Cinci vs. BU

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Vandelay_Industries

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Cinci

Pros:
  • Midwest feel. Growing up in the Midwest, I felt very comfortable with the students, faculty, and just regular interactions with people while visiting Cincinnati
  • High Step Scores. I'm not really sure why they're so high, but whatever they're doing seems to work
  • Systems-based curriculum. Really liked the setup, I think combining normal and abnormal in blocks would work well for me.
  • Student atmosphere. I really felt welcomed by the current students and got along well with a ton of the other admitted students at second look
  • City. I didn't know anything about Cincinnati before and was pleasantly surprised by the parks and everything to do in the downtown/OTR area.

Cons:
  • Limited name recognition. I want to keep my options for a competitive specialty open and feel that Cinci's reputation does not spread much beyond the Midwest
  • Fewer clinical opportunities. While UC is a large hospital, it doesn't compare to all the options in Boston in addition to BMC
  • Research. One of the most disappointing parts of my trip to UC was the talk on research. While there are opportunities, they seemed relatively hard to find and there didn't seem to be much support from older students/faculty on finding projects. If I do pursue a competitive surgical specialty this would be a big issue. (Can any current students speak to this)

BU

Pros:

Cons:
  • Social Justice School. I support the cause, but I wouldn't say its central to my career goal as a future physician. I like the safety net hospital and student outreach groups, but not sure what else that title means for the daily lives of students.
  • Cost. I received a 10K/yr scholarship, but COA would still be higher. Cost is close enough that it is not a make or break factor.
  • Student atmosphere. I found enough people I liked at second look that I think I'd have a solid group, but there were considerably more that I couldn't connect to compared to Cinci. Just didn't seem to "fit" as well here.

I feel like my gut is pushing me towards Cinci, but I could definitely see myself happy at both schools. I'm most concerned that studying at Cinci will limit me to Midwest options for residency and that the lack of quality research opportunities, name recognition, and connections will make competing for residency slots all the more difficult.
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First of all, congrats! You have great options!

Now, where do you imagine yourself for residency? or as an attending? Neither Cincy nor BU is quite at the level where prestige makes a difference on the national level. However, at a regional level? Quite possible. If you'd prefer to end up in the northeast, BU might give you an advantage. That said, comparing the match list of a state school to a private school might be fairly useless. Many state school grads tend to have a regional preference. Guess what's going to break you out of your region? Step score. And Cincy has been pumping out average >240 for a few years now. Yes, step is an individual effort, but the rise in average scores in such a short period speaks to the strength of the program. Cincy seems to give you every resource to succeed (whatever that means to you). Just look at the admitted student portal! It's chockful of info for how to excel in each year. It even has a massive document on how to optimize couples match!

With regard to research at Cincy, I got the opposite impression. BU does have robust research, but so does Cincy as the only medical school in Cincinnati with a top 5 children's hospital. You will be exposed to leaders in nearly every subspecialty--they'll just happen to be pediatric specialists as well. And leaders tend to do lots of research. The current students I spoke with seemed to be awash in research opportunities. On the other hand, Boston research includes 3 medical schools and a plethora of hospitals.

What do you want to specialize in? Any idea? If it's pediatrics....well Cincy has the longest peds rotations i've seen at 8 weeks. If it's emergency medicine, Cincy has a top 5 emergency medicine program that was one of the first. Not to say that these residencies aren't excellent at the BMC as well. Pediatrics is a combined BMC/Boston Children's residency while the BMC ER is one of the busiest in the country.

Maybe the student spaces don't matter much to you but Cincy has an incredible beautiful, spacious, and well-lit building. BU has these narrow hallways and stairwells that could drive you mad during your pre-clinical years. But maybe that's just me....
 
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Thanks everybody for the responses. They talked a bit about Christ Hospital and other clinical sites at Cinci, but I'll look into it more.

Arsartium said:
First of all, congrats! You have great options!

Now, where do you imagine yourself for residency? or as an attending? Neither Cincy nor BU is quite at the level where prestige makes a difference on the national level. However, at a regional level? Quite possible. If you'd prefer to end up in the northeast, BU might give you an advantage. That said, comparing the match list of a state school to a private school might be fairly useless. Many state school grads tend to have a regional preference. Guess what's is going to break you out of your region? Step score. And Cincy has been pumping out average >240 for a few years now. Yes, step is an individual effort, but the rise in average scores in such a short period speaks to the strength of the program. Cincy seems to give you every resource to succeed (whatever that means to you). Just look at the admitted student portal! It's chockful of info for how to excel in each year. It even has a massive document on how to optimize couples match!

