01-12-2011, 07:34 PM
I would have definitely preferred the PA route. It was my first option. Im happy now but definitely not an ideal situation. I thought there would be a lot more redundancy and the OMM stuff is very difficult. The tuition is over 50k a year also on top of my other loans. Thats awesome that you got in to PA school. I just didnt want to take all those prerequisites and then be disappointed in the end. Im doing all these 4 years pretty much just to retake those damn exams.
Rahul for the entrance exam its so weird. I used the kaplan books but if I could do it over, I can say that so much of it was from the Lippincott Biochemistry book especially the first few chapters. Since I am terrible at anatomy, I cannot really say where it all came from. The questions were not difficult but the competition was. There are some really smart people in the class with high 90s on their exams and many interviews, but the language barrier seemed to be what held them from getting in residency. What I did seemed to work pretty well. I actually took the syllabus they gave us, and looked up all those questions on google and various books and studied it from those sources, much of it was from lippincott. Actually the intro. course is that exact same curriculum as defined in that list. What I can tell you is that out of the 150 questions I think we had, less than 10 were clinically relevant, they were very basic science oriented so if you are fresh out of step 1 it will be a breeze. I think the interview is just a formality and it seems all that got in were based on the exam. There were many Americans that applied also, but none got in from what I know because its designed for immigrants. I entered the program not prepared, I would have mastered anatomy before entering the program if I could do it all over. They go sooo deep and ALL of anatomy is completed except neuroanatomy by end of December. In my med school we had 1.5 years of anatomy.
About 80 percent of our class is from Russia or Pakistan, and it seems the same in all years. The program was designed like 25 years ago for Russian Immigrants who escaped.
All in all I dont really know what they expect for admission. I think if you have practiced in your country you are at more of an advantage. I think I only got in because I scored really well on the entrance exam but Im not sure. I know people that tried 2 years in a row and still could not get in. I would say Im at about the 50th percentile for the Emigre class and the 90th percentile of the general student population. Like I said, our group is very very strong. Most of the Emigre Students are 35-45 years of age but we have students even 55 and above.
Rockpaper, how far are you into your education? I saw posts earlier from you when I wanted to go the PA route. How is the curriculum? Initially I thought I would be able to hold a part time job while in school but its impossible. I have to figure something out financially. I can't live like this for 3.5 more years..
Rahul for the entrance exam its so weird. I used the kaplan books but if I could do it over, I can say that so much of it was from the Lippincott Biochemistry book especially the first few chapters. Since I am terrible at anatomy, I cannot really say where it all came from. The questions were not difficult but the competition was. There are some really smart people in the class with high 90s on their exams and many interviews, but the language barrier seemed to be what held them from getting in residency. What I did seemed to work pretty well. I actually took the syllabus they gave us, and looked up all those questions on google and various books and studied it from those sources, much of it was from lippincott. Actually the intro. course is that exact same curriculum as defined in that list. What I can tell you is that out of the 150 questions I think we had, less than 10 were clinically relevant, they were very basic science oriented so if you are fresh out of step 1 it will be a breeze. I think the interview is just a formality and it seems all that got in were based on the exam. There were many Americans that applied also, but none got in from what I know because its designed for immigrants. I entered the program not prepared, I would have mastered anatomy before entering the program if I could do it all over. They go sooo deep and ALL of anatomy is completed except neuroanatomy by end of December. In my med school we had 1.5 years of anatomy.
About 80 percent of our class is from Russia or Pakistan, and it seems the same in all years. The program was designed like 25 years ago for Russian Immigrants who escaped.
All in all I dont really know what they expect for admission. I think if you have practiced in your country you are at more of an advantage. I think I only got in because I scored really well on the entrance exam but Im not sure. I know people that tried 2 years in a row and still could not get in. I would say Im at about the 50th percentile for the Emigre class and the 90th percentile of the general student population. Like I said, our group is very very strong. Most of the Emigre Students are 35-45 years of age but we have students even 55 and above.
Rockpaper, how far are you into your education? I saw posts earlier from you when I wanted to go the PA route. How is the curriculum? Initially I thought I would be able to hold a part time job while in school but its impossible. I have to figure something out financially. I can't live like this for 3.5 more years..