University of California Davis School of Medicine

Positively 🙂

2 out of 10

The admissions director gives you a 60 min. talk on the school, and goes through a very well prepared packet of information. (Take my advice, and if he tells you to read something read it; it helped me so much during my interview, because my interviewer was featured several times in the reading material we were given.) Afterwards, we sat in on the last few minutes of a 1st year class which was very well done, the professor was funny (he even got applause at the end of his lecture). Everyone was very laid back and had great rapport with the professor. Then we had lunch with several 1st year students; which was great because they gave us honest answers to our questions, and were very interesting people, and extremely friendly. What really impressed me was that students who weren't originally scheduled to meet with us came up anyway and introduced themselves and offered to answer questions for me, or to e-mail them questions later. After lunch, we got a brief tour from the med students (there are only 3 buildings, and we had already been in 2, so there was only 1 left at that point). Then we went off to our separate interviews. I lucked out, mine was in Sacramento, so I got to visit the medical center. (FYI: I didn't rent a car, so I just got lucky getting rides from the hotel I stayed in, and getting a ride to Sacramento with another interviewee. There is public transportation, but you have to do the leg work to find it and navigate it. They didn't readily provide much information on public transport, and they shuttle that runs from UC Davis to Sacramento only goes once an hour, so if you miss it, you're screwed if you don't have excess time. So my advice is, if you can rent a car, or have a friend drive you because it is really hard to get around without it.) My interviewer was excellent and we had a lot to talk about because I am currently working in palliative care, and he runs the palliative care division at the medical center; so I really felt that the admissions group really made an effort to pair me up with someone that has similar interests. Once you are done with the interview you are done for the day. I arrived there at 10:30am and my interview wasn't until 3pm, and their lecture and student tour only lasts till about 1:30pm at the latest, so you usually end up with time to kill, so bring a book, and read the materials they give you.

What are some of the qualities of a good leader and give an example of a leader?

What was the worst learning experience you ever had and why?

SDN, reread my file, read the UC Davis website, read UC Davis school publications and articles from faculty

What barriers do you perceive for yourself in getting into medicine?

Everyone (students, faculty, administration, other people on campus)is very friendly. The student run clinics allow 1st yr. medical students to volunteer in their first week of school. The UC Davis medical center (in Sacramento) has so many specialized units, e.g. level 1 trauma center, pediatric emergency room, mind institute (doing pediatric autism research), shriner's hospital, west coast palliative care education and research (with hospice unit), burn center, etc. They also say that Sacramento is the most diversely populated city in the US. They are moving away from paper exams, so there is a laptop computer requirement (because you take your exams online). They are moving the medical school to Sacramento by 2006 into a state of the art new building they are constructing. Housing is affordable.

You can't tell that Sacramento is the most diversely populated city in the US from the UC Davis campus. Everyone kept telling me how there is a <1% housing vacancy rate, and there is no medical student housing, and all the good places are already taken at this point. Also, the Davis campus is like 3 small buildings on the corner of the undergrad campus, so they are very isolated.

They only accept about 90 - 100 people per year, and tuition is going up by a lot next year. Also, that I should have already submitted my FAFSA application. On the positive side, once you interview, they tell you either you are accepted or your application is on hold; and since they do not interview a lot of people since their class is small; you got better chances of getting in here versus other schools after the interview. They are implementing for the incoming class of 2008 a "scholarly project" requirement so students will be required to complete a research project resulting in a paper by the end of their 4 yrs. Although, according to the students, this really won't be mandatory for the class of 2008, it will be voluntary at first to see how it goes, with the goal of it becoming mandatory.

Student