I've heard Dell loses a lot of their pre-matches to UTSW and Baylor, I was curious if anyone that pre-matched to UTSW or Baylor chose Dell over them and why?
Or if anyone wants to share why they chose UTSW over Dell vice versa > Just super curious and want to get as many perspectives/reasons as possible!
To give my two cents as a current MS1 at UTSW (slightly-biased take lol). I also did get the opportunity to interview at Dell and have friends who are their rn.
I would say, I really do enjoy Dell's culture and the immense support you feel from the faculty there (through interview and touring). When making MY rank list, I did heavily consider ranking Dell over UTSW. I knew going their meant I had great faculty members backing me, being in a great city like Austin, and being close to home.
A big reason why I did not do so at the end was due to my internship at UTSW. That summer was by far my favorite summer. I had 3 great faculty mentors that I still keep in touch to this day. The amount of availability they made for me and effort they put in for me (despite their busy schedules) was enough for me to see how much they cared. It is tough hearing other people weren't able to have great experiences here, but that just way things go. One thing that I will always remember was the energy in the air. It felt like everybody around me was striving for something huge and that just motivated me to work hard. But at the end of the day, there is no wrong answer in picking a school, as the letter MD (and DO) after your name will be the same.
As for resources, the opportunities are endless at both schools. I can't speak much on Dell, but will tell you about my experience here. At UTSW, I would say there is too much opportunities (research, leadership, etc) as sometimes I have to remind myself not to overextend. There are plenty of emails or ppl in gc asking for medical student help on projects so I would argue there is no "competing" for research. There is about 250 medical students per class, so about 1000 total medical students 3,301 faculty (1:3 ratio) and also each faculty member probably has multiple projects going on. I am also confident that a school like Dell would be no different.
In terms of classmates and culture, I too was worried (when applying) about the "toxic-gunner" culture or a bunch of students who only study and in their free time do research or read up on medicine. I can confidently say it has quite been the opposite of that. I think a huge thing is the non-ranking system (which Dell also has) that makes it this way. People are always super willing to share resources. People have posted updated anki decks for our classes, shared mind maps of certain concepts, resources, opportunities, etc. On the weekends, my classmates are a very much work hard, play hard people. We all create time throughout the week to keep up with our hobbies, whether that is run club, climbing, basketball leagues, soccer, gym, etc. But I do have to say, my classmates are high-achievers which I enjoy as it pushes me to work hard and be better.
Lastly, competitive specialty or not, Dell is an amazing school. Their match list is super impressive, which was a big reason why I considered to rank it above UTSW. At the end of the day, it came down to my positive experience at UTSW during my internship and just talking with friends about the culture & their experience at UTSW (and other schools) that led me to keep UTSW higher.
(p.s. I'd be happy to answer any personal questions to anybody. Just PM me)
