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
