I'm a current 4th yr med student at UCSD, so I will provide my short on the SOM.
First off, congrats on being accepted to these schools, you should feel proud of this accomplishment. The fact that you were offered a spot at both of these schools suggests that you'd probably excel at any of them. So take a deep breath, close your eyes and whatever jumps out at you, go with it...Not really. The pro's about SD: weather, beaches, weather, outdoor activities, and more beautiful weather. In addition, I think that the school offers a rather "old-school" curriculum. Yes, there are a lot of hours of lecture and class time scheduled, which means are available to you if your learning is strengthened by this modality. I for one, could probably count the number of times that I attended lectures, and this is pretty common. You should know however, that the faculty are not happy about students not showing up for their lectures.
Some factors to consider at any school include the curriculum, but to tell the truth I don't think that the curriculum is the most important. UCSD students do very well on board exams, but this could be simply due to the fact that the students accepted to this school are good test takers. Hence, although UCLA, UCSD and UCSF all have distinct curricula, students at each school tend to do well on their boards. Instead, I recommend that you pay attention to other factors such as the time alloted to all their students to study for the boards, faculty support when the time comes for letters of recommendation, deadlines to complete research, and other requirements for graduation. Since I only know about UCSD, I'll mention some things that you may face here, if they are not changed.
1st year: honors/pass/fail. bunch of basic science courses with exams probably not too different from those administered at other schools
2nd year: honors/pass/fail. micro and path 2 quarters, anatomy in one quarter, some free time to study for boards. You will have 1-2.5 weeks after completing 2nd year to study for the Step I; this is in addition to the Mondays off during the Winter and Spring quarters.
3rd year: honors/ near honors/ pass/ fail. clinicals, probably very similar to other places. Kissing booty, and of course knowing your stuff helps, is almost required to earn honors. Rotations are done at UCSD in Hillcrest, VA in La Jolla, Thornton in La Jolla, Scripps-Mercy in Hillcrest or Navy in Balboa. I actually think that the clinical exposure during this year as well as the teaching is awesome. You will feel very well prepared for this level of your training in medicine.
4th year: 3 one month clerkships must be done at UCSD or affiliated hospitals listed above. The rest of the 9 months could be completed anywhere. You get three months total of vacation, 2 months to complete your research requirement, the rest of the time is spent completing more clinical requirements or sub-I's.
Things I'd like to see change at UCSD: 1. earlier clinical exposure, at least to the different fields and faculty to get started early with building rapport with the faculty and to learn about the different specialties in medicine. 2. More time to study for boards 3. PBL during the pre-clinical years (has already been started) 4. Better faculty support for residency app's; this is where I think UCSD is the weakest, and this is something you should all pay attention to 5. get rid of the deadline to complete step 2 clinical knowledge and clinical skills exams (this only adds more stress when you're trying to line up your externships, getting letters of rec, applying to residencies, etc)
Overall, I think UCSD offers strong training but still has some wrinkles to iron out. It is true that there are many of us who are not in complete agreement with the way the school operates, and wish some things were different. However, there are several students here that are very happy. I, for one, was pretty happy to leave UCSD and am extremely excited to try a different way of things. Ultimately, I recommned that you ask as many people for their advice especially current med students, re-visit the schools and go with your gut feeling. You will succeed at any program that you choose, but your level of happiness may be higher at one place over the other depending on what you value more.
I hope that this message helps some of you and best of luck with medical school. Welcome to the profession!
