Hey
@blueybingo22 I forgot to respond to your dm about UVA vs BU so I'll post my thoughts here like the other person. I also had to choose between UVA and BU and I chose BU, so I'll explain my reasoning and the different factors that influenced it, though it is also personal to me. Beware it is SUPER long though. This is what I used to make a decision so I dedicated a lot of time to it.
Location:
- I'm from GA and I have lived in Atlanta, the metro-ATL area, a smaller town in GA, and in the Blue Ridge mountains in GA, ranging from super urban to pretty rural. I personally have always preferred living in a big city, and I love how walkable Boston is and how many things there are to do, restaurants to try, places to hang out, etc. I visited NYC a lot growing up and lived in Seoul, South Korea for several months and found that I much prefer a big city with public transport over a smaller town where you have to drive everywhere. I was worried that Boston would not be as safe, but after visiting, even South End seems much safer than where I lived in ATL and has much lower crime rates. I got robbed in Atlanta, got my car broken into, etc. and there were homeless people even on my secluded college campus.
- As far as Charlottesville and Fairfax, there didn't seem like much to do in Charlottesville and you had to drive everywhere. The town seemed somewhat similar to the town I lived in during high school and ended up hating (lots of outdoorsy stuff to do but very few downtown areas for ex.) I don't really like hiking or running, and even the views (Blue Ridge Mountains) are not impressive to me because they're the same in GA. Fairfax was really nice, but again you had to drive everywhere. The proximity to DC was appealing to me, but again I would have to drive and parking in DC is expensive.
- I was assigned to Pinn College (my choice) meaning I would have had to move to Fairfax if I went to UVA, which I wanted because of the hospital and proximity to DC, but moving after 18 months is still inconvenient.
- For LGBT ppl: I think Boston has a lot more opportunities for LGBT involvement and activities. I talked to a student in qMD at UVA and he basically confirmed that Charlottesville is not the best place to be as an LGBT person, there are like no gay bars, it's not as accepting, and fewer LGBT people in general.
- Few other tidbits that affected my decision: Boston is colder but it's also close to beaches for when it is warm, which is nice. I also like winter activities like ice skating. The airport is also about a 15min drive from the medical school which is super convenient, compared to the Richmond airport which is an hour and 15 min away from UVA.
Housing:
- I looked for housing in both Charlottesville and Boston for weeks, and I struggled a lot to find a place in Charlottesville that was within a 15min walk from the school, would allow me to have my cats, and wasn't an expensive luxury apt (which ruins the benefit of the lower COL). In Boston, I have managed to find a nice place within my budget within a 4 min walk of the school that I will hopefully sign for soon. Additionally, rent is not that expensive if you manage to find a place with a roommate (I know a current student who lives 5 min away from campus and pays like $1100 each for rent for a 2b/2b). BU also offers a medical student residence dorm option for $1000/month, the only reason I did not do it is because of my cats. Additionally, once you turn 24 you may qualify for income-based subsidized housing as a full-time student, which is much cheaper than other options. I also know that most BU current students have a SNAP card which allows them to get free groceries, but I think this benefit may be over since it was a pandemic thing.
COA:
- I got a scholarship at BU and I did not get a scholarship at UVA, so the COA difference between the two is not huge. In fact, my estimated COA at UVA is more expensive than BU. However, I will be living off-campus rather than in the dorm, so I will have my COA adjusted accordingly and BU will be more expensive because of rent. However, I plan to pursue PSLF in the future since it aligns with my plans to work at a safety-net hospital anyways, so any debt I have over a certain amount doesn't matter. It will all be forgiven anyways.
