choosing medical schools?

Location, what there curriculum is like, how much the school will cost, how hard will it be to gain admission, how good is their pediatric department, how happy are their students, living conditions, crime rate, and on and on.

If you are a senior at UK, and you haven't applied yet what are you doing? These are things you should have worked out. Have you taken the MCAT? Your grades and MCAT scores may be one of the deciding factors on the type and location of the schools you should even consider.

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Rob


[This message has been edited by GreatPumpkin (edited April 12, 2001).]

 

Well Shanta, these things are different for everybody...but I'll give you my take on school selection. First of all, you'd be very lucky to get multiple acceptances and have a choice of where to attend. But you should certainly be very selective about the schools to which you apply. For me, I wanted to stay near or in big cities if I could help it, because I'm looking for very diverse clinical exposure. I also researched the diversity of the student bodies at the schools I was considering, because I really thrive when I'm around a very diverse group of people.

It wasn't until I had interviewed at 16 schools, though, that I realized that something I had not yet thought about was quite important to me. I realized that I did not want to attend an independent medical college. I'm not saying that independent medical colleges don't offer as good an education as the medical schools of a larger university. They most certainly do offer a great education. But for me, I realized that I was very keen on attending a university medical school to take advantage of the, oftentimes, greater resources (mostly social and extracurricular) available to the students.

In addition to these things, certainly cost, weather, residency placement, research opportunities, extracurricular opportunities, and the strength of the clinical department of interest (in your case, pediatrics) should all come into play in deciding which school suits you best. In the end, hopefully you'll have a choice to make, and you can be sure you made the right one.

Good luck along the road to medical school!

-Keyser

 

I agree that the idea of actually choosing a school is such a big task, but for me, I have broken it down into my priorities. I have heard that schools that have Pass Fail versus grades keep things much less competitive, and overall a better atmosphere is maintained. THis has influenced me into looking at schools who have this in the curriculum. I also have considered the cost (private versus public), location, and what support systems that I will have close by. I know that med school with be a tough road, so I want to have friends/family close by for the nights I am stressed and just want a hug. Hope this helps out a little bit, but I know exactly what you mean about this feeling!

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"If what you did yesterday seems big, you have't done anything today."
-Lou Holtz