- Joined
- Apr 19, 2002
- Messages
- 10
- Reaction score
- 0
Hi everyone, I'm very lucky to have these two great choices. I'm from the bay area and very grateful and excited to be going to medical school here. I have always thought I would go to UCSF if accepted. It seems to offer slightly stronger clinical training than Stanford, especially since I'm interested in primary care and community medicine. I also like how the curriculum has recently been modernized. I'm a big fan of integrated learning, less class time, and more early patient contact which the UCSF new curriculum has. The tuition of course can't be beat. I've been looking very hard at Stanford though because I really like how it's part of a large university with lots of other graduate programs and students. I'm interested in taking graduate classes outside of medicine -I really like their flexible curriculum. I also think I might be a bit happier in the environment at Stanford. I'm not a big city person and I love the suburban environment in Palo Alto. Stanford medical students also seem extremely happy and relaxed while I have heard of a number of UCSF students being unhappy. Even considering all this though, I don't think those are good enough reasons to justify the huge cost difference ($60,000 to $80,000) of attending Stanford. It also does seem UCSF is academically stronger. I'm not a big fan of rankings, but SF is ranked consistenly higher than Stanford and many of UCSF's departments seem to be top 3 or top 5 in the nation which is not the case with Stanford. But then again, maybe I've been brainwashed a bit by those rankings. I mean, what are they really based on? I know Stanford professors are excellent and dedicated teachers. Stanford also has a lower ranking because it's a smaller medical school and gets less research money. I know a smaller medical school also has advantages. I guess what I'm asking is beyond the obvious, is there really that much of a difference in quality of education and academic reputation between these two schools? Does UCSF truly have a slightly stronger reputation in medicine than Stanford? Is Stanford med truly overrated because of it's undergrad school as many people seem to say. Is it true clinical training at Stanford is not as strong as UCSF? And finally, are there a significant number of unhappy students at UCSF which most people really don't talk about? I know I'm bringing up lots of issues and I greatly appreciate any insights. Thanks!
