Med Schools...Eeny Meeny Miny Mo!

Like what I stated in my previous blog, I had four schools in mind:

1. UP
2. UST
3. UERMMMC
4. DLSHI

And again, I chose these schools because they were the only ones that didn't require extra units. I initially wanted to go to Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Maynila (PLM) and Ateneo School of Medicine and Publich Health (ASMPH) but they were requiring me to take up additional units in Physics, Chemistry, Biochemistry, Microbiology, and some Natural Sciences.

I really did plan on taking them up, and I went to several schools/universities within our area to see if they all the subjects were available to be taken up for the 2nd sem of their school year. I was lucky enough to find one school, University of Perpetual Help for it.

The campus is big, and spacious, new buildings, and the admissions office was very accommodating. I took their entrance exam, which was about 20-30 minutes or so, and I was then admitted. Since I required about a sem's worth of units, I had to go through several different departments and choose specific classes to get into. What really struck me with this school is how awesome and helpful the professors were there. They personally escorted me to the different colleges and spoke with the other deans of the college, and even gave me tips on which subjects were better to take up to prepare me for Medicine! Wow lang talaga. Hahahahaha. Their college of medicine wasnt bad either, all the professors are from UP Medicine/ UP Public Health (which is similar to MedTech) and their facilities are topnotch!

So I was pumped, ready to take on those extra units, and just get into the whole I'm-gonna-be-a-doctor mode.The day of enrollment arrived, and I went to their auditorium to start choosing my subjects. Pretty simple enough. I was able to get all the subjects, and a great schedule.

Then...the hard part.

I had to have my subjects assessed, and boy, was the line long. I finished around 11am, and ran to the line. It stretched around 3/4 of the quadrangle. Good thing there were chairs, but, sitting/standing in the heat at noon is not something to laugh about. After 7 hours of waiting, I finally reached the assessment room. A student took my schedule and printed out the cost. Unfortunately, one of the subjects hadn't been encoded yet with the proper amount so they sent me up to another room where I waited for another hour or so where a woman was shifting through papers looking for my subject. While waiting, I glanced at the partial cost of my 6 subjects...and my jaw dropped. It amounted to about 60k (well, it was kind of understandable since 3 of my subjects were lab), that cost more than my 4 years in college!!! I didnt know that that amount was perfectly normal for private schools. T_T And to think, I still lacked 3 units on top of that, so it was going to amount to about 70k or so in its final assessment.

And it came to pass, that at 9pm, I headed home, and told my parents that I wasnt going to take up the extra units. I reasoned that the 70k could instead be used to pay for at least half of my 1st sem in Med School. They still offered to let me take up the additional units just as long as I was sure that I wanted to get into PLM or ASMPH, but with parents approaching the retirement age, I thought better of it to just let it pass, and focus on other schools.

Such a shame really, that I bothered all those professors, and they were sooooo nice. :( Oh well. Sometimes things dont work out the way you planned them.

So back to the 4 schools that I enumerated earlier. Again, UP wasnt an option anymore since my NMAT score was below their requirement, and then I had to cross out UST (due to a very unfortunate incident), and then I was down to UERMMMMC and DLSHI.

Both schools are very good, but based on forums and the general opinion, UE is more established in terms of their Med school (around 60 years, I think) compared to DLSHI, which is fairly young (30 years or so).

DLSHI had a fairly easy  application process. Pay Php600, fill out their application forms and bring the necessary documents. Since I passed it around December, I had to wait until January for the interview. The interview took about 30 minutes where the Director for admissions, Dra. Tesoro I think, asked the usual questions --Why do you want to take up Medicine? How will you finance your studies? How do you handle stress? and others. They said that in a week, I'd know if I was accepted. By the very next day, I received the acceptance letter through email and I just had to pay the Php 5000 reservation fee.

Oh but wait, I still had to wait for the results from UE. Grrrr. That would be in the next month, and I was kind of scared to lose my slot. So I decided to wait.

What really attracted me to DLSHI was the generous scholarships for those who graduated with honors. Although UERMMMC also had one, DLSHI's was guaranteed once you enrolled.

Well, of the four schools, DLSHI was by far the most expensive one in terms of tuition. But with the scholarship, it became the one I could most afford without getting my parents bankrupt.

DLSHI and UERMMMC had what they called, the Entrance Scholarship. For DLSHI it is providing 50%, 75%, or 100% scholarship for those who graduated as cum laude, magna cum laude, and summa cum laude. UE also has a similar scheme but based on forums at Pinoy MD, they said that only 30-40 students in total, get the scholarship, whilst in DLSHI, all those who applied, regardless of the number, just as long as they fulfilled the requirements, they could get the scholarship.

Oh, before I forget (being a scatterbrain and all), here's some info about each school

UP:
- NMAT Cutoff: 90%-95%
-No. of students accepted: 160 (40 slots are reserved for Intarmed students)
-Tuition Per Sem: Php56,000
-Has an interview
-Application Fee: Php 1,000

UST
- NMAT Cutoff: 70%-80%

-No. of students accepted: 400

-Tuition Per Sem: Php102,000 (last I checked, and they increase every year by 4-7%)
- Has 2nd level exams (MCAT)
-Application Fee: Php2,000

UERMMMC
-NMAT: 70%
-No. of students accepted: 300

-Tuition Per Sem: Php96,000
-Has an interview
-Application Fee: Php1,600

DLSHI
-NMAT: 40%
-No. of students accepted: 310
-Tuition Per Sem: Php106,000 (and they increase by 3-7% annually)
-Has an interview
-Application Fee: Php600

Gotta cut this post short, gotta rush. Arghhhh, will continue. :))