Hoping to get some guidance on my ROL for CAP

[OrangeStarterPack]

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The current programs I am considering are:
Harbor-UCLA
Kaiser Fontana
Maryland
UC-Riverside
UTSW
WashU

I am an early 30s single male and am considering living in the following areas in the country with the following priority:
1) LA/OC-NYC
2) DMV
3) also open to living in Philadelphia, Dallas, Atlanta after training

For UCR, I really liked the PD and for Harbor-UCLA, I have an attending mentor within the program who I would love to work with.

Call and work burden appears to be from easiest to hardest: Kaiser > UCR > UTSW = Maryland = Harbor > WashU

I am wondering how much I should be valuing location and mentorship vs. academic prestige. I am looking to work with adolescents in any setting and have some interest in academics in the future. I am fairly disenchanted by the outpatient experience and lack of mentorship at my residency program, so would definitely hope to have both supplemented wherever I end up going.

 

[comp1]

You should, of course, only be valuing location. No one will care in the least where you went 5 years from now, nor will it change how your practice much, but, statistically, you will still be living in the area. So let's look at the location. Riverside is expensive AND the weather kinda sucks, albeit better than Dallas or Atlanta. Torrance has good weather, closer to the beach. A bit higher crime than many places in LA, but also slightly (very) cheaper. Both NYC and Philadelphia have snow, so no. Washington University is in...St Louis, right? Do you plan to live in St Louis forever? Cause, statistically you will if you match there. I just...don't relate to that unless you have some REAL specific tie to the Midwest. So look..you desperately need to think about WHERE you want to live. This training is 1-2 years. Focus on the rest of your life. Where is your family? Where are you friends? What kind of politics do you have? What kind of scenery do you want, again, for the rest of your life? All the other stuff is so extremely secondary, but it seems to be distracting you because you somehow are considering dramatically different cities spread out over all the country. I mean considering Atlanta and St Louis? What? Anyways, for me, it would have been Harbor. That was very high on my rank list. I like LA's weather and culture and it was reasonably close to family

 

[OrangeStarterPack]

@comp1 Thank you for the feedback, I DM'd you. For better or for worse, I do have very direct ties to multiple regions in the country and thus do feel pretty open to living in the aforementioned cities long term.