Hey everyone! So I am so thankful to have a couple acceptances to great schools, but I am so indecisive and having a lot of trouble choosing a school. Here are my pros and cons:
RUSH
Pros:
IU
Pros:
RUSH
Pros:
- location in Chicago, only about 45 minutes from home, would be very easy to see my family whenever
- best friend from elementary school goes to dental school in Oak Brook (~20 minutes away), would be nice to be close to her
- rotations at Rush and Stroger (safety net hospital for Cook county and very level 1 trauma center) are a huge plus for me because I am interested in EM and trauma surgery
- tons of jobs in software development/engineering for my fiancé
- integrated, one pass curriculum
- so many service opportunities that I am interested in
- students seemed very happy
- fell in love with the school on interview day
- I work at Rush now in the Alzheimer's Disease Center so I already have some connections for future research
- more expensive tuition than IU
- more expensive to live in Chicago
- in-house exams
- ranked lower than IU
- flipped classroom - my inorganic chem class was like this in undergrad and I didn't mind it but not sure how I feel about doing it for 2 years
- P/F with internal rankings
IU
Pros:
- scholarly concentration programs that I would love to participate in
- cheaper tuition since I'm IS
- cost of living is lower
- ranked higher than Rush (not sure how important this will be with Step 1 moving to P/F)
- true P/F
- not a huge fan of the statewide campus system, would most likely have to move after second year to Indy for clinical rotations
- if assigned to Indy for pre-clinicals, required to take "most" of your clerkships outside of Indy
- not sure about job opportunities for my fiancé at some of the regional campuses, and he would likely have to quit his job to move again after second year
- students did not seem very happy or enthusiastic about the school but that could have just been my interpretation over zoom lol