Hospital systems:
- I have experience working in the ER at a level 1 trauma center safety-net hospital as well as a more metro/suburban hospital. The patient populations and types of cases you see in these two different areas are VASTLY different. Since I am interested in EM and want to work at a safety-net hospital in the future, I think doing my clerkships at BMC will prepare me a lot. Inova Fairfax would have definitely been more similar to BMC than the UVA hospital, but I still think BMC is more similar to the hospital I hope to work at in the future. At a safety-net hospital like BMC, you see lots of super-progressed diseases that you wouldn't see at a hospital where most of the patients have insurance and see a doctor regularly. So this is an opportunity to get lots of exposure in EM, as well as experience working with underserved patient populations.
School Facilities:
- UVA: the learning center and lecture hall is really nice, but otherwise the medical school facilities seemed sparse. The student lounge looked like no more than 30 people could comfortably fit in it, and the library looked more like a public library rather than a nice place to study. It seemed like there weren’t really many options of places to go to study/work with your peers besides the actual lecture hall/learning studio. The medical campus was more spread out and there didn’t seem like there were many places to get coffee or food within a short walking distance of the medical school which isn’t ideal for me. All they had was the little coffee stand on the 2nd floor.
- Boston: the medical school at Boston is in a 14-story building with numerous different study areas. It has a two-floor library with super nice study areas and comfy private cubicles, private rooms, etc. There are multiple student lounges including one on the 14th floor with a great 360 view of Boston. It really reminded me of the library at my undergrad where I studied a lot. The lecture hall and anatomy lab are also in this building so everything is compact and in one area. The Boston medical center is right across the street from the medical school and I like how close together everything is. There are great bakeries, cafes, and restaurants within a short walking distance. Overall, the plethora of study spaces are really what tipped the scales towards BU for me because I'm the type of person who always went to the library to study in college.
Anatomy Lab:
- UVA requires students to dissect the specimens, whereas BU uses prosections (it is already dissected for you). There are pros and cons to both of these.
Dissections cons: it takes a lot of time to dissect specimens, and if another student or you do it wrong it can make it really hard to study/learn from your specimen. Pros: doing the dissection yourself can help you piece things together, like where things are in relation to other parts. I assume dissections are better if you're interested in surgery.
Prosection cons: you don't get to dissect yourself, only study from an already dissected specimen, unless you take a specific elective or something. Pros: it saves a LOT of time in the Anatomy lab and you'll have a specimen where it is really easy to see all the anatomical structures you need to know.
Curriculum:
- So Boston did NOT switch to an 18-month curriculum like UVA's. The main change that was made was switching to a body systems-based format (all of the cardiovascular physiology, anatomy, pathology, etc. in one unit). Before, the first year was mainly anatomy/physiology and the second year was pathology/diseases. In addition to this change, they made it so that you finish the actual pre-clerkship material in about 15 months and then spend 4 months doing integrated patient case studies and studying for STEP 1. Whereas at UVA, you finish all the material in 18 months and then immediately start clerkships after only 2 weeks of review so I'm honestly not sure when you're supposed to integrate everything and review for STEP 1. Because of this shortened pre-clerkship curriculum at UVA, the other major difference between BU and UVA is that BU requires 24 weeks of electives whereas UVA requires 40. So UVA allows more time for exploration of specialties/sub-specialties whereas BU allows more time for review of the material.
- All the required clerkships are the same except UVA requires anesthesiology, emergency medicine, and critical care; whereas BU requires emergency medicine OR radiology. The order of pre-clerkship units after foundations is different at each school (BU starts with cardio, then pulmonary, etc. whereas UVA starts with musculoskeletal, then GI, etc).
Social Justice Mission:
- BU has 2-week LEADS course for a total of 7 times throughout M1 and M2, where you get to choose specific health equity mini-courses to take like LGBT health, racism in medicine, addiction medicine, refugee medicine, homeless medicine, etc. So there are in total 18 weeks of the curriculum dedicated to learning health equity and social justice in medicine. UVA says they have a "Social Issues in Medicine" required course for first years but it's not even built into the curriculum outline so it's probably only 1-2 weeks. For this reason, I think BU prioritizes teaching about health equity and producing culturally/socio-economically aware physicians much more than UVA.
