Einstein, BU, or Wake Forest: Help Please! Really can't decide where to go

[osprey099]

I've winded down my options to these three schools, all of which I can really see myself attending this August. I have not yet received financial aid for any of these schools and I won't have all of the financial aid in hand until probably late April/early May, which gives me a tight window of time in terms of making a decision before the may 15 deadline. As of now, I don't know what I want to specialize in, although I definitely want to specialize instead of doing primary care. Also, I would like to do my residency on the East Coast, preferably not too far South so ideally, in the Mid-Atlantic or NE. I've come up with a list of considerations for each school and would really appreciate SDN's advice. Where would you go if you were in my shoes?

Albert Einstein:
- administration gives you a car service during clinical years (I would bring my own car to medical school anyways though)
- administration protects you from doing "scut" work during clinical years
- $500/month guaranteed 4 year on-campus housing in fully furnished rooms - rent includes internet and utilities
- parking garage located directly underneath campus
- outstanding clinical education in Jacobi and Montefouire
- constantly changing pre-clinical curriculum from feedback from previous years
- flexible 4th year with guaranteed 1 month solely dedicated towards residency interviews
- many matches in Manhattan hospitals (Columbia, Cornell, Sinai, NYU)
- true P/F pre-clinical curriculum
- $48k tuition + fees
- I have family in Manhattan
- I have reservations about Einstein's location in the Bronx in terms of safety, but I don't think I would be walking outside of campus very much anyways.

Boston University:
- MSR 1st year housing $900/month includes utilities and internet; on-campus
- abundant research opportunities at BU or at Harvard
- many matches in NE area - BU, Harvard, Tufts
- $55k tuition + fees
- true P/F pre-clinical curriculum
- BMC safety net hospital -> good clinical exposure/training
- I have heard that BU's physical location is between a very wealthy neighborhood and the projects, so I have some reservations about it's safety.
- I also have reservations about finding parking in Boston since it's mainly street parking
- Cost of living in Boston is very expensive

Wake Forest:
- accelerated pre-clinical curriculum
- Honors/P/F pre-clinical
- area is suburban -> really safe
- smaller class size (120 compared to 180 from BU or Einstein)
- will need to find housing myself from the get-go
- all students get a free laptop
- $51k tuition + fees
- cost of living in Winston Salem (NC in general) is dirt-cheap
- I have family in Durham
- Reputation is mainly in the South - a lot of matches at Duke/Carolina Health System
- would be more difficult to match in the NE

Thank you in advance for any input or thoughts!

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[cyberchicken001]

Sounds like you've done some good research on each school. At this point you just gotta make a decision based on your own personal preferences - I don't think anyone on this forum is going to tell you something you don't already know... And besides, do you really want people who know nothing about you telling you which school is best for you?

 

[DermViser]

I've winded down my options to these three schools, all of which I can really see myself attending this August. I have not yet received financial aid for any of these schools and I won't have all of the financial aid in hand until probably late April/early May, which gives me a tight window of time in terms of making a decision before the may 15 deadline. As of now, I don't know what I want to specialize in, although I definitely want to specialize instead of doing primary care. Also, I would like to do my residency on the East Coast, preferably not too far South so ideally, in the Mid-Atlantic or NE. I've come up with a list of considerations for each school and would really appreciate SDN's advice. Where would you go if you were in my shoes?

Albert Einstein:
- administration gives you a car service during clinical years (I would bring my own car to medical school anyways though)
- administration protects you from doing "scut" work during clinical years
- $500/month guaranteed 4 year on-campus housing in fully furnished rooms - rent includes internet and utilities
- parking garage located directly underneath campus
- outstanding clinical education in Jacobi and Montefouire
- constantly changing pre-clinical curriculum from feedback from previous years
- flexible 4th year with guaranteed 1 month solely dedicated towards residency interviews
- many matches in Manhattan hospitals (Columbia, Cornell, Sinai, NYU)
- true P/F pre-clinical curriculum
- $48k tuition + fees
- I have family in Manhattan
- I have reservations about Einstein's location in the Bronx in terms of safety, but I don't think I would be walking outside of campus very much anyways.