With regard to research at Cincy, I got the opposite impression. BU does has robust research, but so does Cincy as the only medical school in Cincinnati with a top 5 children's hospital. You will be exposed to leaders in nearly every subspecialty--they'll just happen to be pediatric specialists as well. And leaders tend to do lots of research. The current students I spoke with seemed to be awash in research opportunities. On the other hand, Boston research includes 3 medical schools and a plethora of hospitals.

What do you want to specialize in? Any idea? If it's pediatrics....well Cincy has the longest peds rotations i've seen at 8 weeks. If it's emergency medicine, Cincy has a top 5 emergency medicine program that was one of the first. Not to say that these residencies aren't excellent at the BMC as well. Pediatrics is a combined BMC/Boston Children's residency while the BMC ER is one of the busiest in the country.

Maybe the student spaces don't matter much to you but Cincy has an incredible beautiful, spacious, and well-lit building. BU has these narrow hallways and stairwells that could drive you mad during your pre-clinical years. But maybe that's just me....
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Thanks! Yeah for a reapplicant I'm thrilled to have this kind of a dilemma. Also congrats on 15 acceptances! I can't even imagine having that many choices to go through...

That's a good point, mid-tier is mid-tier. I'm very open in terms of residency locations as I don't have family ties anywhere, but I did my undergrad in the Midwest so I just don't want my residency application to look like I wouldn't consider other places. Also a good point about the regional bias of the students. Most of the students I met this weekend were from Ohio or KY and may have only applied to regional residency spots to stay close to home.

The Step scores are definitely hard to ignore, but when I was applying to medical school I had strong numbers, it was just the rest of my application that was lackluster and didn't really stand out. A lot of that is on me to get more involved early (which is true for both schools), but I think having active student groups and a proactive administration would help too. I think that's true at Cincy, but I think every school makes it seem that way when you're interviewing/touring.

I like the idea of a surgical specialty, but I haven't done enough shadowing to really say for sure. I've never thought of myself as good with kids so I haven't thought too deeply about peds.

Yes! I keep telling myself that I shouldn't decide based on the look of the building, but Cincy has a beautiful building with nice study spaces while BU is a very standard brick building.
 
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  • City of Boston >>> City of Cincinnati. Boston is an amazing city for healthcare and a great city to live in for young people.
  • BU matches incredibly well all over the country, and particularly to surgical specialties. The number of students matching to very competitive surgical specialties (ENT, plastics, ortho, etc.) at competitive residency programs is high. There are also elite residency programs right in Boston (MGH, BIDMC, BWH etc.) that you would easily be able to do away rotations at and probably research at as well, not to mention that the residency programs at BMC are very strong as well.
  • BU is definitely a very strong research school and you will easily be able to do research in the field(s) that interest you. Additionally, Boston has so many great medical schools and research institutions that you could easily get involved with a lab at a different hospital or at Harvard or Tufts if you wanted too.
  • I think most schools have a little bit of social justice mission and I do not think BU’s mission would permeate your life more than your average medical school. BU’s social justice focus probably manifests itself more in the mission of the Boston Medical Center than in the day to day life of medical students.
  • My understanding is that Step 1 is more a function of the work your put in and your own ability than the curriculum of a school itself.
 
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Vandelay_Industries said:
Cinci

Pros:
  • Midwest feel. Growing up in the Midwest, I felt very comfortable with the students, faculty, and just regular interactions with people while visiting Cincinnati
  • High Step Scores. I'm not really sure why they're so high, but whatever they're doing seems to work
  • Systems-based curriculum. Really liked the setup, I think combining normal and abnormal in blocks would work well for me.
  • Student atmosphere. I really felt welcomed by the current students and got along well with a ton of the other admitted students at second look
  • City. I didn't know anything about Cincinnati before and was pleasantly surprised by the parks and everything to do in the downtown/OTR area.
Cons:
  • Limited name recognition. I want to keep my options for a competitive specialty open and feel that Cinci's reputation does not spread much beyond the Midwest
  • Fewer clinical opportunities. While UC is a large hospital, it doesn't compare to all the options in Boston in addition to BMC
  • Research. One of the most disappointing parts of my trip to UC was the talk on research. While there are opportunities, they seemed relatively hard to find and there didn't seem to be much support from older students/faculty on finding projects. If I do pursue a competitive surgical specialty this would be a big issue. (Can any current students speak to this)
BU

