Sure thing!
Quick caveat that with COVID my class is experiencing a possibly different year than you all may have, so keep that in mind. About 95% of our current curriculum is online, and yours may be more in person. Having said that, I'm overall happy with RFU.
Pros
- NBME style curriculum once you get past the first term
- P/F grading, 69.5% is a Pass. Really helps create a cooperative environment between my class
- School just built a milti-million dollar research building and actively seeks medical students to do research. I personally had zero issues getting into some research as a first year. They'll even give you a summer stipend.
- RFU has a solid match list that punches above its weight class
- Talking to some M3s and M4s, they seem content with their rotations. Rotations take place at various sites in the Chicagoland area, ranging from large community hospitals to Cook county to smaller clinics. Some M4s mentioned that they value the wide range of clinical experiences they had, including private practice, academic, and community med. I'm just an M1 tho, so keep in mind this is just what I've heard.
Cons
- Administration. Admin can just be out of touch at times, especially when they require professionalism on our end (ie respond to emails promptly, schedule your COVID testing ASAP, here are mandatory events for next week that you can't miss) but often times won't hold themselves to the same standard. I'm willing to bet this isn't a problem with RFU, but just med school admin in general. Still a negative though.
- Tuition is expensive. They also raised tuition even though our curriculum is mostly online at this point???
- No attached home institution or home programs. This can definitely be a detriment to some, which is understandable. We rotate with various partner hospitals and clinics in the area, but there is no actual RFU academic hospital.
- Not a name brand school. Nobody in my life had ever heard of RFU before I started going there. Glad I'm getting an MD nevertheless, but Harvard this is not.
- RFU is located in a suburb of Chicago, not in the city itself. There is absolutely nothing to do around the school, and it's about a 45 minute drive to the city. I spend 95% of my time in my apartment anyway due to COVID, but if the world is more open during your M1 year then you may find yourself rather bored if you love city life.
That's my rough breakdown. Overall I am happy with the school, flaws and all. I like my classmates, I get to mostly set my own study schedule, and I'm going to have an MD in 3 years. There are much worse places to be.
