Duke MSTP vs NYU MSTP vs Emory MSTP

[chembio394]

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Hey everyone,

Gonna follow the lead of other SDNers and ask for help with this tough decision. I'm so excited to have been chosen for these programs and want to make the best choice possible for myself. For background info, my scientific interests are in chemical biology (relatively new subfield, combines organic chemistry with biochemistry; big interests in this for me are nucleic acid chemistry, small molecule or biomolecular libraries and selections, chemical glycobiology, PTMs and signaling, and protein/peptide engineering). Clinically, I would like to see whatever research I do applied to cancer and therefore am thinking internal med --> heme/onc as a specialty. This is the way I see it:

Duke
Pros: condensed pre-clinical curriculum (all core clinical rotations done before PhD to help inform interests), true P/F pre-clinical, supportive administration, lots of options for chemical biology faculty, low cost of living
Cons: location (I'm very much a city person and I want to be in a vibrant urban environment for my 20s), would need a car so maybe cost of living benefit is not that large, clinical rotations seem less diverse than the others

NYU
Pros: can do a core rotation before starting PhD, slightly longer/more traditional summer lab rotations, good selection of chemical biology/cancer bio faculty, diverse clinical settings, location(!!)
Cons: have heard conflicting opinions on scientific/academic reputation, a little worried about living in the same apartment for 8 years, not true P/F pre-clinical (because of internal rankings)

Emory
Pros: good chemical biology faculty, supportive administration, student body was really friendly at interview, Atlanta seems cool, diverse clinical settings
Cons: no clinical rotations before PhD, would need a car, cost of living pretty high if I want to live in the city, not true P/F

Those are all the pros/cons I can think of right now. I've read the following forums to really understand how to weigh location vs. reputation vs. administrative support, but I'm still really torn.

How did you choose which MSTP to attend?
When choosing an MD/PhD program, what has turned out to be most important?

I still will be attending revisit weekends, but any help/input with this decision is greatly appreciated!

 

[Fencer]

You are not making a bad choice... all three will give you terrific MSTP training. As you will find out, the two southern institutions share more in common than not. There is also a very large community of biomedical scholars that isolates you from the lack of a city-feel in those places as compared to NYC. I think that you will thrive in any of these three programs.

 

[bunnyluvr]

Regarding Emory, this was only announced at the most recent interview, but they're moving to a curriculum which allows for clinical rotations before you start your PhD, so you can remove that as a con. It'll be optional though so it'll sort of branch the MSTP class.

 

[InactiveLurker]

NYU has pretty strong rep at least in NYC area. They also expanded a ton recently. Wouldnt you able to change an apartment? NYU as far as i know has a lot of property. I think another good thing is collaborations between new york schools are pretty strong, take ny genome center just as an example.

 

[chembio394]

Thanks for the input everyone! This is a really tough call, so I'm going to go to all 3 revisits to figure it out. We'll see what happens!