IS SMU GOING TO BE JUST LIKE SGU OR ROSS?

[gebbils]

The reason that I made up that topic is that I see that even though they said officially that the deadline is July 30th, but they just keep on accepting students. Everyday you find out that someone else is accepted, and its way past the deadline. I have a friend in SGU and he told me that its horrible when the class is 300 or so people and all it becomes is not a med.school but a business to make money off of students

What does everyone think?

[qtncaribbean]

I think you are right!! For most of these school it is mostly about the money. However, SMU never said anything about an aplication dealine, and the July 30th deadline is for the immigration, which the island required you to have your paper in by that time not the school. Correct me if I am wrong. This is for you to obtain your Visa. I think SMU's Sept class is very big as well, not quite 300 though.

[AmericanIMG]

hahaha, very big? i think the incoming fall class is the biggest ever, and its a lil over 100. i have been in classes in undergrad that were 500-600 in a class (physics, economics, sociology), and trust me the classes here are nothing compared to those.

:wink:

[wowmd]

If I was a SMU school owner or an official, I would try to hire as many students as possible too.

More students = More money, which means more money to invest to make the school better and bigger physically in terms of building more classes, etc and academically as well (more affiliations with many hospitals in US? ).
And more possibilities or percentages of having SMU students obtaining many difficult residencies just like what SGU and Ross are doing, so that it would look better in terms of advertising your school to many prospective students.

As a student, I don't like it at all (or it can be a positive thing depends on how you look at it. Because as more SMU students graduate, more PDs will recognize SMU school as a respective school). But as a school official, I would probably do the same thing as how SMU is heading right now.

[bchamp1281]

I think your right, it is to our advantage that more students are comming. It increases the chances of SMU getting a student into a more competitive residency.

We should all be a team at SMU b/c the better each of us do the more credible/reputation the school is seen. It is to all our advantage to come out of a "great school" in the eyes of our future patients.

Best of luck !

[gebbils]

Medical school is not undegrad, I also had 500 people in my lecture classes, but labs were small, but there were 10 different lab sections, and my school had 4 buildings with 17 floors in each building. And what about a medical school that has a small building and small classrooms? My friend at St. George's was telling me that sometimes there's no room to sit in the lecture hall and forget about the lab, by the time he would get to the cadaver, it would all be completely ruined ( i know that SMU does not do dissections), but I do not think that school by accepting a big class like ours about 150 students will right away be able to accomodate everyone, I dont think they will hire more professors or get more cadavers. Look what's happening with the Residence Hall situation, I truly feel bad for alot of people, who are left to look for living accomodations when they're not even at the island and don't know anything about it.

But I hope I am wrong and I do agree with you guys that the school's reputation will go up, I just hope that all the money that the school would get from new students would go toward making it better for us ( students) and not just to profit.

[gebbils]

oh yeah
also wanted to add that I am in no way trying to bash SMU, I still think its a great school and I am so excited and happy to be starting in the Fall, I am just a bit concerned and wanted to see if anyone shared the same opinion as I am, isn't that what the forum is for?

[AmericanIMG]

something to think about is, if SMU wanted to just become a huge school, why do they reject people at all? SMU could easily just accept all applicants and your class would be 20% bigger...

:wink:

[wowmd]

Don't they reject people because either those people do not meet the pre-med courses requirements? (This may hurt SMU in terms of getting the approval from those difficult states?)
Also, they may reject those students because the school believes those students will hurt the school's reputations by lowering the USMLE passing rate? or even their retention rate?
But you know, these reasons apply to ANY med schools in the world.

[pselwyn7]

I am at SMU and I can tell you that SMU will help you. SMU is not just about money, the school love to help its students, and no I am not paid to say this. Don't listen to people follow your heart and you will be just fine. There will always be all kinds of fear, but that is life and I can tell you no matter where you go the bulk of the responsibility to learn medicine is in your own hands and you will have to pay the same money or maybe more.

All the best and good luck.
http://members.tripod.com/pselwyn7ok