Hi everyone! I recently got accepted to Albany and I am having an extremely difficult time deciding between HWCOM and Albany. I am OOS from California so any insights about the two would be amazing.
FIU HWCOM
Pros
Pros
FIU HWCOM
Pros
- MIAMI (how could u go wrong with such an amazing city)
- Weather
- the campus is very big since it is part of the undergrad campus
- access is easy since the Miami International Airport is only 20 min away
- many second and third years live Downtown since its only 20 min away
- awesome urban patient population + community based
- more expensive than Albany (since I am OOS)
- Far from friends (a lot of my California friends moved to/will be moving to NYC) and I know no one in Miami
- cost of living is high
- I saw on SDN and other forums about some shady things about FIU (such as attrition rates and faculty who don't care about students)
- does not have its own hospital so rotations are done in nearby Miami hospitals
- most of the match list consists of Florida schools which makes sense since its a state school (ideally id love to come back to California for residency)
Pros
- the better school (more established)
- better match list --> seems like more people are coming back to California for residency (which is what I hope to do)
- close proximity to NYC (a lot of my California friends moved to/will be moving to NYC so it can be the best of both worlds with old and new friends) less homesickness 🙂
- cheaper (both cost of living and also tuition)
- has its own hospital but I think rotations are done at other places too
- middle of nowhere (Albany is much smaller than Miami)
- suburban (I am more interested in urban patient populations but it seems like some of the rotations are in more urban areas?)
- cold weather
- access is not easy (need to go to JFK and then train/drive)
