CA vs. NYC

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chatterbox

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Hi, I need a little advice. I'm in a position where I can either stay in California and go to a UC or go to a school in NYC. Both schools are great academically and I liked the people at both places, so it comes down to location. I've lived in California my whole life and have ALWAYS wanted to live in NYC for awhile.. I love that place! But I've just been there for a couple short visits so I dont really KNOW what it would be like to live there... I've gotten mixed responses about it from people I know who have moved there and my close friends are totally 50/50 divided on where they think I should go.. so they're no help!

So the question is... do I stay in a place where I feel comfortable and safe or do I risk a whole lot and move to NYC? I am just afraid if I stay in CA for medschool I will end up staying forever, and I might have regrets.. I have no particular attachment to this state itself. But i also hesitate to leave my friends and family behind. Just wondering how the other Cali kids who have made this kind of transition feel about it... I hear the culture on the east coast, especially NYC, is so different and might be a difficult adjustment... to be honest, it scares me a little to leave behind my non med related support system and good friends, really good friends, can be hard to come by and I am not the most extroverted person... I know you can always keep in touch, but email is no substitute for hanging out...

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First of all, NYC, especially manhattan is one of the safest parts of the country. There are places which are bad and, unfortunately, that's where some of the programs are. Certainly NYU and Mt Sinai are in better neighborhoods that Einstein and Columbia. The biggest problem with NYC is that it is very expensive. If your school provides housing, that will help, but everything is very pricy.

Ed
 
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stay in cali. NY is nice, but living there is very different from visiting. why give up in-state tuition at a UC when you don't have to?

p.s. which specific schools are you considering?
 
unless it's columbia, stay in california unless you want to leave the state forever
 
Would a good student at say UCI have an easier time staying in Cali than average students from highly ranked out of states? (Columbia?)
 
go to NYC. broaden your horizons, learn about ppl who live different lives.

you can always come back here for residency.
 
thanks for the advice, I appreciate it.. this crowd seems pretty split too. I guess I might get more feedback if I just name the schools in question.. UCI and Mount Sinai. Very different schools, but I liked my interview days at both of them and felt comfortable there, and people seemed happy, which at this point is all I can go on. another thing, there was a really huge number of applicants and students at UCI that I recognized from my premed classes at my undergrad school and even though I loved my college experience I dont want another four years of the same faces, same types of people! and location wise, four years in Irvine.. compared to four years in the big apple... no comparison! if I was to go by gut reaction.. I'd say the idea of going to UCI makes me feel relieved and the idea of going to MSSM makes me feel excited and anxious... oh yes, and there is the difference in tuition to consider but with the budget cuts, who knows how big its going to be... has anyone made this CA to NYC transition?? what was it like?
 
I went to grad school in NYC, undergrad in CA, and now med school in CA. It is quite a difference, but I like both places for different reasons.

What I would do is talk to some folks at Mount Sinai and ask them about those students who are from California and how they do in the match when they want to come back to CA. If you are dead set on returning to CA, you have to take that sort of thing into consideration.

Mount Sinai is in a good neighborhood and most people seem to like it there. Living in NYC is a lot of fun. I don't think there is another place in the world where people of all different kinds actually interact with one another. Lots of places are diverse but not all that integrated. NYC is both. I'm not sure about what hospitals Mount Sinai students rotate through. Is it just private or do they rotate through public hospitals as well?

UCI is a great school. I have some friends who are 2nd years there now and they are enjoying it. The downside, in my opinion, is that for the first two years you are 20 miles or something from the hospital. I like going to a medical school that is attached to a large academic hospital. You are more likely to have top notch attendings cruise from the cath lab to the lecture hall, and are also more likely to take advantage of spontaneous shadowing. Aside from the undergrad location feel, UCI seemed like a really good program to me.

Both are great places. You just have to make pro and con lists for the program, the hospitals, the location, cost, social life, gut feel, etc. As you break things down and revisit, things should begin to make sense. Best of luck.
 
you'd have to be crazy to give up in-state tuition at Irvine for Mt. Sinai.
 
