You are better off not going there. Frankly it was unpleasant....
If you get in - god help you. I guess the best bet is to just keep your head down, talk to no one, and you will be a star. They like folks who follow the leader, keep to the company line, and above all sing the praises of Pritzker at all times. Find outside friends, complain to them, and to everyone else say how lovely life is. I will leave the positive spin to others, I find these threads to be one sided.
As someone who had the choice between Feinberg, Pritzker, and many other good schools and still choose Pritzker I feel somewhat compelled to explain my decision.
Firstly I didn't go into this process clueless: I had been in the Chicagoland area for 4 years and knew both Streeterville and Hyde Park, as well as their reputations, very well. Yes Streeterville is a fantastic area, that is very safe. And yes Hyde Park and U Chicago are a bit of an oasis, in that the surrounding areas aren't the best places in Chicago to be.
That being said, when I visited the hospitals I didn't find Pritzker to be a horse dying on its last legs, at all. I found the attendings and faculty very friendly, and the students very happy. Financially speaking, suffice to say that I was offered significantly more scholarship by Pritzker than my any other school.
And most importantly for me, I found Pritzker to be a place with not only strong academics, but a very strong social mission. It's one thing to take a few pro bono cases a year. It's a completely different thing to be situated in a difficult neighborhood and deal with difficult cases every day. I wanted to study medicine in a place where I felt like I would be making a difference where it really mattered most. And I wanted to learn in a place that could give me a diverse array of experiences, from the best to the worst. Because in medicine, real world on the ground experience is the best thing to have in your toolkit. Yes I knew this would mean that I would have to sacrifice some personal comfort, but that's life and I decided there was something that mattered more to me.
No one is paying me to write this, but just like Favre felt compelled to state his case, I wanted to give mine. I don't think I'm being too biased, or one-sided here. I confess that Hyde Park is not the safest place in Chicago. But I think this is one of those situations where each person just needs to make the call for themselves and see what they value. It's not that there's a right or wrong, just personal "fit".
If anyone has any questions feel free to PM me, or contact any of the other fantastic people on this thread.
The best to all of you in your apps. I'm sure you will all find great med schools to study at.
🙂
to those who haven't heard anything yet
