As a Georgetown 3rd year, let me reply to some of the claims floating around this thread.
SMP/Big class: Within the first week of classes, the class attendance will drop from 300ish (entire SMP class + entire med class) to 150 to even less. There will never be a shortage of seats in the lecture hall. Your grades as a medical student are not affected in any way by the SMP students. Their curve depends on the medical student's performance, that is the only connection. They don't even take all of the first year classes. The classes are surprisingly isolated.
Match List: Georgetown has a very strong match list year after year showing two impressive trends 1) matching into competitive specialties at great institutions and 2) match students all across the USA. I bet the AE match is great as well, but it is probably is more restricted to the NY area than Georgetown's list due to a lot of its students wanting to stay in NY. I tend to think that a match list that sends its students all across the USA is a good thing, since alumni are being spread out and you will run into them at every turn. Plus, while I agree that a match list represents the whim of the class and which specialties they decided to pursue, having lots of students match in competitive specialties once again gets many of our alumni spread out into competitive specialties which can come in handy when you are interviewing and networking.
Facilities: I have never seen AE facilities. Georgetown's aren't great, I admit it, but they work well for what you will need. The hospital isn't the most fancy I have ever seen, but they do have a lot of high-tech gadgets and equipment to make up for the older exterior. You can also always study at the undergrad side of the campus.
Competition: All this talk about competition is the biggest piece of BS i have ever seen. Maybe my class is the only chill class, but my classmates have never shown gunner-like competition. There is a select % of the class trying to do very well in everything in hopes of match at a top top program (maybe 10% of the class), and so some people will hog a lot of honors. But the honors hogs don't do it in a malicious obnoxious way. You are in medical school, you are expected to work hard. If you want honors in everything it is doable with hard work. If you are happy with P and HPs, good, so is the majority of the class. Classmates have always been willing to pass around notes and study guides to the entire class. And many students study in groups.
P/F curriculum vs. P/HP/H : First and second year grades matter for one thing only, AOA. AE may have P/F, but I can assure you that they are still internally ranking you so that they can include that in the AOA selection process (at least, most medical school use some combo of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd year grades to determine AOA). The Georgetown grading scheme just tells you how you are actually doing in the class. The AE curriculum just hides it. But if you get really anxious over a few P's, then maybe a P/F curriculum is better for you. I personally like the grading scheme at Georgetown, because it lets you know if you need to work harder or less hard to get where you want to be in the class.
I am free to answer any questions about Georgetown.
About Me:
Georgetown MS3 going into Radiology.
