How to choose a med school

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kickster

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Yes, I tried searching, and didn't find what I was looking for.

I'm wondering what is a good basis for choosing a medical school? Fit? P/F? Location? What else?

Also, does the medical school ranking matter for residencies? I've heard a lot of mixed things about that.
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kickster said:
Yes, I tried searching, and didn't find what I was looking for.

I'm wondering what is a good basis for choosing a medical school? Fit? P/F? Location? What else?

Also, does the medical school ranking matter for residencies? I've heard a lot of mixed things about that.
Click to expand...

Skeptical about signature.
 
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kickster said:
Yes, I tried searching, and didn't find what I was looking for.

I'm wondering what is a good basis for choosing a medical school? Fit? P/F? Location? What else?

Also, does the medical school ranking matter for residencies? I've heard a lot of mixed things about that.
Click to expand...


Top four objective factors for most:

1. Location
2. Price
3. Curriculum style (PBL, semester, block, etc)
4. Prestige of school

Fit is something you will never know until you meet your class on the first day. You can get a general idea of the culture of the school on your interview day and any other visits. But it is impossible to know who going to be in your class and if you will get along with them.

I would pay attention to how happy the students seem when you interview and talk to them though.


Med school rankings matter for competitive specialties (i.e. plastics, derm, orthopedics, etc). If you want to go into internal med, family, peds, EM, etc it is not going to be a deciding factor. Although a better school will never hurt you.
 
I guess some med schools have lectures all day whereas other only have half days.

I almost feel like the full day ones are better because if you learn on your own you can just skip the lecture/listen to it online but if they are not there to begin with then it's not even an option. This is something that I will be looking into.
 
kickster said:
Yes, I tried searching, and didn't find what I was looking for.

I'm wondering what is a good basis for choosing a medical school? Fit? P/F? Location? What else?

Also, does the medical school ranking matter for residencies? I've heard a lot of mixed things about that.
Click to expand...

Your priorities may be different than the priorities of someone else. You listed most of the more important things to keep in mind for medical school, but only you can know which is worth prioritizing and at which point what is more important to you. Cost is another factor that you should consider.

What I primarily looked for in a school was the availability of resources both inside and outside of the medical schools and potentially graduate schools. The personality of the class was also important to me. Location was less important, as long as it was urban.

As for your question about ranking, the short answer is yes. There is no question coming from a top-tier school gives you a leg up for the more competitive residencies, but there is nothing stopping you from doing exceedingly well at a 'lower'-tier med school and still getting a top-notch residency, it happens all the time.
 
Location, price, school mission, rank. In that order.
 
I should clarify that by "mission" I pretty much mean "research or service". Try to be with your peeps.
 
pre med 2014 said:
I guess some med schools have lectures all day whereas other only have half days.

I almost feel like the full day ones are better because if you learn on your own you can just skip the lecture/listen to it online but if they are not there to begin with then it's not even an option. This is something that I will be looking into.
Click to expand...

Mandatory lecture attendance is something that would be worth taking into account, if applicable (tbh I haven't heard of many places that require lecture attendance, but I know some exist).
 
Whichever med school takes me
 
Go watch nicknaylor's video.


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A big factor in my choice is the clinical rotations of different schools, i.e. whether I'll be participating in procedures or just shadowing for an overwhelming amt of the time. Most schools don't really allude to this aspect (at least in all of the research I've done), so I'm mainly going to be relying on the word of med students in this one.
 
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In your interviews, you will need to ask about dumb stuff like clinical rotations, curriculum, etc. In the real world:

Prestige/rank > price > location

There is a bit of subjective grey area between 1 and 2 understandably. EG I would probably take an extra 50K of debt to go to a top 20 vs my state school, but probably not a 'next-tier' school like NYU or Dartmouth.
 
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Ruhroh said:
In your interviews, you will need to ask about dumb stuff like clinical rotations, curriculum, etc. In the real world:

Prestige/rank > price > location

There is a bit of subjective grey area between 1 and 2 understandably. EG I would probably take an extra 50K of debt to go to a top 20 vs my state school, but probably not a 'next-tier' school like NYU or Dartmouth.
Click to expand...

I think this only reflects that matching into these specific programs is, for lack of a better word, incestuous. If you want a residency program doing cutting edge research and practicing with "state of the art" new techniques and equipment at a top "honor roll" hospital, you'll probably want to go to a top 20 research school to prove your committment.

Other than that, I don't think prestige really matters. Not nearly as much as what type of setting you'll be spending 4 years in during medical school, and whether or not it's a fit.
 
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kickster said:
Yes, I tried searching, and didn't find what I was looking for.

I'm wondering what is a good basis for choosing a medical school? Fit? P/F? Location? What else?

Also, does the medical school ranking matter for residencies? I've heard a lot of mixed things about that.
Click to expand...

I...don't believe you? What on earth were you looking for that hasn't already been answered???

Either way, you'll find that all your answers are here:
wEIXT.png
 
TheMightySmiter said:
I should clarify that by "mission" I pretty much mean "research or service". Try to be with your peeps.
Click to expand...

This doesn't really work, every school says that their mission is primary care when really they don't care about it. It's just that medical schools get substantial amounts of taxpayer money, and everyone would be angry if they knew that med schools were producing hordes of subspecialists when we have such a shortage of PCPs. So med schools put on the facade of being interested in primary care.
 
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