Hopkins vs. SIU

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
D

doctor0125

Junior Member
10+ Year Member
15+ Year Member
Joined
Aug 4, 2006
Messages
119
Reaction score
0
I am not sure about this, it is so hard to choose. Do you guys have any advice? Both programs are stunning in their respective fields and the locations are comparable.
Members don't see this ad.
 
:eek:
doctor0125 said:
I am not sure about this, it is so hard to choose. Do you guys have any advice? Both programs are stunning in their respective fields and the locations are comparable.
Click to expand...

uhhhhhhhhhh are you seriously trying to figure out which of these schools to attend?
 
Well, students are alot more laid back at SIU, so that is a major plus. I also advocate running with the Big Dog whenever possible, so SIU gets the Big Dog vote too.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
Of course I am, I look to you guys for advice. My family lives in Southern Illinois and I do not know if Hopkins program is worth leaving home for.
 
I've heard many medical students say that they wish they attended a school closer to home.
 
doctor0125 said:
Of course I am, I look to you guys for advice. My family lives in Southern Illinois and I do not know if Hopkins program is worth leaving home for.
Click to expand...

ok now rankings definetly arent everything...and id say go SIU if it werent a school like hopkins, which will undoubtedly give you a HUGE edge later in life.....theres no if or but, people would do so much to go to hopkins, you should chose hopkins, yes the people at hopkins most likely will be more uptight, less laid back, BUT ITS HOPKINS, can you really pass that up? later in life your going to have it easier because you have a medical degree from hopkins, SIU im sure is a good school, and id say you could pick it over a lot of other schools that are good, but not hopkins....you really should go to hopkins...:thumbup:
 
IMO, opportunities like JHU come along once in a lifetime for a select few people. I think you should take this opportunity. :thumbup:
 
I'm not sure if this post is serious (could it really be?), but if it is...

Go to Hopkins unless the price difference is monumental. Even then, you should consider Hopkins.
 
What is the difference in cost that would cause you to choose this school over Hopkins?
 
JOHN HOPKINS!!!! I would pay them $100K if I could go there, on top of tuition. Believe me, I'd find a way to get enough loans.
 
JohnMadden said:
What is the difference in cost that would cause you to choose this school over Hopkins?
Click to expand...

Actually, I think I would choose Hopkins over SIU regardless of cost. Maybe I would go to SIU for a full ride plus stipend ($220K or so total).
 
You'll be in a lot less debt if you go to SIU... which is a huge plus. I'm a pretty strong advocate of the fact that the education in years 1 and 2 of med school are influenced most by how much effort the student puts into it, not whether its a big name institution. However, think also about the quality of rotations your 3rd and 4th years. While SIU is known very well in a few areas like Family Med and Plastics and is probably more than adequate in other areas, I don't think the rotations at St. Johns/Memorial are going to be able to compare to Hopkins for the most part. It really depends what you want to go into. If you think you want to do Neurosurgery, Hopkins is arguably one of the two most prestigous centers for that in N. America (the other being U Toronto) and doing an elective there (and having home-turf advantage) would be of invaluable experience.

But thats not to say you won't be able to do whatever you want if you go to SIU. I'm from central illinois myself, and have known family friends going into ENT, plastics, rad onc, derm, etc. after graduating from SIU. Good luck with the decision!
 
Members don't see this ad :)
Ok, SIU is a pretty good school, but you cannot compare it to Hopkins. If I were lucky enough to get accepted, i would be there in an instant...even if it means owing hundreds of thousands of dollars more.
 
Mind you, SIU is PBL.
 
Unless you have to be with your family or a strong financial reason, go to hopkins.
 
It really is not a matter or rankings or cost, because these two schools are very different. the real question is are you more oriented to clinical (SIU) or academic (JHU) medicine as a career. While SIU does offer opportunities for research, most of the projects aren't as presitigious as JHU, although there are some exceptions. If you are intersted in Plastics there is a doc who is nationally reknowned. And because SIU is a relatively small school he is extremely accessible for research during the summer and possibly throughout the year.

SIU is PBL, but it's nothing to shy away from if you've been in a traditional lecture format. There are pros and cons of both types of cirriculae and you can search SDN for a discussion of that sort.

ALSO, consider the cost of living in Baltimore. It's expensive and the area that the school is in is quite ghetto. SIU will afford a much better lifestyle. You won't be eating ramen noodles and mac and cheese, unless you decide to buy a projector system with a home theatre system. If you have questions about SIU PM me. Sometimes it sucks, other times I wouldn't trade it for the world.
 
doctor0125 said:
I am not sure about this, it is so hard to choose. Do you guys have any advice? Both programs are stunning in their respective fields and the locations are comparable.
Click to expand...

