I don't want to troll or anything. I just curious what people think is the best overall medical school in New York City. It seems like each school has its individual strong points (e.g. cornell = global health, nyu = bellevue, columbia = surgery, etc), but overall which medical school has the best experiences for its students?
Best overall med school in NYC?
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in NYC
you have...
Mt. sinai - i personally think this school is amazing.. the humMED program is famous for taking people who major in humanities so im guessing they have a lot of cultural aspects and a colorfully diverse class
NYU - i think its a big school.. has a undergrad establishment thats high up.. seems like a pretty good school same tier as mt.sinai
Columbia - top tier.. you go here and you'll be prepared for medicine..
touro - osteopathic school.. eh.. probably in my mind one of the more crappy ones..
cornel - hmm.. its top tier.. and has a great match list.. a lot get into ortho and other competitive's
my favorite personally.. is Mt. Sinai..
it overal seems like a better school..
however if i got columbia.. i'd go there.. just cuz.. its columbia..
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There's also new york medical college (not NYU), Stony Brook, SUNY Downstate, and Albert Einstein. Think that is all of the Allo schools in NYC but could be missing some. Not sure how they compare but have a friend at Einstein that loves it and matched into a competitive neurosurgery program last cycle.
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Stony Brook and NYMC aren't in the city.
This is a hard one, NYC has lots of good schools, best will depend on what you want. Mt. Sinai wins for location that's about all I know.
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Haha, as a lifelong NYer I have to say that there are two more prominent medical schools that you forgot about. Albert Einstein in the Bronx and SUNY Downstate in Brooklyn. If the question was only about Manhattan then those are the schools but NYC consists of all 5 boroughs.
As for the answer it depends on what you want. Prestige....Columbia, Cornell, Sinai and NYU to some extent. Research.....same 4. Strong Clinical experience Downstate, Einstein are apparently the frontrunners but the location of NYC and all its affiliated hospital will give you great experience wherever you go. Global Experiences....Einstein, Cornell and Columbia tops. Dorms/living....Cornell, NYU, Einstein tops I think but you can live anywhere in the city as there are many very good options. Diversity...Downstate, Columbia, Einstein. Curriculum, professors etc. is student dependent, what they want in a school.
To clarify previous posts, there are 6 allopathic medical schools in the 5 boroughs of NYC: Columbia, Weil Cornell, NYU, and MSSM (Manhattan), SUNY Downstate (Brooklyn), and Einstein (Bronx).
All are good and the 4 in Manhattan are really top notch. I'd say Columbia is the best ranked, Cornell has the best location (Upper East Side), and both NYU and MSSM are a small notch below but both now also have nationally ranked affiliated hospitals and great programs. If you like living in NYC, you really can't go wrong with any of them.
All are good and the 4 in Manhattan are really top notch. I'd say Columbia is the best ranked, Cornell has the best location (Upper East Side), and both NYU and MSSM are a small notch below but both now also have nationally ranked affiliated hospitals and great programs. If you like living in NYC, you really can't go wrong with any of them.
Considering med schools are officially not ranked, you can look up the yearly "rankings" by googling them...US News & World Report ranks them in terms of research and clinical prestige.
Downstate is always the underdog, even among locals. I've worked with many physicians from Sophie Davis, where they had their "choice" based on interviews and class rank of 6-8 medical schools. They all competed for Mt. Sinai or Stony Brook. Stony Brook seems to be the top pick (1-2 hours outside NYC) for state schools. If I had the choice between the two, I'd pick Downstate, but then again, I'm interested in critical care. Stony Brook is better for research.
Among the Manhattan schools, it's silly to rank them. They're all premiere institutions. As for Albert Einstein, it's insanely competitive and great for research, but the focus seems to be on community health.
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Moving to School Specific Discussions.
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This is a great assessment. 👍 My 2 personal NYC favorites are Columbia and Mount Sinai. Columbia because it's awesome as I know from experience and Sinai because it has a lot going on and I really like the vibe there.
mmmcdowe
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As a totally unbiased poster with no conflict at interests as all (I'm certainly not a Columbia student or anything like that), I'd definitely say that Columbia is the best school 😀.
I'll try to talk about the schools in a columbiacentric manner, but unfortunately I only applied and interviewed at Cornell, Columbia, and NYU so I can't speak directly about Mount Sinai or the others. I have heard lots of great things about Mount Sinai though, and my interactions with the students there have been positive. Lot's of cross talk between them and Columbia, more so than even with Cornell (which is maybe counter-intuitive since there are a lot of academic and professional connections between our schools).
Location: Cornell, NYU, and Mount Sinai all have great locations, but they also have crappy logistics in terms of the subway routes (I'm not entirely sure if this is true for Sinai, but the other two aren't even near a stop. That's a HUUUUGE hassle in the life of a medical student and an interviewee if you aren't taking a cab). Columbia is attached to the A line on an express stop, so even though we are a little farther away from the action we tend to have about the same transit time with less walking involved when going to places of interest in Manhattan. This is somewhat less true late at night, when the A runs local and adds another 15+ minutes to your traveling time.
