I appreciate you taking time out to answer some questions of mine.
I guess in my 3rd year I'm hoping to get some rotations that wont require me to move around a whole from a central area. I'm kind of interested in emergency medicine and it would be nice to get access to a level 1 or at least a level 2 trauma center. I don't care so much about preceptor vs ward based as long as they are quality.
Most of our core rotations won't have you moving around for the majority of your rotations with the exception of psych and OMM.
The access to the Level 1 or 2 facility is really not that important, especially as a 3rd year. How much exposure to EM have you had so far? If it's none, then even a Level 4 critical access ED will be more than you can keep up with when you're learning. Level 1 gets great pathology (duh) but there are also many more layers of learners that are between you and that great pathology. In the smaller EDs, you're going to be a lot closer to whatever comes through the door.
The preceptor vs ward is a huge component that you are overlooking. Ward means hospital and sick people go to the hospital. Preceptor usually implies a clinic and sick people don't go to clinics, unless it is on the way to the hospital. You want ward/hospital based rotations, always.
If I went to comp-nw I would really like to either go to portland or corvallis (I have a couple of friends who live in portland), but I imagine that a fair amount of students feel that way? If AZCOM it would be located mostly in the greater phoenix area, or another centralized location.
AZCOM divides the Phoenix valley into east and west and those are your "sites." However, just because you are east valley, you may still end up at a site on the opposite side (or vice-versa).
As far as curriculum goes its hard to say. I feel like the quarter system that AZCOM has will either make me go insane with constant testing or ensure that I stay on top of the material. I look at western and while i do feel like the style is more "humane" as you all have described it, I would really enjoy having "in person" lectures and access to those people for office hours as well. I know that they aren't inaccessible but when you're paying ~50k a year for an education it would be nice to have some face to face time.
Personally, I hate the streaming lectures and they aren't as accessible as they say they are. But, most students at most schools have found that their study group and Dr. Wikipedia are their best teachers. Same for Western. I would take our testing schedule over AZCOM's any day. The extra month of summer they get is nice, but not three or four tests a week nice.
. The only real drawback is that our breaks are shorter. For me, that has turned out to be not that big of a deal. 
