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[yuw057]

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[Suspiciousmycologist]

So between Hofstra, Cinci, and UA, I think you should look at which curriculum fits you best, and where you would learn the best. You mentioned non recorded lectures for Hofstra but they’re not exactly “lectures.” Other than that, factor in things like location and if you’re willing to switch coasts for 4 years. I don’t think any of them give you considerable advantage to match CA or match competitive. UA of course will have more people wanting to stay on West Coast. Hofstra matches a good amount of CA every year. So does Cinci.

 

[yuw057]

Bump! Would love some more written reasoning!

 

[GreenDuck12]

Take prestige out of your reasoning - all three on the list are similar enough that they aren’t going to give an edge in residency. BU has a good program but unless you’ve experienced NE in the winter before, you should know it is not for the faint of heart. Also crazy high CoA.

I would go UA. Lower cost, closer to support network, closer to CA. Unless BU came with significant scholarship/grant money I would still go UA. Having done my postbac in Boston I really fail to see why BU would be considered prestigious. If anything the school, from an admissions standpoint, is a black box. While the school is in a major city, its hospital isn’t that prestigious when you consider that it is competing against all the Harvard affiliated hospitals (mass general, Brigham, Boston children’s, deaconess, etc).

 

[ginsengreset]

If you want to match into a competitive specialty, such as urology, one of the most important considerations is whether your medical school has a home residency program in that specialty. The ability to work for several years with attendings in your home department, who can then say in rec letters "I would want this student to be a resident in my program," is pretty essential for matching into surgical subspecialties. Not having a home department isn't necessarily lethal, as you can do away rotations, but with step 1 going pass/fail, I've heard a program director say that recommendation letters from home programs are going to become more important.

In light of that, UA Phoenix doesn't seem to have a very extensive list of home programs available. The CoA for UA Phoenix is also just $19k more expensive than the next-best option, Hofstra. This is a drop in the bucket compared to salary differences between specialties, which residency program (e.g. Hofstra/Northwell programs pay $72k for interns, whereas UWash pays $58k), where you work as an attending, and how well you can negotiate your first contract.

If I were you, I'd choose between Hofstra and Cincinnati. As someone who is currently at Hofstra and from the Cincinnati area, Hofstra's location is 100x better. Manhattan is 35 minutes away, and relatively high amount of free time meant that I could go to Manhattan/NYC whenever I wanted (a lot of weekends for me; some of my classmates went every single weekend). A big reason why people have this amount of time is because of unranked preclinical; exams are not even graded numerically, just on a pass/pass with improvement recommendations/fail basis, and the bar to get a pass with recommendations is pretty low. If we had quartiles, I think everyone would be a bit more stressed.

 

[yuw057]

Thanks for the feedback, y'all!