Boston University:
- MSR 1st year housing $900/month includes utilities and internet; on-campus
- abundant research opportunities at BU or at Harvard
- many matches in NE area - BU, Harvard, Tufts
- $55k tuition + fees
- true P/F pre-clinical curriculum
- BMC safety net hospital -> good clinical exposure/training
- I have heard that BU's physical location is between a very wealthy neighborhood and the projects, so I have some reservations about it's safety.
- I also have reservations about finding parking in Boston since it's mainly street parking
- Cost of living in Boston is very expensive

Wake Forest:
- accelerated pre-clinical curriculum
- Honors/P/F pre-clinical
- area is suburban -> really safe
- smaller class size (120 compared to 180 from BU or Einstein)
- will need to find housing myself from the get-go
- all students get a free laptop
- $51k tuition + fees
- cost of living in Winston Salem (NC in general) is dirt-cheap
- I have family in Durham
- Reputation is mainly in the South - a lot of matches at Duke/Carolina Health System
- would be more difficult to match in the NE

Thank you in advance for any input or thoughts!

No administration can save you from doing scutwork.

 

[Optimus-Prime]

BU hands down

 

[osprey099]

Seems from the poll a lot of people prefer BU. Can you guys elaborate why BU over the other two?

 

[cookiemonsters]

Unless financial aid is significantly different, SDN pretty much always votes for the higher ranked school. These are all pretty good schools, but I would give the nob to Einstein or BU since it seems you want to be in the northeast.

 

[Optimus-Prime]

MGH is local, easy for away rotations, good for networking; Boston would be fun to spend some time in. According to MSAR BU looks to be up and coming

 

[osprey099]

Any other inputs?

I still can't see why BU is heavily favored over the other two

 

[yankees26]

BU would be favored onSDN because of merely ranking. These schools are very comparable, so I think you should not really listen to us and figure this out based on factors such as location, family, etc.

 

[byaaaaaaah23]

I would eliminate Wake Forest first since you want to stay up north for residency and because of their H/P/F grading. Don't do that to yourself unless you have to. When it comes down to Einstein vs BU, they seem very similar to me so if one felt like you'd be happier there or you liked the location/students better then pick that. Reevaluate when you get financial aid but without any FA, they have similar costs so that wouldn't be a deal breaker if you get nothing from either place.

 

[wanderer]

First where do you want to live - big northeastern city or quiet southern city/town? That seems to be the biggest difference between them. Also where do you think you want to end up for residency? You can probably match anywhere from any of those, but WFU will make matching into the south a little bit easier.....
Also I doubt grading matters all that much, a lot of schools end up using first two years for ranking/AOA which is more important than the grades themselves (alternatively having everything riding on third year grades will make it even more stressful than it already is).

Also some of the pros for Einstein - 1 month for interviewing is okay, certainly not a huge plus. Also you'll be in for a rude awakening if you think they protect you from scut. Speak to a lot of current students as different students consider different things scut. More important is what 3rd year schedule is like. Some places make you stay really long hours where you learn nothing while others have mostly reasonable hours.

 

[penguinism]

I know nothing about Wake Forest, but I was accepted to BU and Einstein back when I applied. I got a very strange feeling from the students at Einstein on my interview day, and I just wasn't impressed with the school. Their second look was just a dinner in NYC, so I didn't have the opportunity to go back to the campus again. On the other hand, the students I met during my interview and the second look at BU were all awesome and really swayed me to want to go there. The cost was ultimately prohibitive and I chose a different school in the end, but I think I would have been happier at BU than Einstein. That's just my $0.02 though, and you need to pick whatever school feels right to you (and won't break the bank, of course).

I have to wonder what the social life is like at Einstein. It's not like it's super convenient to get to Manhattan from the Bronx.

