Originally posted by prettymean
Hi, I was offered an interview at the Chicago Medical School on May 29th. My question is should I bother to go? The date seems a bit too late for me. I am concerned that the 185 spots maybe all filled up by the time they interview me. Plus flying to Chicago (round trip) and living accomodation are not cheap either. Notwithstanding the fact that I am already accepted into a medical school.
I'm a third-year at CMS and I can tell you it's a good school, regardless of what other people may say based on "reputation." The first two years are spent out in the suburbs, which kind of sucks, but may be a good thing if you are easily distracted. You can live in Lake Forest, which is a very nice little town (has a Ferrari dealership!), or Highland Park (Michael Jordan lives there). You can also live in the new campus housing if you want. If you want to live downtown, it is possible to commute using the metra rail (in retrospect, I would have done this). The teaching is excellent, as is board preparation. Our class averaged 220 this year. Clinical training is very good, I felt well prepared to enter clerkships. I think we compare very favorably to students from other, more notoriousj Chicago schools. Socially I think the school has improved since merging with the Scholl podiatry school. There are a lot more acitvities than there used to be, and dating opportunities abound. The third/fourth years are spent in downtown Chicago, and none of our rotations are really malignant. The hospitals we rotate through are very good for learning, and include the infamous Cook County. I did ER, medicine, and pediatrics there.
Our match list is okay, and getting better, but it's still no where near those of top 20 schools.
I probably wouldn't give up attending a top 30 school to go here, but if your other acceptance is at a top 50+ school, or is in a lousy location, give CMS a look.
They still accept people up to the day before classes begin, I know at least one example from my class.
