The only one I applied to on this list was Pitt. I talked to several people on the phone and through e-mail and visited the school. Below is my bullet pointed pro/con list:
Pros:
- Location:
- The city has a lot of great resources, including UPMC. Also, there are several other universities in the area and they have a reciprocal agreement with at least Carnegie Mellon where you can take classes there as part of your Pitt tuition.
- A lot of people say they love Pittsburgh. I wasn't there for long enough to know, but it seems to be a diverse, younger population and people seem to be nicer than other areas.
- Excellent cost of living.
- One of the older programs with long-standing relationships both in the area and across the country; this makes for great practicum opportunities. It seems like they work hard at trying to match you up with solid opportunities in your area of concentration.
- Staff seems student focused, helpful, and very friendly.
- Wide array of course options and specialization opportunities for epi.
- You can go directly from the masters to the PhD program if you choose to apply while you are there.
Cons:
- 0 funding for masters students in epi.
- City is cold, gray, rainy, snowy. I'm not sure where you're from, but I'm from Cincinnati, and that's the only school on my list with worse weather (and that includes Boston and Baltimore; for me "worse" incorporates amount of gray hours vs. sunshine hours).
- Building is really old and crappy. They're going to start remodeling soon. I know this seems trivial, but if you're spending so many hours there, environment does become a factor.
My take on Pitt is that it is an excellent school and I was very excited to get in. However, given that they give no master's scholarships and WashU gave me $25k, and I got into Emory, they've been knocked off my list. If I get no scholarships, I'd rather pay full price for Emory than Pitt, and WashU has an excellent overall reputation and would be $40k less total.
I don't know much about Yale or GWU's programs because I did not apply to them. It ultimately depends what you want to do. If you want to go immediately into the field, any of those schools will work. You will get a job. Your main concern should be available internship/research opportunities in your area of interest and curbing debt. If you want to go on to further schooling (PhD, MD, etc.), you'll want to consider brand name a bit more, but all of those will still be solid.
I am sure many of you will see your acceptances soon too!