I would choose MSSM. NOTHING compares to NYC! Its a once in a lifetime chance, take it. It seems to me that you want to go to NYC, you're just scared because its such a big change.
I lived most of my life in NYC and I can tell you that you will meet the most interesting people there. Most of those telling you not to go there dont live there. Trust me, anyone who has lived in NY will tell you its worth it. The school's location is a definate asset, right across the street from central park. Where else can you visit world famous museums, art galleries, attractions and parks. There are so many things to do and see there that you will never get tired.
If you have any doubts than do what I do;
Whenever I have doubts about anything, I say to myself: If thousands of other people did it before me, then why not me.
 
i hope it's ok to revive this thread. i pretty much have the same problem as the OP. irvine vs. mssm. love the atmosphere and people of both schools. i definitely want to come back to cali for residency, but i would really love to live in ny. i know most irvine students do end up in cali, so am i risking a cali residency by going to mssm? also...just got my mssm financial aid and it's pretty terrible. what do you guys think?
 
hey mods? perhaps this may be better in pre-allo? not quite sure.
 
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I'd personally go to NYC if money weren't a huge issue. This, however, is coming from a person who turned down a full ride at my state school to attend my current institution (with very little help w/ regards to money). If you really want to give yourself the opportunity to grow as a person, go to MSSM. There's nothing like stepping outside of your comfort zone and truly challenging yourself.
 
Well, I'm a Californian and it seems highly probable that IF I get into medical school it's going to be in NY. Either NYU, AECOM or NYMC, one waitlisted (NYU) the other two waiting for a decision. My single reservation about making the move from Cali to NY is the cost, cuz yea, you can't really beat the UC price. But otherwise, I see it as a chance of a lifetime. As for getting back into California, it's entirely possible, you just have to know you're gonna have your work cut out for you. But I figure if you really want it, you won't mind working for it (I intend to haha). After all, my interviewer at AECOM even said that almost a third of the class if from Cali and that many want to go back to California for residency and many end up being able to.
 
4 years could be fun, but you'll definitely want to come back. I was born and raised in California and I've spent the past 6 years in NY. I can't WAIT to get back there for medical school. I'm not saying one is better than the other, they're just different. I miss my family...which you probably will, and I find New York to be well... exhausting. Plus even though I've been here 6 years I am still not used to the winter. I just don't enjoy cold weather and I don't think I ever will. There are ups and downs to both. I'm glad I moved away from home for a while, moving anywhere far builds character, just don't know if I'll move again.
 
I got to school in NYC and most of the imports from Cali are no longer fond of NYC. Most of them are trying very hard to get back to Cali for residency.
 
First of all, NYC, especially manhattan is one of the safest parts of the country. There are places which are bad and, unfortunately, that's where some of the programs are. Certainly NYU and Mt Sinai are in better neighborhoods that Einstein and Columbia. The biggest problem with NYC is that it is very expensive. If your school provides housing, that will help, but everything is very pricy.

Ed

I know this is a little off topic, but I should say something about the safety of the CUMC area vs. MSSM:

I know a little about both areas (live in one, good friend lives in another), and it would be hard to say the MSSM area is safer than CUMC. Both of them are fairly safe, but both have things that concern people. For CUMC, it's the homeless shelter. For MSSM, it's the housing projects. Go 10 blocks to the south of CUMC and it gets sketchier. Go 10 blocks to the north of MSSM, and it gets sketchier. MSSM has Spanish Harlem, and CUMC has Washington Heights.

Personally, I'm more comfortable walking around Washington Heights late at night, but that's probably just because I know it better. I wouldn't want my sister walking through either neighborhood alone and drunk at 4am, but that goes without saying in a lot of places (your average college town, for one).
 
i hope it's ok to revive this thread. i pretty much have the same problem as the OP. irvine vs. mssm. love the atmosphere and people of both schools. i definitely want to come back to cali for residency, but i would really love to live in ny. i know most irvine students do end up in cali, so am i risking a cali residency by going to mssm? also...just got my mssm financial aid and it's pretty terrible. what do you guys think?

