Meeting Minutes 10/19/2021

Location: Zoom

Meeting Called by: Pre-Optometry Club

Duration: 45 minutes

Guest Speaker: Christina LaChance, New England College of Optometry

Agenda:

  • Christina introduces herself and gives an overview of NECO
  • NECO is a smaller institution with incoming class size of 130, lab sizes of 20 and a wide diversity of students in each class
  • NECO is located in Boston, Christina gives many reasons for why Boston is an ideal place to be a student, including: academic opportunities, housing and public transportation 
  • NECO mission: give back to city of Boston, especially underprivileged areas
  • Curriculum is a combination of class, lab and patient care. Curriculum breakdown builds from lectures to complete patient care over 4 years. Specialized programs, elective options and residency are all options that can be added into the curriculum after the first couple semesters of general classes. 
  • Clinical education program separates NECO from other universities as it begins within the first semester to prepare students for real-world clinical experience. 
  • Research at NECO: areas including myopia, vision science, biomedical sciences, ocular disease, etc. Also offered is an OD/MS and OD/PhD programs that can be selected once admitted into the college. 
  • CAPA: center for academic and professional achievement contains 19+ organizations students can get involved in. 
  • Christina talks about prerequisites for undergrad, the application process on OptomCAS, OAT scores, shadowing and letters of recommendation. 
  • An overview of tuition and scholarship options is given. 90% of students receive some kind of financial aid. Scholarships are awarded at time of acceptance. 
  • Christina shared an inquiry form that can be filled out to receive emails about NECO information sessions: https://admissions.neco.edu/eventinquiryformfill