 

[osprey099]

I know nothing about Wake Forest, but I was accepted to BU and Einstein back when I applied. I got a very strange feeling from the students at Einstein on my interview day, and I just wasn't impressed with the school. Their second look was just a dinner in NYC, so I didn't have the opportunity to go back to the campus again. On the other hand, the students I met during my interview and the second look at BU were all awesome and really swayed me to want to go there. The cost was ultimately prohibitive and I chose a different school in the end, but I think I would have been happier at BU than Einstein. That's just my $0.02 though, and you need to pick whatever school feels right to you (and won't break the bank, of course).

I have to wonder what the social life is like at Einstein. It's not like it's super convenient to get to Manhattan from the Bronx.

Yea, I got kind of the same feeling on my interview day at einstein. In terms of where I would be most happy, I would say its wake forest. But I'm not sure if I should base my decision solely on just happiness if BU or Einstein may offer better/more opportunities

 

[penguinism]

Yea, I got kind of the same feeling on my interview day at einstein. In terms of where I would be most happy, I would say its wake forest. But I'm not sure if I should base my decision solely on just happiness if BU or Einstein may offer better/more opportunities

I'm sorry, I can't answer that for you. Keep in mind that matching for residency is based a lot on personal preferences. More people who attend Wake Forest may be from more southern states and want to match down there too, whereas more people from the NE want to attend NE schools and stay around here for residency. It's not like you can't match back to the NE from Wake Forest. You might have an advantage matching in Boston if you attend BU or matching around NYC if you attend Einstein, but I'm not sure if I would make that my first priority at this stage. If you're ok with matching to NYC, Boston, Philly, etc. then you have A LOT of programs to choose from in the future, when you get to that point.

Make sure Wake Forest has decent research opportunities and try to talk to some students in their clinical years (at all 3 schools, actually, if you can find some). Go to the second looks if you have the time/$$ and they haven't happened already.

Good luck!!

 

[cyberchicken001]

I know nothing about Wake Forest, but I was accepted to BU and Einstein back when I applied. I got a very strange feeling from the students at Einstein on my interview day, and I just wasn't impressed with the school. Their second look was just a dinner in NYC, so I didn't have the opportunity to go back to the campus again. On the other hand, the students I met during my interview and the second look at BU were all awesome and really swayed me to want to go there. The cost was ultimately prohibitive and I chose a different school in the end, but I think I would have been happier at BU than Einstein. That's just my $0.02 though, and you need to pick whatever school feels right to you (and won't break the bank, of course).

I have to wonder what the social life is like at Einstein. It's not like it's super convenient to get to Manhattan from the Bronx.

Yea, I got kind of the same feeling on my interview day at einstein. In terms of where I would be most happy, I would say its wake forest. But I'm not sure if I should base my decision solely on just happiness if BU or Einstein may offer better/more opportunities

Just out of curiosity, would you guys mind elaborating on this?

 

[osprey099]

Just out of curiosity, would you guys mind elaborating on this?

I just got the impression that the students were a little more stressed than the other med students I've seen at other interviews. But I actually see this as a good thing because that means there's a lot to do at Einstein.

 

[cyberchicken001]

I just got the impression that the students were a little more stressed than the other med students I've seen at other interviews. But I actually see this as a good thing because that means there's a lot to do at Einstein.

Ah ok. It might just depend on when you interviewed though. For example, if I encountered applicants during their interview day the week before an exam, I would come off as much more stressed than if I saw them the week after the exam.... But you may be right in that the individual students you encountered just happened to be more stressed out people.

 

[penguinism]

Just out of curiosity, would you guys mind elaborating on this?

The one student at my lunch table was clearly only there for the free lunch and wasn't too social. He told us he came to Einstein only because they gave him a nice scholarship (which may be true, but c'mon give me more to work with here). Another tour guide was also a bit awkward. Top that off with no formal presentation in the morning, and I just wasn't sold on anything but how cheap the housing was. I will say that the people I met at the second look dinner were all very nice though.

Keep in mind that I interviewed ~2.5 years ago. A friend of mine who interviewed at Einstein liked it more. It's definitely not a bad school by any means, but I just didn't see myself there for 4+ years!