Tell SIU you've been accepted to Hopkins and try to get a good financial aid deal that will let you stay near home. Let them know that you want to stay home.
 
Hahahahahahaha, there is no way on earth this thread is serious. Someone wrote that garbage as a joke, hahahaha
 
tmp that advice is money, im gonna do it
 
katiekate said:
It really is not a matter or rankings or cost, because these two schools are very different. the real question is are you more oriented to clinical (SIU) or academic (JHU) medicine as a career. While SIU does offer opportunities for research, most of the projects aren't as presitigious as JHU, although there are some exceptions. If you are intersted in Plastics there is a doc who is nationally reknowned. And because SIU is a relatively small school he is extremely accessible for research during the summer and possibly throughout the year.

SIU is PBL, but it's nothing to shy away from if you've been in a traditional lecture format. There are pros and cons of both types of cirriculae and you can search SDN for a discussion of that sort.

ALSO, consider the cost of living in Baltimore. It's expensive and the area that the school is in is quite ghetto. SIU will afford a much better lifestyle. You won't be eating ramen noodles and mac and cheese, unless you decide to buy a projector system with a home theatre system. If you have questions about SIU PM me. Sometimes it sucks, other times I wouldn't trade it for the world.
Click to expand...

This gets the award for the craziest post that I have read recently.

First, you say that SIU provides BETTER clinical training than JHU? I'm not an expert, but JHU has what is almost unanimously considered to be the best hospital in the United States. I don't think that SIU can come close to JHU in most clinical areas, if any. JHU is pretty clearly superior in terms of both research and clinical training.

Second, the cost of living in Baltimore is high? It is one of the cheapest housing markets for a city in the United States. Along with WashU, JHU will have the lowest cost of living out of any of the top 10 schools. Baltimore is not expensive.
 
Haha, I hope this thread keeps going purely for my own amusement. SIU is some garbage!!!!!!! Sorry, hate to offend. And Hopkins is AMAZING!!!!!!!! Haha, I love how people actually gave scenarios/reasons where/why you would pick SIU over Hopkins. Under absolutely NO circumstance would you pick SIU over Hopkins and yes, this even includes very extreme circumstances like various people having guns to heads and stuff like that
 
tinypun2 said:
Haha, I hope this thread keeps going purely for my own amusement. SIU is some garbage!!!!!!! Sorry, hate to offend. And Hopkins is AMAZING!!!!!!!! Haha, I love how people actually gave scenarios/reasons where/why you would pick SIU over Hopkins. Under absolutely NO circumstance would you pick SIU over Hopkins and yes, this even includes very extreme circumstances like various people having guns to heads and stuff like that
Click to expand...

I know many great doctors that have graduated from SIU, and it's not garbage.
 
Towelie said:
This gets the award for the craziest post that I have read recently.

First, you say that SIU provides BETTER clinical training than JHU? I'm not an expert, but JHU has what is almost unanimously considered to be the best hospital in the United States. I don't think that SIU can come close to JHU in most clinical areas, if any. JHU is pretty clearly superior in terms of both research and clinical training.

Second, the cost of living in Baltimore is high? It is one of the cheapest housing markets for a city in the United States. Along with WashU, JHU will have the lowest cost of living out of any of the top 10 schools. Baltimore is not expensive.
Click to expand...

You know, SIU is my #1 choice but only because my stats aren't good enough for a place like Hopkins (and because I happen to know many students and faculty at SIU and I really like the school).

Even with those feelings, if I got admitted to JHU, I'd probably go to JHU. It's the top (or near the top) of all med schools in the US (and probably in the world), so why wouldn't anyone want to go?

Of course, this will never happen to me because I'm not applying to JHU, but I definitely agree with the consensus: SIU is a solid medical school, but JHU is in a league of its own.
 
I like your cats.
 
i had a similar choice last year and i decided to go with SIU mostly based on the fact that JHU is overrated IMO and way too expensive. i must say im very happy with my decision.


southern illinois ya'll :love:
 
megboo said:
Of course, this will never happen to me because I'm not applying to JHU, but I definitely agree with the consensus: SIU is a solid medical school, but JHU is in a league of its own.
Click to expand...

that's true, but as others have mentioned, jhu would be a total waste of money if you have no interest in an academic medical career and are planning on practicing in primary care or another relatively uncompetitive specialty.
 
jbrice1639 said:
that's true, but as others have mentioned, jhu would be a total waste of money if you have no interest in an academic medical career and are planning on practicing in primary care or another relatively uncompetitive specialty.
Click to expand...