Prestige (not reputation): Well, I don't think anyone can truly argue that Columbia and Cornell are the most prestigious of the medical schools, being Ivy League schools and also top 20 USNWR schools, the two things most likely to be known by the layman. NYU and Mt Sinai are well respected here in NYC though, so the day to day wow factor will still be there if that is what you crave.
Academic/Profesisonal Reputation: Columbia-Cornell (NYP hospital system) are widely respected as top research and clinical schools (not USNWR rankings). Part of this is because, among the two of them, they gobble up many of the best hospital affiliates in the city, in terms of research impact, community outreach (Harlem Hospital and also a lot of world famous community clinics like the Young Men's Clinic), and just sheer magnitude of clinical services. Bellevue is famous, yes, but I'm not sure how regarded it is by the medical community, with the notable exception of their ER. Mt. Sinai has a great hospital, and is like NYP in its ability to provide health care to both the richest and poorest of New Yorkers. I don't know much about the others, but Albert Einstein is affiliated with Calvary Hospital, which has some unbelievable stories to tell. Other medical schools do send kids over for clerkships and such though, but I feel like Einstein gets a lot more of it.
Public Health: Columbia owns this as far as I'm concerned, especially if you are interested in getting an MPH. Bellevue gets points too. Cornell and Columbia have fabulous international programs and opportunities, many of which you can do regardless of which school you are in. I can't speak for the other schools, but Columbia has amazing affiliations with programs like Harlem Hospital, the Young Men's Clinic, the Door, etc that you can do your first year clerkships in (shadowing plus a little extra basically).
Cost: Definitely not Columbia/Cornell, though there are scholarships. Interestingly enough, older non-trads get amazing financial aid from Columbia, and the need based isn't bad for the rest of us either. It's just that you have to have quite a bit of need to fill out that 30K+ a year tab. However, in general NYC isn't the cheapest place to begin with unless you are living at home.
Student body: Most of the students I've met from other schools have been great. I haven't met a lot of Cornell kids, but that might because there are less of them or because of their grading system.
I'd also consider things like P/F and ranking of your pre-clinical years. Also, just the format (Columbia's is 1.5 instead of 2, etc). Research is great and all, but quite honestly unless you are getting a PhD I wouldn't worry too much about it. ALL of the schools here have butt loads of research. It really doesn't matter that much if they have 100 million or 200 million dollars in research funding, because you are only going to be getting like 10K of that if you are lucky in the end anyways.
I'll try to talk about the schools in a columbiacentric manner, but unfortunately I only applied and interviewed at Cornell, Columbia, and NYU so I can't speak directly about Mount Sinai or the others. I have heard lots of great things about Mount Sinai though, and my interactions with the students there have been positive. Lot's of cross talk between them and Columbia, more so than even with Cornell (which is maybe counter-intuitive since there are a lot of academic and professional connections between our schools).
Location: Cornell, NYU, and Mount Sinai all have great locations, but they also have crappy logistics in terms of the subway routes (I'm not entirely sure if this is true for Sinai, but the other two aren't even near a stop. That's a HUUUUGE hassle in the life of a medical student and an interviewee if you aren't taking a cab). Columbia is attached to the A line on an express stop, so even though we are a little farther away from the action we tend to have about the same transit time with less walking involved when going to places of interest in Manhattan. This is somewhat less true late at night, when the A runs local and adds another 15+ minutes to your traveling time.
Prestige (not reputation): Well, I don't think anyone can truly argue that Columbia and Cornell are the most prestigious of the medical schools, being Ivy League schools and also top 20 USNWR schools, the two things most likely to be known by the layman. NYU and Mt Sinai are well respected here in NYC though, so the day to day wow factor will still be there if that is what you crave.
Academic/Profesisonal Reputation: Columbia-Cornell (NYP hospital system) are widely respected as top research and clinical schools (not USNWR rankings). Part of this is because, among the two of them, they gobble up many of the best hospital affiliates in the city, in terms of research impact, community outreach (Harlem Hospital and also a lot of world famous community clinics like the Young Men's Clinic), and just sheer magnitude of clinical services. Bellevue is famous, yes, but I'm not sure how regarded it is by the medical community, with the notable exception of their ER. Mt. Sinai has a great hospital, and is like NYP in its ability to provide health care to both the richest and poorest of New Yorkers. I don't know much about the others, but Albert Einstein is affiliated with Calvary Hospital, which has some unbelievable stories to tell. Other medical schools do send kids over for clerkships and such though, but I feel like Einstein gets a lot more of it.
Public Health: Columbia owns this as far as I'm concerned, especially if you are interested in getting an MPH. Bellevue gets points too. Cornell and Columbia have fabulous international programs and opportunities, many of which you can do regardless of which school you are in. I can't speak for the other schools, but Columbia has amazing affiliations with programs like Harlem Hospital, the Young Men's Clinic, the Door, etc that you can do your first year clerkships in (shadowing plus a little extra basically).
Cost: Definitely not Columbia/Cornell, though there are scholarships. Interestingly enough, older non-trads get amazing financial aid from Columbia, and the need based isn't bad for the rest of us either. It's just that you have to have quite a bit of need to fill out that 30K+ a year tab. However, in general NYC isn't the cheapest place to begin with unless you are living at home.
