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fa21212 said:
Assuming you had multiple acceptances, what are the most important factors that would drive your decision for choosing among medical schools? Assume you want to have the option to specialize in something competitive.
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This question depends on the individual and hard to give generalized answers. Goro already listed a bunch of factors one might consider. For me, when I was single, it'd be cost and location. Now that I have a family, I'd go location #1. Every school has issues with part of their curriculum one way or another, same with rotations as they change over time. Mandatory lectures suck and having a P/F school is less stressful.
 
1) P/F
2) Research
3) Ranking (loosely in combination with tuition, I am not paying more for a low ranked school)
4) Location

for me at least
 
Location and tuition are top for me, but I also have a family, so location really matters. After that, things like P/F, quality of clinical sites, and ranking.
 
Look at net cost, not list price. If you are good enough to have choices, you may be good enough for a scholarship. Don't make a decision until you see the financial aid package.

Location in terms of climate, proximity to family and ease with which you can "get home" in case of an emergency/tragedy.

Pass/fail. This can be good (no stress) or bad (no pressure to really learn all the material)

Housing situation. Some schools offer subsidized housing on campus which can be convenient but also depressing, particularly if you've lived on your own for any length of time and are now going back to a dorm situation. On the other hand, if you haven't lived on your own and you don't have much stuff, having a furnished living space close to fellow students can be a plus for socializing, studying, etc.
 
fa21212 said:
Assuming you had multiple acceptances, what are the most important factors that would drive your decision for choosing among medical schools? Assume you want to have the option to specialize in something competitive.
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1) Cost of attendance.
2) Location
3) Graded vs P/F
4) Urban vs not
5) Availability of outside elective rotations.
6) Variety of research opportunities.
7) Time off to study for Step 1.
 
LizzyM said:
Look at net cost, not list price. If you are good enough to have choices, you may be good enough for a scholarship. Don't make a decision until you see the financial aid package.

Location in terms of climate, proximity to family and ease with which you can "get home" in case of an emergency/tragedy.

Pass/fail. This can be good (no stress) or bad (no pressure to really learn all the material)

Housing situation. Some schools offer subsidized housing on campus which can be convenient but also depressing, particularly if you've lived on your own for any length of time and are now going back to a dorm situation. On the other hand, if you haven't lived on your own and you don't have much stuff, having a furnished living space close to fellow students can be a plus for socializing, studying, etc.
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How do you always have the perfect answers...
 
fa21212 said:
Assuming you had multiple acceptances, what are the most important factors that would drive your decision for choosing among medical schools? Assume you want to have the option to specialize in something competitive.
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The most important factor is whether or not they accept you.
 
An interesting topic, but I believe @gonnif has posted on multiple occasions that about 80% of those accepted have a single acceptance. So this will only apply to about 1 in 5 of those accepted and little application to the rest. Therefore the most important factor is getting accepted
 
Angus Avagadro said:
An interesting topic, but I believe @gonnif has posted on multiple occasions that about 80% of those accepted have a single acceptance. So this will only apply to about 1 in 5 of those accepted and little application to the rest. Therefore the most important factor is getting accepted
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i think its 20% of those who apply will have multiple acceptances. half of those who matriculate have multiple acceptance roughly. the 80% is because 60% of those 80% simply won't get in and will have 0 acceptances to choose from.

60% do not get in
20% get one acceptance
20% get multiple acceptances
 
Robin-jay said:
The most important factor is whether or not they accept you.
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gonnif said:
Applicants
(50,000 apply for 20,000 seats)
100% Apply
60% get rejected
10% get single interview, single acceptance
10% get multiple interviews, single acceptance
20% get multiple interviews, multiple acceptances

Applications
800,000+ individual applications transmitted to 150+ medical school programs
programs get 5,000-15,000 applications
If each program interviews a 1,000 students, 150.000 interviews across all schools
each school must reject at least 80% of applicants pre-interview
150,000/800,000 = 12.5% chance of II overall
Assume half interviewed get acceptance/WL
75,000 acceptances/WL offered (rough estimate)
About 3x number of acceptance/WL as spots (rough estimate)
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Literally don't understand why this always comes up in posts like this. Why is it always deemed unreasonable to think that the OP asking is actually holding multiple accepts? Can we not just stick with the assumption and answer the question.
 
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