Er... I agree about the academic medicine portion, but you do realize that SIU has residencies in gen surg, derm, rads, ortho, plastics, oto. And they tend to take their own students. Tell me those specialties aren't competitive :confused:
 
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...you guys are absolutely insane...will someone please back me up or else this is really going to throw me off. Under NO circumstance should someone go to SIU over Hopkins. SIU HAS BETTER CLINICAL EXPERIENCE THAN HOPKINS???????????? Someone is seriously out of their mind to be saying that. Forget money...that shouldn't even be a factor regardless of your current monetary situation.
It's the difference between a once in a lifetime opportunity to go to one of the premier academic institutions in the world ...and going to an extremely average school and I'm being kind to SIU by calling it extremely average. Whenever you say a school isn't good, people always chime in with "Well I know some good doctors who went there." That doesn't matter. There's good doctors that come out of the Carribean. The next thread that comes after this is "Carribean vs. Harvard."
And there will be all these people saying how the Carribean is better because the Carribean students are more laid back, and how there's more unique cases in the Carribean because it's an island, and how the Carribean has a school that's cheap because you pay in peso's or some garbage like that
 
kind of off topic, but I've actually heard that Carribean med students aren't laid back, and that it's actually really competitive there because everyone has to do really really well and shine in order to get residencies in the US.

but yes, I kind of echo the post above. Even if family is in southern illinois, that's what airplanes are for. haha
 
Yeah you're right, I've heard that they grind you into the ground but I said it for the sake of the comment as a whole
 
You know, just because Hopkins is a top school doesn't mean it's going to have a more competitive atmosphere than SIU (which is what people on here seem to think a lot of times). In fact, it may very well be the opposite. At JHU, you'd be classmates with some of the most type-A students in the country, but the pressure to stand out from your classmates is FAR less coming from JHU than from SIU. On the other hand, coming from SIU most of the students who are interested in anything competitive are going to feel pressure to be at the top of their class. The pressure you'll feel at JHU will most likely be pressure you put on yourself to keep up, not to necessarily beat your competition.

(by the way, I'm not saying SIU has a competitive atmosphere, I really have no idea. I'm just saying the individual pressure may very well be more intense).
 
yeah, I echo the post above. I go to school in the Chicago area, and all my friends that want to stay in Chicago hope to get into Northwestern or U of C over UIC partly because UIC is known to be more difficult. I think the explanation for that is the reasoning you provided (MrBurns).
 
MrBurns, your Bush joke makes you my official idol
 
puff puff give, come on guys...SIU>Hopkins:laugh:
 
megboo said:
Er... I agree about the academic medicine portion, but you do realize that SIU has residencies in gen surg, derm, rads, ortho, plastics, oto. And they tend to take their own students. Tell me those specialties aren't competitive :confused:
Click to expand...

i was certainly not trying to say that SIU would hurt one's chances at getting into competitive residencies...sorry if i misspoke (er...typed)
 
Khanal007 said:
yeah, I echo the post above. I go to school in the Chicago area, and all my friends that want to stay in Chicago hope to get into Northwestern or U of C over UIC partly because UIC is known to be more difficult. I think the explanation for that is the reasoning you provided (MrBurns).
Click to expand...

really? i've lived in chicago my whole life and am also a student here, and i can honestly say i've never heard anyone say that UIC is known to be a difficult school. the only reason i know that people don't want to go there is that their students tend to be unhappy.
 
jbrice1639 said:
really? i've lived in chicago my whole life and am also a student here, and i can honestly say i've never heard anyone say that UIC is known to be a difficult school. the only reason i know that people don't want to go there is that their students tend to be unhappy.
Click to expand...

I've also heard that UIC students are generally unhappy, but I think a lot of it comes from the curriculum and unresponsive administration. I don't think the school itself it know as "difficult" as in difficult to get into (as a U of I student, we generally tend to see UIC as somewhat of a backup school for Illinois residents).
 
WCGee said:
I've also heard that UIC students are generally unhappy, but I think a lot of it comes from the curriculum and unresponsive administration. I don't think the school itself it know as "difficult" as in difficult to get into (as a U of I student, we generally tend to see UIC as somewhat of a backup school for Illinois residents).
Click to expand...
yeah, what I meant to say is not that it's difficult to get in, but the way they teach, how hard they work their students. I definitely heard the curriculum is "harder" and not as laid back.
 
If I were you, I would take SIU. I had a huge post written but it got lost so I'm going to summarize it.