Student body: Most of the students I've met from other schools have been great. I haven't met a lot of Cornell kids, but that might because there are less of them or because of their grading system.
I'd also consider things like P/F and ranking of your pre-clinical years. Also, just the format (Columbia's is 1.5 instead of 2, etc). Research is great and all, but quite honestly unless you are getting a PhD I wouldn't worry too much about it. ALL of the schools here have butt loads of research. It really doesn't matter that much if they have 100 million or 200 million dollars in research funding, because you are only going to be getting like 10K of that if you are lucky in the end anyways.
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mmmcdowe
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I really have been surprised at how many people say this. I would have thought it would have been more of a Columbia vs Cornell or Columbia vs NYU. I think why this is is because people who like Columbia also tend to fit in well at Mt. Sinai as well. Similar student bodies or feel perhaps? I never interviewed there so I can't say.
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Maybe this was just me (and the students I talked to), but both Columbia and Sinai seemed to have very down-to-earth, chill students who were still ridiculously ambitious without showing it in a "pre-med" sort of way. The Cornell kids I met seemed kind of stressed out (a lot of them still complained that there were Honors in classes...) and it has a slightly smaller feel than both schools from it's reduced class size. There was a certain mellowness missing that I saw at Sinai and Columbia. Both Columbia and Sinai also sit in areas with diverse patient populations.... Columbia up right near the Bronx, and Sinai on the edge of Spanish Harlem (but still close to ridiculously nice areas and Central Park). Sinai had this wonderful ethos based upon it's founding to serving the african american and jewish communities of Manhattan and NYC. I won't disparage Cornell (because I liked it) but there was a slightly snootier feel, and I felt like a lot students seemed more interested in serving wealthy private patients in the Special Surgery clinic than serving "everyone". It was also way more isolated feeling that either Columbia or Sinai, mainly because of it's location along the East River far from any subway stops. I acknowledge that these opinions are just based upon a couple of hours spent at each place on interview day.
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I really did not like Columbia. I had a girl there ask me about my interests and when I told her primary care she was like, "Primary care? You can just go to a Caribbean school." Students seemed kind of awkward/arrogant.
Loved Sinai though. Sucks to be waitlisted. Had some great conversations there.
Loved Sinai though. Sucks to be waitlisted. Had some great conversations there.
Sinai takes a lot of humanities majors due to its HUMED program, and as a result has a liberal arts-style culture - students staff an award-winning free clinic in East Harlem, the school consistently wins national community service awards, the students are laid back, interesting, cooperative.
When I interviewed at Cornell, the impression I got was a hospital full of big-shot specialists who ignore students, an administration focused more on the school's reputation than the educational experience, competitive "gunner" type students, and also it's located on the upper east side, one of the wealthiest areas in the world, and everyone was very defensive about the diversity of the patient population. Very much an Ivy League kind of atmosphere. Probably much better than Sinai for getting a competitive residency in radiology or whatnot.
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I actually psuedo-agree with all of this. These were my similar perceptions. That's not to say that Sinai is some specialist underdog. They have great research, over 200 million in research funding, ranked Top 20 in the Nation for research funding. There's a slight difference in prestige as well: Cornell is Ivy Leage, #18 on US News...Sinai is an independent hospital without an undergrad campus, and #22 on US News. But that's not really enough of a difference to matter. Sinai was P/F the first two years, whereas Cornell has Honors. I can't stress how much of a difference I think this makes, noting how chill the Sinai students seemed, versus how stressed some of the second year Cornell students acted (often noting there were gunners in their class who made things difficult). P/F is super important to me and the administration didn't seem to care too much about changing it quickly.
Also, that's not to say that Cornell doesn't have advantages. It's in a nice location. They have cool international opportunities, and the ability to get a free MBA along with your MD (which was a big plus for me, because I'm interested in that). But yes, general perceptions...I'd agree with most of what SwineSue said.
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mmmcdowe
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To matter in your decision, perhaps not, but it does matter to people not in medicine. When people say "OMFG you go to Duke Medical school, they aren't impressed by Duke Medical School and Hospital. They are impressed by Duke University's reputation as a whole. Mt. Sinai is great and well respected among medical professionals, but it is quite hard for a non-university affiliated medical school to gain a household name (Mayo is pretty much the biggest success on a national level).
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To be honest, I've never asked one of my doctors where they went to medical school...and tend to associate their success with what hospital they work at AFTER residency rather than what medical school they attended. I don't think you're at any clear disadvantage to getting into just about any residency by going to Sinai over Cornell (especially since Cornell and Sinai are so closely ranked). Slash, I don't really care about name recognition by the public too much if it doesn't affect my practice. I went to a small liberal arts college for undergrad that the average American has never heard of....even though it's ranked in the Top 10. I'd still go there again in a heartbeat.
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you got into slu dude. take a chill pill
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And you got into four schools. YOU take a chill pill.
mmmcdowe
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The real question is if you take the red pill or the blue pill.
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lol agree on the lameness. i wonder if I met you the other day.
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