I'm also interested to hear opinions on this.. I am facing a similar situation. UC Irvine vs. Georgetown (although I 'm still waiting to hear back from Irvine). I'm so torn. Cheap tuition and being one hour from my home in San Diego is so tempting. But I would love an adventure on the east coast for 4 years, especially in a dope city like DC. I also felt that I would have a more diverse character-building experience going to Georgetown, since students there are from all across the country. Kids from UCI are from local areas, and many of them are the same faces I've seen in my classes at UCLA. I don't know what to do. ARGH. The cost at Gtown is killer though.. however, money isn't too much of an issue to me honestly.
 
you'd have to be on drugs to go to NYC. the city is a blast... when you're not making -30000 dollars a year. Living there with no money sucks.
 
you'd have to be on drugs to go to NYC. the city is a blast... when you're not making -30000 dollars a year. Living there with no money sucks.

you're not kidding. the cost of street drugs here is enormous.
 
And so it goes, east coast kids wonder about California. California born-and-breds wonder about those east coast big cities.

Your location is what you make of it, really. Barring some essential things (e.g., for me, the blissfully car-less lifestyle in NYC, the awesome outdoors opportunities in CA), neither has an up on each other or in my opinion, most of the rest of the country. They're just different, and after the first six months, the novelty wears off.

You can do NYC on a student's budget. People of all socioeconomic status live, work, and play in the city. It helps to make friends who are not med students. Just don't expect your life to be straight out of a Sex and the City episode. The drinks and cupcakes are overpriced, and you probably won't be sipping mojitos next to Scarlett Johansson at the SNL after-party.
 
you're not kidding. the cost of street drugs here is enormous.

true true. thankfully outside NYC those of us on limited budget can stick to sippin sizzurp.

mm, promethazine :smuggrin:
 
I'm also interested to hear opinions on this.. I am facing a similar situation. UC Irvine vs. Georgetown (although I 'm still waiting to hear back from Irvine). I'm so torn. Cheap tuition and being one hour from my home in San Diego is so tempting. But I would love an adventure on the east coast for 4 years, especially in a dope city like DC. I also felt that I would have a more diverse character-building experience going to Georgetown, since students there are from all across the country. Kids from UCI are from local areas, and many of them are the same faces I've seen in my classes at UCLA. I don't know what to do. ARGH. The cost at Gtown is killer though.. however, money isn't too much of an issue to me honestly.

D.C. is a place you visit for a week. See all the free museums and eat at the Ethiopian restaurants. Otherwise it's just suburban sprawl, horrible traffic, and a whole lot of boring (except for the occasional rally on the mall, and the Independence Day fireworks).

I love adventures, so I feel you, but in this case, I would go for the substantially cheaper, closer to family option. And if you're sick of the same old faces, I'm sure there are plenty of new faces you can find if you try.
 
UCI vs. Georgetown: UCI

UCI vs. MSSM: tough call. nyc is awesome. sunshine vs. big city life. pick the place where you think you'll grow more.

i wouldn't worry about leaving friends and family behind. you will make close friends in medical school much faster than you did in college, due to the smaller class size (how big is MSSM?), constant exposure to your classmates, and overall intensity of the experience (trust me, you will end up bonding with one another over things like anatomy).

we have tons of kids from CA in our class. i am one of them, and i love it here.

--------
whoever made the point about nyc being highly integrated is spot-on. DC, for what it's worth, is absolutely NOT integrated. i lived on the outskirts of dc (in maryland) for 2 years, and it always seemed far too apparent that we were just a stone's throw north of the South.
 
DC, for what it's worth, is absolutely NOT integrated. i lived on the outskirts of dc (in maryland) for 2 years, and it always seemed far too apparent that we were just a stone's throw north of the South.

Having been born and raised in DC (living seven miles outside the city limits), I would have to beg to differ with this statement. Granted, DC is no NYC, but in general it's pretty well integrated in comparison to other cities in the US. With regards to the whole splash of southern style, I'd say that DC strikes a pretty good balance by having a heavy dose of northern sensibility and a touch of southern charm - it's still a relatively liberal and progressive city.

