UCSD Interview: General Information

Interview day started at 8 am with an introductory presentation by the dean of admissions to a total of 7 interviewees, including myself. She gave us some pertinent information about the program and some statistics about the admissions process. Particularly heartening is that UCSD looks well upon the non-traditional applicant such as myself. The mean age of entering first-year students is 24.

• >5500 Primary applications
• ~Secondary applications
• 600 interviews
• ~300 offers of acceptance
• 134 students in the entering class

The dean also said that 225 offers of acceptance have already been made for those 134 slots but stressed that the admissions committee is still making offers of acceptance. In other words, I'm not just wasting my time interviewing for a spot on their waiting list. UCSD's waiting list is non-ranked, and they euphemistically call it the "acceptable pool of applicants."

Medical schools are able to make more than twice the number of offers as they have room in their entering class because applicants tend to accept offers to multiple schools. Medical schools actually have access to that information: the dean said that one applicant who they accepted holds acceptances to more than a dozen other medical schools. The chances that that person ends up at UCSD is pretty slim. All applicants are required to hold an acceptance to only one medical school by May 15, so around that time there is a "national shuffle" of medical school applicants as they formally turn down their multiple offers. So, additional acceptances are offered to applicants placed in this acceptable pool around May and June, and even into July.

Curriculum
I also got some interesting information about the curriculum. UCSD is on the quarter system with one predominant class per quarter and several smaller classes that are less intensive; most medical schools are on a semester schedule. I asked some students if they felt that being on the quarter system in any way impacted their medical education. The general response I got was that no, it didn't, except maybe for having more frequent tests.

UCSD medical students are evaluated on a strict pass/fail system. Other medical schools also tend to use pass/fail, but it's common to taint that by introducing "honors" or "high honors."

One quirk about the UCSD curriculum is that human anatomy is taken during second rather than the first year. This is in contrast to all other programs that I've seen. Talking to some current medical students about this, it seems that the rationale is to move from microscopic to macroscopic, learning topics such as pharmacology and cell/molecular biology before the rote memorization of human anatomy. None of the students voiced any complaints about taking human anatomy second year. As much as human anatomy is a rite of passage for first-year medical students, I imagine it might feel strange postponing that experience until second year. This is not a deal-breaker, though, and not necessarily even a negative.

UCSD requires students to complete an independent study project (ISP) prior to graduation. They provide an enormous amount of flexibility as to its topic so that it really can be anything I choose. I was wondering whether I might even be able to use the ISP to continue my work in my current lab. It's a possibility worth exploring, but I also see the value of finding new topics that interest me.

Third-year clerkships take place at six different locations around San Diego County:

1. Hillcrest
2. VA
3. Thornton
4. Children's
5. Balboa Naval
6. Scripps-Mercy

In general the placements are random, though we were told that the dean's office is very good about working with each individual student's needs and may be able to fulfill requests for placement at a given location.

Student Run Free Clinic
Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of the UCSD experience is the Student Run Free Clinic program. The office of admissions goes to great lengths to highlight this program. It is what it sounds like: a clinic that is for the most part run by students. There's a hierarchy of mentorship, of course, with older students having supervisory responsibilities and an attending physician ultimately responsible for all patients that go through the clinic. What particularly appeals to me about this program is the unique opportunity to gain clinical experience - working directly with real patients - even in the first year of medical school. The first two years of all medical schools are heavily weighted in lectures and coursework. Basic clinical skills are taught to a limited degree in the first year, with some schools devoting more time to it than others, but this is no substitute for genuine patient interaction and the experience provided by the Free Clinic.

Office of Student Affairs
The Office of Student Affairs also gave a presentation. I was very impressed by the lengths to which UCSD goes to make life just a little easier for their students. There are organized events such as outings to the theater or opera, or wine and cheese social mixers that include both students and faculty. When I toured Drexel and Colorado, I didn't get the impression that their students had nearly as much in the way of such life-balancing experiences provided by the school.

The mentoring system, too, is extensive and structured. All incoming first-year students are paired with a faculty mentor, in a casual-type relationship, and with a second-year Big Sib. Third- and fourth-year students can become "senior mentors" to the Big Sibs, which creates a sort of "family tree" of medical students. This structure is rather common across medical schools, probably because such a social arrangement is effective in supporting students throughout medical school. Students also choose a faculty mentor for their ISP, and finally, students choose another faculty adviser at the end of their third year specifically to help them navigate the process of applying to residency programs.