitted- is there a notification that application is complete in the application portal or is it sent by mail?
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Did you get verified by RFUCAS after you send your transcriptions?

You are supposed to get verified by RFUCAS then u receive an email from RFU that u are complete. It takes 2-3 weeks.
 
The portal says my transcript has been received- it was received 3/27- how long to verify?
 
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Simba0930 said:
The portal says my transcript has been verified.
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did you get a verification email from RFUCAS? That's what you need to wait for I believe.

Also, I do not think you are late. I'm not sure tbh. The deadline is in June so maybe someone else can weigh in
 
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This is what it says in portal - transcript arrived 3/27
 
"
We wanted to let you know that all of the coursework on your RFUCAS application has been verified against your official school transcripts.

Now that your coursework is verified, we will calculate your GPAs and make that information available to the program(s) to which you applied. Please allow up to an hour from the time you receive this email for your GPA data to appear in your application."

this is the email you want
 
firsttimer123 said:
"
We wanted to let you know that all of the coursework on your RFUCAS application has been verified against your official school transcripts.

Now that your coursework is verified, we will calculate your GPAs and make that information available to the program(s) to which you applied. Please allow up to an hour from the time you receive this email for your GPA data to appear in your application."

this is the email you want
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Thank you.
 
Haha! Right after my posts, I received the email that my application was now complete! Now for the inexorable wait!
 
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I was told to volunteer an extra 100 - 150 hours in my community with the less fortunate. What exactly is being looked for in this regard? I found a local community pantry where I’d help stock shelves, sort donations, and even help tend a garden. Just wondering if that would be considered sufficient
 
tc1118 said:
I was told to volunteer an extra 100 - 150 hours in my community with the less fortunate. What exactly is being looked for in this regard? I found a local community pantry where I’d help stock shelves, sort donations, and even help tend a garden. Just wondering if that would be considered sufficient
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This sounds good to me, but as @h23 said, you should call and ask.
 
tc1118 said:
I was told to volunteer an extra 100 - 150 hours in my community with the less fortunate. What exactly is being looked for in this regard? I found a local community pantry where I’d help stock shelves, sort donations, and even help tend a garden. Just wondering if that would be considered sufficient
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how much volunteering did you have before this?
 
how long did you take for you guys to go from complete - > accepted (or decision - hopefully accepted :))
 
Accepted today- 1 week after my file was complete! So excited as I’m headed to California today to present research findings a major conference.
 
Rejected today. Oh well. Congrats on those accepted.


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Just got my acceptance! does anyone know if RFU offers any assistance program for tuition?? that 45k looks a little intimidating lol
 
GGH said:
Just got my acceptance! does anyone know if RFU offers any assistance program for tuition?? that 45k looks a little intimidating lol
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does that include the cost of living?

and nice man - are u gonna attend?

also so no one should worry about linkage change am i right?
 
calvangri said:
Rejected today. Oh well. Congrats on those accepted.


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I'm sorry to hear that, I hope everything works out for you. I'd also like to say thanks for being open about getting rejected, I've skimmed through many BMS threads and I hardly come across posts about not getting accepted.

Do you mind sharing why you think you were not accepted?
 
firsttimer123 said:
does that include the cost of living?

and nice man - are u gonna attend?

also so no one should worry about linkage change am i right?
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No unfortunately that is just tuition. Not including rent and books etc. And i will most likely Attend still sorting out a few things!
 
Also does anyone know recommendation about where to live? is it better to get an off campus apartment or would university housing be most optimal???
 
premedtilimded said:
I'm sorry to hear that, I hope everything works out for you. I'd also like to say thanks for being open about getting rejected, I've skimmed through many BMS threads and I hardly come across posts about not getting accepted.

Do you mind sharing why you think you were not accepted?
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I will share my stats through PM but I’m a unique case. So I wouldn’t gauge any odds of success from my instance.


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squareone said:
I'll be going with Woodlands for the convenience and proximity to campus, mostly because I won't have a car (although I hear it is strongly recommended to have one). However, on campus housing and Woodlands are some of the more expensive options, and a lot of students seem to utilize the Navy housing too.

Do we have a FB group for accepted students yet?
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How close are the the Navy base housing options? I’m going to have a car but prefer to drive as little as possible since I’ve never driven in snow before.
 
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