I hate to even mention this (seeing as it was brought up as a tangent), but I must rag on Georgetown a little bit. By no means do I mean to imply that it's a bad school, but the only thing it really has going for it is its location. There's no way in hell I'd come across the country and give up in state tuition to attend Georgetown. Just wouldn't happen. Stay in Cali, save money, and quite frankly, get the better education.
 
all right, labslave, point well taken. i think i said that too strongly, and you know the area far better than i do. with all due respect, however, i would never move back there. i found the area to be far more conservative/racially tense than northern california, which is my point of reference. to me, the differences were apparent everywhere--on the radio, at the grocery store, at work. it's all a matter of perspective, i guess. :oops:
 
thanks so much for the responses, guys :) i'm visiting mssm for revisit this weekend and hopefully it'll seal the deal for me.
 
all right, labslave, point well taken. i think i said that too strongly, and you know the area far better than i do. with all due respect, however, i would never move back there. i found the area to be far more conservative/racially tense than northern california, which is my point of reference. to me, the differences were apparent everywhere--on the radio, at the grocery store, at work. it's all a matter of perspective, i guess. :oops:

I second this. Relative to NY as well, DC is NOT very well integrated.
 
I've lived in both places. If I had to pick, I wouldn't leave CA for NY if Donald Trump moved out of his crib and gave me the keys.
 
Moving to Pre-Allo as this is a pre-med issue. Allopathic students can post to this thread there.
 
to some extent, different types of people will be partial to one place over the other. some people aren't crazy about big, dense cities and/or love the freedom of their cars and/or love warm weather and/or like being around laid-back people. i suspect many of these preferences apply to many californians, and many californians are involuntarily exiled to other states for medical school. so it makes sense that californians exiled to places like nyc and chicago are soon going to want to go back home. doesn't mean it still wasn't a great life experience, but maybe not as good or bearable an experience as they had expected.

so do you think you're the type of person who would come to dislike a place like nyc some time in those four years of medical school? if so, does the new experience in itself make it worth it despite the extra cost?

an alternative could be moving there for a summer.
 
Irvine = comfortable, cheaper and boring (for Cali people)
Mt Sinai = better school, NYC is exciting

If money is not an issue, I'll pick Mt Sinai. Ranked higher than Irvine, and NYC will give you 4 years of unforgettable experience. You will have no problem matching back to Cali.

If money is an issue, it is a draw.
 
Anyone have any thoughts on UCI vs. either Pritzker or Dartmouth? Am I crazy to give up the in-state tuition for either one of those schools? While I'm a little concerned about both of the other schools locations for different reasons (safety for Chicago, feeling isolated at Dartmouth) I'm more interested to hear about quality of teaching in preclincial and clinical years, oportunities available to students, and residency placement. I might want to do MD/MBA if that makes a difference but I'm still not positive on that front.
 
If your ultimate goal would be to be back in CA for residency, then stay with UCI. It's a tight network... the vast majority of UC med students stay in CA for residency (with the exception of those applying for ophtho, derm, plastics, etc) while at the same time you have tons of those who went east trying to get back. While at UCI it would be much easier to make the connections you need to stay... just some food for thought.
 
If you're hoping to get your residency in california, it might be a better idea to go to UCI. Mt. Sinai doesn't send many of its students to residency in california, and I think doctors in the uc system might have connections that can help you get a residency at another uc.
 
I'm one of those people from california who went to nyc for medical school. Each has its own advantages:

NYC:
- If you want to do residency and fellowship in the Northeast or East (think MGH, Brigham, Hopkins), it gives you a huge advantage to be from a NY school; On the other hand, the bay area Cali institutions (SF, Stanford) don't seem to give heavy preference to people from Cali schools
- NYC has a lot to do, but it's hard to do much of it when you're a student living off loans and don't have money to spend
- NYC has a better young professional social scene since there are so many schools and businesses in a small area
- Great public transportation, you'll wonder how you got around without subways

Cali:
- Much friendlier faculty in general, but I think it's a cultural difference of the 2 states and not necessarily only on a med school level
- Medical school is a lot more relaxed and not as rigid as many NYC schools; students seem to be happier in Cali programs; despite this, I would say they learn equally well
- Much better weather (it makes a big difference if you have lived in Cali most of your life when it gets cold and nasty in the winters)
- Cheaper if you're from Cali for the UC system

With that said, I think which school you go to will ultimately impact where and what residency you match into down the line. Purely speaking reputation wise, I would say that Univ of Chicago (Pritzker) > Sinai > UCI ~ Georgetown ~ Dartmouth, for the schools mentioned in this thread.
 
