Any advice really appreciated -- UIC/OHSU

[MedStudent2004]

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I am currently a second year student in medical school at Missouri and have completed USMLE part one. The tuition is rather high for out-of-state students and am therefore thinking of transferring to either OHSU (Oregon) or Univ. of Illinois - Chicago (cost would end up being same). First, after looking on the US News website I saw that UIC is not ranked in the top 50 for research or primary care, but OHSU is #35 and #2 respectively -- is OHSU generally considered a much better school? Secondly, how important is the reputation of a school when matching -- I have good board scores/GPA, etc. and could possibly match at a great program from Missouri. Does it reflct negatively to transfer? I'm originally from the midwest and don't have as much experience with west coast schools so any insight would be helpful about OHSU specifically as I'm probably going to go there. Thanks again!

 

[SMW]

Welcome to SDN! 🙂 I don't know how hard it is to transfer to OHSU, but if you can, you should definitely go for it. I interviewed there last month (still waiting to hear) and absolutely loved it. The students there were the happiest and friendliest of all the schools I interviewed at (I had 13 interviews, so that's saying a lot). I don't know much about UIC, but I do know OHSU is considered a very good school. Portland is an absolutely wonderful city to live in.

 

[sandflea]

from what i understand, it is *extremely* difficult to transfer into UIC, some years impossible. to be honest i don't think it's a great enough school for you to totally uproot yourself two years into medical school and start over in a new place, especially with UIC's outrageous out of state tuition. do you have a personal reason for wanting to go there? by 'great enough' i'm not talking about rankings--the students there have a heck of a lot of administrative red tape to go through for everything. i've heard so many horror stories about student difficulties there. then again, if you'd be transferring in as a third-year student you'd bypass a lot of the school's problems. while of course it depends on what you as an individual are bringing to the table and the area that you're looking to match in, UIC students do quite well in the end, in terms of getting residencies. but i really question why you would want to start over at UIC--it seems overly random to me.

 

[MedStudent2004]

Thanks for the input -- I'm actually not that worried about the admissions process, I'm just more concerned about the result -- will it make a difference in residency? and is the reputation differences between the schools significant enough to warrant transfer.

 

[MedStudent2004]

bump