Oh, heavens no, I would never apply to UIW in the first place. And if you'd spent time at UNE and UIW, you wouldn't characterize my post as garbage. UNE vs UIW is like comparing a beautiful sunset to a worn shoe (or cowboy boot in this case).
I'd choose UIW. It has its flaws, like any new school will, but the location is one of the best! It's in a nice area actually (not affluent, but not dangerous by any means). If you want dangerous, go check out KCU. Next, everything you will need is within 1 mile of campus, rent is DIRT cheap as you can live in the Kennedy (directly across the street) with BRAND NEW construction 1br for $915!! This place is stacked with amenities too.
UNE has SNOW and LOTS of it. It's in a town city that's MUCH smaller in size to SA and nothing around it. SA has Austin 80 miles away which is one of the funniest college cities in America.
GME expansion is huge in Texas and residency slots are being dramatically raised by 2020. In addition to that, the state is paying for it and most, if not all, the programs will be biased towards students who have attended a Texas medical school. UNE on the other hand is the only med school in the state and the local residency programs prefer the MD students from Vermont and adjacent areas over their local students.
San Antonio is a super tight knit community where everyone takes care of each other, and I can easily see UTSA residencies being very nice to UIW students. UIW as an institution has been around in SA forever and even in Galveston they have a high school and the local MD school knows them too. It's a different playing field in Texas. I think it will give a student a HUGE leg up if they want an academic IM residency at one of the Texas state Medical school IM programs (except for UTSW and Baylor).
Also TCOM is there, so DO bias is already reduced significantly compared to other states where they have barely encountered DO's. And the area was so nice and the staff was THE FRIENDLIEST, WARM HEARTED group of people I have met. I felt at home 5 min into my interview there, and that's something rare to find anywhere you go. You felt that even if times will be tough, you have all the support and guidance you need as a team to get through. You won't be left to just "figure it out" without help.
The cons though, unfortunately, are that most of the staff are pretty new to this too. Therefore, guidance and resources may be limited just due to the nature of being a new school, and kinks will surely arise. But that comfort level, location (no snow, big city), friendliness, and comfortable studying environment with everything you need nearby, I would choose it over many other established schools in a heartbeat.
Sorry for the rant, but disclaimer it's also residency-dependent. I would choose more established schools like UNE to be more competitive for tough specialties like ortho surg, Derm, etc.