Haha wow this was from when I was a premed.

haha, yes it seems there are people who have the same types of decisions every year. pinkertinkle, what school did you end up choosing, and any advice now that you're in that school?
 
Any thoughts on MSSM vs UC Davis? I guess it's a little different that the original discussion (personally, Sacto>>>Irvine), but I'm having some of the same issues.

Is it worth the budget difference (MSSM:55Kish per year, Davis: 45Kish per year) to go to MSSM? Sinai's location is truly unbeatable in my opinion, and they seem to be less primary-care focused than Davis, which is a plus for me. I didn't make it to the Davis second look, but Sinai seems to have lots of support for international experiences, research, and MD/MPH and I'm not sure if Davis can stack up in that respect. Fewer people go back to Cali for residency if they got to MSSM, but I really think that they choose to stay in NYC for personal reasons, and there shouldn't be much of a problem going back to Cali if I wanted to. I guess it sounds like I'm leaning towards Sinai, but are all these reasons worth at least $40K extra over the course of 4 years? Oy, this is such a tough decision. Any thoughts would be appreciated.
 
Any thoughts on MSSM vs UC Davis? I guess it's a little different that the original discussion (personally, Sacto>>>Irvine), but I'm having some of the same issues.

Is it worth the budget difference (MSSM:55Kish per year, Davis: 45Kish per year) to go to MSSM? Sinai's location is truly unbeatable in my opinion, and they seem to be less primary-care focused than Davis, which is a plus for me. I didn't make it to the Davis second look, but Sinai seems to have lots of support for international experiences, research, and MD/MPH and I'm not sure if Davis can stack up in that respect. Fewer people go back to Cali for residency if they got to MSSM, but I really think that they choose to stay in NYC for personal reasons, and there shouldn't be much of a problem going back to Cali if I wanted to. I guess it sounds like I'm leaning towards Sinai, but are all these reasons worth at least $40K extra over the course of 4 years? Oy, this is such a tough decision. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Were you just at Sinai's revisit? Maybe we met. Anyways, I'm a Californian and I have decided to go to Mount Sinai. I did not have the opportunity to choose between a CA school and MSSM, but I think I still would have gone for MSSM. Frankly, although right now the 40K seems like a lot, I think in the long run it will not seem like that much if Mount Sinai is really your first choice. And I think this weekend we got a great preview of how awesome MSSM is...such a great combination of excellence and approachability. All of the students seemed so happy and easy going, smart, multi-talented, friendly. Plus, NYC is the greatest city. I think it's worth the money.
 
I'm a first year MD/PhD student at Dartmouth (who should be studying/sleeping right now...) I remember being handed a breakdown of the last ~5 years of residency placements of where Dartmouth students had gone for residency. The 3rd or 4th most popular place was Stanford and the 5th or 6th was UCSF (or maybe it was the other way around). Looking at this year's match list, only two states got more DMS graduates than California (and I don't think it's that most people tried to get Cali residencies and counldn't, it's just that many of the seniors have geographic preferences that don't include Cali). Also, DMS has something in the works that, if it actually happens, will mean closer ties with Cali (and hopefully more students considering/getting Cali residencies). So, it's not like if you leave California that you necessarily can't go back. I think that staying at a California school will give you a bit of an edge if you want to stay at your home program for residency (many residency programs tend to favor their own students because they have the most exposure to those students and know what they're getting). But, if you're applying to a specialty that has a decent number of residency spots and is not as competitive as others (IM, peds, FP, a few others) then you probably won't have as difficult of a time staying in California/going back to California. If you're applying to a competitive specialty (like Ophtho, neurosurgery, radonc, plastics, derm, etc.) forget about being assured of ending up in California whether you were in Cali for med school or not. I would say go to a med school that you like. Go see another part of the country. If you've always wanted to live in NYC, go to MSSM. If you'd like to try out New England, come to Dartmouth ;-) You'll have some time off to go see your family/friends in Cali. You may even figure out what I did when I went to undergrad in California: Cali is, perhaps, not the place where you'd like to live for the rest of your life. Cali might be friendly when compared to NYC, but from my experience it's much less friendly than the Pacific NW or New England (as long as we leave Boston out of the equation). Go to a med school where you could see yourself for the next four years (and that hopefully won't make you quite as broke as the other med schools) and whatever happens for residency, happens. That's just my $.02.
 