#1: If you plan on coming home after med school for training, it'll be easier to get the residency you want. Residency programs tend to take students from their own medical schools and SIU is a huge institution. One of my close friends went there for medical school and is now doing an orthopedics residency also at SIU. Regardless of what residency you want to do, from dermatology to ob/gyn, if you want to come back home to SIU, it will be loads easier if you were a med student there.

#2: Cost. You WILL save almost a hundred thousand dollars or more in tuition by going to SIU. This is not including the dramatically lower cost of living in southern Illinois with your family close by, versus at Hopkins. This is real money that you can use to invest, buy a home later on, not have to pay interest on, and not have to worry about when applying for any kind of bank loan. Another friend of mine did both med school and residency at the same institution in Ohio. He bought a small house during med school and sold it after residency for enough money to not only pay for all his med school loans but also to have a nice profit on top.

#3: Happiness. Med school is extremely stressful and having a family close by and being in a familiar environment is extremely helpful. I went to med school hundreds of miles away from my family and I was miserable for my first two years. I eventually became acclimated and happy into my 3rd year but I still feel like I missed out on a lot with my family. A lot of really smart people burn out and can't handle the stress of med school just into their first year and most of them are far away from home.

Overall, consider what is important to you. A name like Hopkins is great but it sure as hell isn't everything.
 
It depends on what kind of person you are. My dad is from southern Il, and went to SIU Med. He would have been miserable at hopkins.

Where in IL are you?


Some people here forget the $ issue. If you can get money, you will be the equivalent of 300 grand ahead. Thats more than the $ you will make your whole residency, which isnt that easy to ignore. Take in your family/SO situation among other things.
 
ndmed said:
i had a similar choice last year and i decided to go with SIU mostly based on the fact that JHU is overrated IMO and way too expensive. i must say im very happy with my decision.


southern illinois ya'll :love:
Click to expand...

really?
 
It's a popular misconception that public schools are always cheaper than private schools. At a place like Hopkins, where the beer flows like wine, if you qualify for need-based aid you will get hooked up in a major way. From what I understand, they have a unit loan, and everything above that is straight grants (again, if you qualify). Hopkins is one of the best, if not the best, in need based aid so it may be very expensive or very very cheap. I don't know how much aid SIU gives out, but I imagine they aren't working with a budget anywhere near Hopkins.

Considering the OP has said nothing about his/her family's financial situation, the cost comparison cannot be made. Also, I haven't been to S. Illinois, but Baltimore is about as cheap as it gets for a major city (especially around the hospital), so I doubt there is all that much difference in cost of living.

I realize average debt isn't the best indicator because it builds in out of staters for SIU and it doesn't do a great job of isolating family wealth but, for what it's worth:

Southern Illinois University--Springfield $109,255
Johns Hopkins University (MD) $95,919

Again, not great proof because the statistic is flawed, but this whole $300,000 difference that is being thrown around seems *a bit* extreme, particularly if you have any shot at financial aid.

Also the argument that if you want to practice at home, you are at an advantage going to SIU seems questionable at best. It does help to go to med school where you go to residency, but I'm pretty sure that residency program would give a local kid from Hopkins a shot.
 
Go to SIU!!!

Hopkins is extremely over rated. SIU is way under rated. US News is bad. All medical schools are exactly the same, no matter where US news ranks them! Also, I've heard that the faculty at Hopkins are really smart and often leaders in their fields. To me, this means that they are horrible teachers and just want to make their students feel stupid. I would rather take Joe Shmoe professor at SIU then someone really smart.

Also, it is so important to be close to your family. Even if Hopkins offered me a full ride I would take SIU, because I really, really, really miss my family, and it's so hard to be away from them. The few times I haven't seen my mom for more then a week, I start day dreaming about her all the time. Now if my mom lived in Baltimore, then maybe I would go to Hopkins!

Good luck with this decision. I know you will feel a lot of pressure to go to Hopkins because of "rankings." I hope you make the right choice.
 
mahasanti said:
Also, I've heard that the faculty at Hopkins are really smart and often leaders in their fields. To me, this means that they are horrible teachers and just want to make their students feel stupid. I would rather take Joe Shmoe professor at SIU then someone really smart.
Click to expand...

Wow. Just wow. I hope that was meant as a joke.

Edit: I'm an idiot.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Next unread thread

Similar threads

S
RFU vs SIU
Replies
4
Views
400
chilly_md
chilly_md
P
Hopkins vs UVA
Replies
9
Views
657
thefirerisen
thefirerisen
C
Hopkins vs Einstein
Replies
6
Views
685
drtobe_
D
S
Hopkins vs Columbia vs Penn
Replies
4
Views
895
Egg-Benedict
E
T
baylor vs hopkins
Replies
3
Views
756
Mr.Smile12
Mr.Smile12
Top