- Additionally, as someone interested in LGBT health and women's rights/abortion rights, Boston is a much better place to be.
Match Rates:
- Both BU and UVA students match VERY well, so when it comes to prestige, they're both great choices. The number of students matched to each specialty was more or less the same at both schools this year, though UVA did match 13 students into orthopedic surgery vs BU's 3, and conversely, BU matched 13 students into neurology vs UVA's 2.
- In terms of the prestige of institutions students were matched to this year, they are also pretty on par with each other. BU matched 14 students to Harvard-affiliated residencies and multiple students matched at Brown (8), Yale (6), U Washington (5), Mt Sinai (5), UCSF (3), Columbia (3), Cornell (3), Dartmouth (3), NYU (2), Hopkins (2), U Chicago (2), Emory (2), Northwestern (2), etc. UVA matched 8 students to Harvard residencies and 8 students to Hopkins residencies, as well as multiple students at Stanford (4), Northwestern (3), U North Carolina (3), Duke (3), U Chicago (2), NYU (2), Emory (2), Mayo (2), U Mich (2), and U Penn (2). I did notice that larger numbers of students at BU got matched into the same prestigious school for specialties at BU compared to UVA, as you can observe by the numbers above.
Research:
- This is super specific to me, but BU is associated with the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratory (NEIDL), a biosafety level 4 facility, which is a huge bonus for me since I am very interested in infectious diseases as well. I will have lots of opportunities to get involved with infectious disease research and studies. I was also told by a current student that they incorporate infectious diseases into their curriculum a lot since lots of the professors work at the NEIDL so that's cool. UVA also has great research opportunities in many different specialties though.
Learning Style:
I am honestly not sure how the learning style at UVA is since they're not that transparent about it and it's not on the website, but BU has started incorporating study techniques that are proven to improve learning and memory, like interleaving, spaced repetition, retrieval practice, etc. They give students Self-Learning Guides which you study before the lecture, and then the lecture is spent reviewing the important info and discussing specific cases, completing mini-quizzes as a group, talking with a study group, etc. I remember UVA saying they have mandatory lectures from like 8-12 M-F, but BU is trying to move towards less required lecture time and more self-study time. My experience from undergrad has shown me that I learn A LOT better when I have a learning guide to review before class rather than showing up to learn from a PowerPoint (I have a short attention span unless lectures are actually interactive and I have a chance to answer questions/discuss). Again, this is a personal preference, and I know some people prefer standard lectures over interactive lectures/discussions.
Assessments:
BU has assessments every other week with no cumulative or big unit exams, whereas UVA has 2-3 exams per module depending on the length that covers more material each. Which one you prefer is entirely dependent on your own learning style. I would rather have consistent assessments every other week than a big exam every 4-6 weeks that I might end up cramming for. And BU makes up for the lack of cumulative exams with the strategies I mentioned earlier like interleaving as well as the 4-month integration of material period that UVA lacks.
Finally, Transparency and Feedback at BU:
- BU has been SUPER transparent with me throughout the entire application process. The Dean of Admissions openly told me how the entire admissions process works, the 7 different criteria they rank students in, how they select students for an interview and final admission, who gets offered merit scholarships, etc. This level of honesty and transparency really made me view BU differently because I felt like they genuinely were not trying to hide anything.
- All of the current students I have talked to have told me that BU takes student feedback VERY seriously, especially with the new curriculum change. Some of the current M1s were upset with the curriculum change because they were not sure what to expect and there were kinks to work out, but I have been unanimously told that BU is taking student concerns seriously and has already adjusted the curriculum this year and next according to the feedback. And unlike last year, the curriculum outline has already been established and a sample weekly schedule is even available on the website, so most of the complaints that students had last year about not knowing what to expect will be improved this year.
Obviously, I lot of my reasonings are super specific to myself and my preference for BU probably shined through. I tried to remain objective in my thought processes though. Let me know if you have any questions.
