I regret choosing the wrong med school.

[Angus Avagadro]

As someone else has mentioned above, if the admissions offer from your top choice school is still valid, you may still be able to switch! You will be losing the deposit money though (paid towards the currently committed school). Putting down multiple deposits at several schools is not recommended, but if you tell them your intentions, I’m sure they can replace with someone from their waitlist. Probably won't offend them a bit.

If you are kicking yourself thinking, “what have I gotten myself into?” something is not right.

Hurry! Before time runs out.

This happens yearly at my former school. We always seemed to be pulling someone off of the waitlist a few days before classes start. It's a thing, but scrambling for housing at the last second while trying to get started in medical school could be quite stressful and damaging to your 1st semester gpa. My 2 cents.

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[Lucca]

Some good advice re: don’t go into more debt than necessary, make your own specialty-based connections.

As someone on multiple adcoms, however, I strongly advise against the attitude that you don’t need to grind because “Step 1 is now P/F.” This is atrociously bad advice, because the people you’ll compete against *absolutely will grind* and you’ll be behind if you don’t take Step 1 very, very seriously.

Not sure where this is coming from. The return on investment for grinding on step 1 is very little now. If you want to review boards content early, focusing on overlap between s1 and 2CK is the highest yield strategy but the opportunity cost against
other things that can make you stand out like research seems rly high to me. In particular, because the difference between the floor and ceiling on 2CK (top score minus average score) is much narrower than it ever was for step 1. People should take step 1 seriously but I think it’s perfectly reasonable for someone who paid attention in organ blocks and takes 4 weeks to clear UWorld and do sketchy to pass without the need to grind the parallel curriculum. What advantage would someone get from that?

 

[VA Hopeful Dr]

I'd say the 150-200K extra is definitely worth it for UCSF/HMS/Hopkins tier if you're:
1) wealthy or don't mind paying the premium
2) want a strong research career (note: you'll be likely taking a large pay cut and working more hours i.e., Cardiology makes 400K+ in private practice but only around ~200K in academics in my area)
3) reasonably sure you want to apply to more selective residencies (think I-6, NSG, derm, plastics) AND the alternative school doesn't have a good track record of matching applicants into your desired specialty or lacks a home program

Many can still match into a solid academic IM program (top 30-40) from most mid-tier MD schools, HMS/Hopkins tier schools would definitely make it easier to match into top 10 programs, but whether or not it's worth it depends on future goals. If you want to be at the cutting edge of research and have a name in academia, prestige will matter at every step.

The truth is most premeds don't really know what they want until later in the training, so it's easier to pay the premium and have more options.

That's true taking the more positive approach, but what if someone takes the 150k premium and ends up just loving pediatrics or family medicine?

 

[voxveritatisetlucis]

That's true taking the more positive approach, but what if someone takes the 150k premium and ends up just loving pediatrics or family medicine?

Go into consulting or tv shows on the side

 

[oldandmaybewiseMD]

Hi everyone, this is my first ever post here. I made my decision to commit to my med school a few days ago and I have been regretting it every day since. I chose to go to a cheaper med school that would theoretically reduce my total debt after my 4 years by about 150k. However, the school is new and not that well established with practically no one matching into the competitive specialties that I am considering (neuro, derm, surgery). I have been losing sleep over it and the initial happiness and looking forward to the future I felt when I was planning to commit to my top choice is now gone. I don't know who else to really ask for advice other than on SDN. I feel like I'm trapped and won't do well in med school to be competitive for residencies. Does anyone have advice about how to get out of this mindset? I kick myself over it everyday.

Here is a story. I'm getting so old as an attending that I may forget the details , so bear with me.

Many years ago (40, to be exact) a young bright Ivy League chemistry major was wondering what medical school to apply to. As this person was interested in academics, school reputation was on his mind.

One of his mentors (a well known NIH scientist) stated very clearly: don't worry about the school reputation. Do well in school, do what you enjoy, and things sort themselves out. Thus, the chemistry major applied and was accepted to state school X MD-PhD program. It was "new": only 15 years old at the time, and he was the third MD-PhD student they ever accepted.

Fast forward to six years later. Our chemistry major was interviewing with the program director of a very well known Harvard program. Question: how is school X different from HMS? Answer: we all need to learn the same things in medical school, School X has the same things as HMS, and HMS just has more of them. The chemistry major was accepted into this residency program.

Now 40 years after this medical school decision, the chemistry major (no longer young, unfortunately) looks back as a tenured professor of medicine at what would be considered a top 10 medical school and has realized a few things:

(1) It doesn't matter where you go to medical school. When you are looking for your first job out of training, few people know or care what school you went to. This includes academic jobs. For academic jobs, people care about your academic potential and commitment to academic medicine. By that time you will or should know if a try at academics is for you. For non-academic jobs, where you trained matters a bit, but not much, as it is the recommendations of the residency/fellowship program director and the attending physicians of the program that carry the most weight. Note that the name of your medical school does not factor into these decisions.

(2) We all change from what we thought we wanted when we began medical school. Do not choose a medical school based on thinking that you can't compete for a "competitive" specialty. If you really want it, you will know it, do research in that competitive specialty, and likely do an "audition" rotation somewhere. For example, our chemistry major thought he wanted to become a neurosurgeon (read Brodal's Neuroanatomy cover to cover as a second year, what a dork). Three weeks into his 3rd year surgery rotation convinced him otherwise.

(3) The hardest thing about medical school is getting in. Everyone is very invested in making sure you graduate and match. It costs a lot more to train you then your tuition pays for, and nobody wants to see that investment wasted. Academic bureaucracy can sometimes appear impersonal and ridiculous to a medical student, but do not forget that everyone wants you to succeed. This is why it is such a gauntlet to get accepted in the first place. Nobody wants you to fail once you get in.

(4) Medical school can be hard in many ways. It's tough to see your friends advance in their lives while you train into your late 20s and early 30s. However, our chemistry major still feels after 40 years that this is best job on the planet. Wherever you end up at the end of your journey, regardless of how you got there, you have become part of a tradition spanning thousands of years. In the end it is indeed worth it.

Hope this helps.