I love NYC, but then again it does take a certain kind of person to enjoy it all.

If you're the kind of person who'd feel scared exploring some ethnic neighborhood to find authentic eats, then you'd end up just being in your little zone and probably get tired of NYC. But if you're not scared of the subway and are the adventurous type NYC has more than enough stuff to keep you exploring for a very very long time =)

I've lived here almost my whole life (except for college) so I feel perfectly comfortable with the subway, but I can definitely see how the smells of homeless urine may not be the most pleasant thing if you're used to hanging out in your huge backyard in some upper class suburb in SoCal (speaking of which, I visited my friend from SoCal who had an awesome backyard and garden and it was a pretty sweet life, so I'm not knocking it).

Anyways, I love it, and I've lived in a bunch of different places.

Just umm...don't drive in NYC...I am SO f'ing sick of people hitting my car every other day (seriously, some idiot rear ends me at 5mph on Friday...while we were in pretty heavy local street traffic...how the hell do you rearend someone when we're going that slow...and of course it's at an angle, and he was in an SUV, so now I need a new bumper...arrghh!!!)
 
Were you just at Sinai's revisit? Maybe we met. Anyways, I'm a Californian and I have decided to go to Mount Sinai. I did not have the opportunity to choose between a CA school and MSSM, but I think I still would have gone for MSSM. Frankly, although right now the 40K seems like a lot, I think in the long run it will not seem like that much if Mount Sinai is really your first choice. And I think this weekend we got a great preview of how awesome MSSM is...such a great combination of excellence and approachability. All of the students seemed so happy and easy going, smart, multi-talented, friendly. Plus, NYC is the greatest city. I think it's worth the money.

yeah, I was at second look. I met a bunch of people from Cali, so I might have met you too. Thanks for the words of advice, and congrats on making the decision. ;)
 
haha, yes it seems there are people who have the same types of decisions every year. pinkertinkle, what school did you end up choosing, and any advice now that you're in that school?

I choose to go to a UC and have had a good time. I don't know how would it have been if i had choosen different. Bottom line I think is that with close calls like these there are positives and negatives in either way, you can't go wrong either way but you can't go 100% right either. There will always be a what if and you'll have to accept that.
 
I choose to go to a UC and have had a good time. I don't know how would it have been if i had choosen different. Bottom line I think is that with close calls like these there are positives and negatives in either way, you can't go wrong either way but you can't go 100% right either. There will always be a what if and you'll have to accept that.

That's very true.
I am facing a very difficult CAvsNY decision as well. I am looking at NYU and USC. I am from CA so it would make sense for me to stay closer to home. But I actually went to undergrad in nyc and have friends there too, and I would love to stay in new york for another four years. My only concern is that I want to come back to CA for residency. Looking at the match list for NYU, most do remain in the area. I just don't know if thats by choice or because it would be difficult to match back into CA. If anyone knows, please comment. Any suggestions about the two schools are also welcome. Thanks.
 
Looking at the match list for NYU, most do remain in the area. I just don't know if thats by choice or because it would be difficult to match back into CA. If anyone knows, please comment. Any suggestions about the two schools are also welcome. Thanks.

did you see blz's post above? he might know. i'd be inclined to think a ca residency is easier from usc, because faculty connections and reputation are probably more regional for either school.
 
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