Pros:
Cons:
  • Social Justice School. I support the cause, but I wouldn't say its central to my career goal as a future physician. I like the safety net hospital and student outreach groups, but not sure what else that title means for the daily lives of students.
  • Cost. I received a 10K/yr scholarship, but COA would still be higher. Cost is close enough that it is not a make or break factor.
  • Student atmosphere. I found enough people I liked at second look that I think I'd have a solid group, but there were considerably more that I couldn't connect to compared to Cinci. Just didn't seem to "fit" as well here.
I feel like my gut is pushing me towards Cinci, but I could definitely see myself happy at both schools. I'm most concerned that studying at Cinci will limit me to Midwest options for residency and that the lack of quality research opportunities, name recognition, and connections will make competing for residency slots all the more difficult.
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Current Cincy M2. Research is super easy to come across, everyone I know who wanted it got it. If that's your major concern don't worry. Also we have tons of clinical opportunities but I can see how a big city may offer more.
I'm not sure how BU does it but Cinci ranks us into quartiles in M1/2 which can be super stressful and lead to a competitive atmosphere. We also have many "extra" classes, exams, assignments, mandatory activities outside of the sciences taking up tons of time. Again not sure how BU compares.
 
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honey0102 said:
Current Cincy M2. Research is super easy to come across, everyone I know who wanted it got it. If that's your major concern don't worry. Also we have tons of clinical opportunities but I can see how a big city may offer more.
I'm not sure how BU does it but Cinci ranks us into quartiles in M1/2 which can be super stressful and lead to a competitive atmosphere. We also have many "extra" classes, exams, assignments, mandatory activities outside of the sciences taking up tons of time. Again not sure how BU compares.
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Hey thanks for the input! Hmm, this is the first I'm hearing about a ton of mandatory extra assignments. Would you say that it significantly interferes with research, shadowing, or studying that you would otherwise be doing with that time? Or is it just kind of an annoying commitment? Also, would you say that you're overall positive on the program and these are just a few cons or you'd seriously consider a different school if doing it again?

Also based on what you've heard from M4's, do most people choose to stay in Ohio or is it difficult to get interviews outside of Ohio/the Midwest coming from Cincy?
 
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Vandelay_Industries said:
Hey thanks for the input! Hmm, this is the first I'm hearing about a ton of mandatory extra assignments. Would you say that it significantly interferes with research, shadowing, or studying that you would otherwise be doing with that time? Or is it just kind of an annoying commitment? Also, would you say that you're overall positive on the program and these are just a few cons or you'd seriously consider a different school if doing it again?

Also based on what you've heard from M4's, do most people choose to stay in Ohio or is it difficult to get interviews outside of Ohio/the Midwest coming from Cincy?
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I didn't know much about it until I got here either. I visited the school before commiting but it's not something that comes up-which I get-people probably care more about research, the Match etc.
No it doesn't interfere much with research or shadowing as we tend to do that in the summer between M1-2.
But yes, it did interfere a lot with studying-less so in M2 (which is great because we have to focus on Step) but it's still existent in M2. I remember the second semester of m1 being the most stressful in terms of that.
I'd seriously consider a different school, IF I knew that school also had a great Match list, great research opportunities, individual attention to students, great student orgs/leadership opportunities, high Step scores-all of which UC has and is very good. And there are other schools that have all these. But, if the other school didn't have those-I'd be more willing to just take the extra work and deal with it-I got into many other schools but none as good as this one, including those in my home state...hence my decision.

Most people choose to stay local as far as I know. I've heard of people interviewing in many places
 
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demapples said:
Was following this thread. What'd you decide?
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I went with Cincy! There was really no bad choice, but at the end of the day Cincy just had a better feel to me. I felt like I fit in better there, the facilities are very nice, and they really cared about their students. Also while it was not the decider, I did receive 10k/yr at the deadline!
 
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Boston for sure. Ranked curriculums are a huge negative and I'm surprised a school like Cinn still has that old style since 2/3 of medical schools in 2017 had some sort of P/F curriculum.

edit: nvm you chose already lol.
 
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tekkenman11 said:
Boston for sure. Ranked curriculums are a huge negative and I'm surprised a school like Cinn still has that old style since 2/3 of medical schools in 2017 had some sort of P/F curriculum.

edit: nvm you chose already lol.
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Cinci falls into that. They are P/F, but have quartiles.
 
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tekkenman11 said:
Boston for sure. Ranked curriculums are a huge negative and I'm surprised a school like Cinn still has that old style since 2/3 of medical schools in 2017 had some sort of P/F curriculum.

edit: nvm you chose already lol.
Click to expand...
It's definitely not the norm to have pre-clinical quartile ranking anymore, but for me it was honestly a positive. I think seeing that I'm in the bottom half for a block would be a needed wake-up call to focus more. At the end of the day, we're all going to be compared when we take Step anyway so having some feedback along the way would be nice.
 
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