Congrats to those of you who have the problem of having so many A's that scheduling second look days is complicated! However, I do think with some thought, most of you can whittle down your choices, without going to a lot of second looks. I am not saying that you should not go to any...BUT, you should be able to eliminate a good number of places - much of your decision-making can be done before going to second looks - and you may very well have the information you need from your interview day, in terms of the presentations about curriculum etc. I do want to caution against choosing a school due to "feel" - you will likely meet too few students to really get "the feel" of the school, and these 2nd look weekends are extravaganzas put on by adcom staff who are not necessarily representative of the people with whom you interact with once you get there. (Kudos to the adcom staff who usually put a great deal of effort into these 2nd look events; we are very dependent on them putting on a great show so that the students we really want also desire to come to our school!) But any student choosing between/among schools should really give a great deal of thought to:
1. Money. You need to know cost of attendance, financial aid award, what percentage is loans vs grants. If some is merit award, is it for all 4 years, or dependent on academic performance?
2. Location. It may seem glamorous to move 3000 miles away from your entire support system, but the reality can be sobering. If you are from the east coast, and you went to an east coast school and all of your friends and family and significant other are now on the east coast, you certainly CAN go to med school far away, but consider several things. Parents and grandparents can get sick, older siblings may be getting married and having children (you get to be an aunt/uncle!), younger sibs may idolize you. You might want to see your long time friends, as they get jobs, married, etc. Med school is hard, very few days off, and almost never when you want them. We have noticed that many of our academic struggling students have a few hard knocks AND are farther from home than those with similar hard luck stories who are closer to their family. (I have also seen some students thrive bc they needed to get some distance, so you have to do some introspection here.)
3. Curriculum. Depends on what is the best fit for your learning style, to the extent you are self-aware of how you learn best. P/F vs. Grades? Team-based? Lectures? Case-based?
4. Reputation/School Mission/Fit for what you think you want to do with your life in terms of academics etc. I know you may not know yet, but keeping as many doors as open as possible is always a good strategy. Some schools are very well-known for their basic science genomics research while others are known to have centers for excellence in population health and their work with public policy leaders. It is not to say one school is better, but one school is better for student A and the other better for student B.
5. Other opportunities, including research, community involvement, joint degrees.
