if you got into both Hopkins & Stanford, where would you go?

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Originally posted by Dr Chooch
Finally we have some good insight about these schools. Personally, that extra S kinda freaks me out, so I would go to Stanford.

By the way, mashce, whoever told you that going to a research schools is going to detract from your clinical stuff is smoking some bad crack...where the hell did he pull that from?
What he was saying is that students from heavily research oriented schools in the northeast tended to do worse than students from state schools in the South on the clinical part of the Dental Board, and he theorized that it was because of the heavy focus on basic science and research at those schools. Obviously, dentistry is different than medicine, and there could be other factors to explain this difference, but I thought coming from someone in his postion that it was an interesting perspective...
 
Originally posted by mashce
What he was saying is that students from heavily research oriented schools in the northeast tended to do worse than students from state schools in the South on the clinical part of the Dental Board, and he theorized that it was because of the heavy focus on basic science and research at those schools. Obviously, dentistry is different than medicine, and there could be other factors to explain this difference, but I thought coming from someone in his postion that it was an interesting perspective...

Ahhh, gotcha. I thought this was a dentist person trying to make sweeping generalizations about the MEDICAL community. Even still, the so-called "research oriented" schools (top ten or whatever) are also the schools with the best ranked hospitals, so you would think...

interesting indeed.
 
I personally believe you should base your medical education on quality and quantity of how much ass your gonna get while in med school. Med school is gonna be hella tuff, what better way to relieve stress then to tap some ass. I can?t tell you much about the ass in Baltimore, but in the bay area near Stanford there is some high quality and large quantity of ass. The bay area has nicer weather then Baltimore, meaning more skin showing, shorter skirts and more visible cleavage. The bay area has more of a free love hippy feel, meaning more girls willing to give up dat ass. And if your to nerdy to mack some ass on your own you could always pay for in the San Francisco red light district.
 
is the weather in baltimore and palo alto really all that different? baltimore's not really the northeast, and stanford's not exactly in sunny LA. . .
 
From the time I lived out there, I can tell you Palo Alto is different from Baltimore(I live in nothern CA not Baltimore). It's rainy in northern CA but not a heck of a lot of snow; Baltimore's a lot colder and snowier, but I'd say they get about the same amount of snow, but you'd have to check the latitudinal lines on the globe to tell for sure🙂
 
hello,
congratulations on your excellent choices. i personally picked stanford over hopkins as a few other people in my class did (over harvard as well).
first of all let me set a few things straight.
stanford losing accreditation- they are building a new medical school
stanford is cheap for most people- because of an endowment....that means stanford pays about $32,000 towards my tuition and i pay about $3,000/year. Hopkins is cheap too but not as cheap. You also get paid for doing TAships, etc.
research
quoted by G:

"
Hopkins has a lot more NIH funding than Stanford. There are a lot of med schools (including Hopkins) which offer special med student research programs which pay out funding. I'm not a Hopkins student but what Stanford offers for medical student research is commonplace at all the top med schools. I know that Hopkins has its own set of medical student research programs where students are paid for a year of research. I'll have to let the Hopkins students comment on how much the stipend is. "

amount of NIH funding does NOT matter to a medical student. what does matter is how easily you can get into a lab and do real work and work that fits YOUR interests (you will see what i mean by that) and publish and get paid to do it ($12,000 per project, you can take a million quarters to do your project). stanford's research programs are UNIQUE because they pay you and not your research, they fund a variety of projects because there are five kinds: Clinical, Basic, Community Partnership, Biodesign (for those engineers), and Traveling Scholars (people have travelled to Papua New Guinea, written books and comic strips for children with cancer, studied affects of artwork in medical offices, did protein studies, helped with clinical trials, taken histories of doctors in India, etc.), and all viable projects can be funded (NO competition for a medical scholars grant...anyone who wants one can get one). And we have extra stuff like the Medical Scientist thing which is one year funded or the MD-PhD (or you can just stay on and get a Masters, PhD, or a professional degree from the law, business, and soon to be Berkeley Public Health Schools). I'm sure Hopkins has similiar programs but i don't remember that it had anything comparable to the Medical Scholars Program. The research at Hopkins is great of course. if you are concerned about NIH money...i think stanford gets a good deal even though it is a very small school (in terms of number of faculty...compared to like hopkins and harvard)

stanford is pass/fail all four years (with rare honors, i've heard), no AOA, no rankings. everything videotaped...so you don't have to go to lecture. you can pass out of classes and they will give you credit for classes that you have taken already (like for your PhD). that relieves alot of pressure! stanford is also quarter system. we spend about 6 hours in class a day but we have a shorter number of weeks in school so we actaully end up spending less time in classes than alot of other medical school (not sure about hopkins in this regard, although i think they end at noon). also, it seems to me like nothing is ever really due (ask me later what that means if you want). and there is no such thing as "failing" a class.

you actually do 5 quarters (not 6) of preclinical work because the last quarter is a abbreviated quarter teaching only clinical skills.

most first years live on campus. the campus is very nice and the weather here is great. and it is very very safe. you are guarenteed housing (which is nice housing) your first year and almost guarenteed it your second year.

someone asked about residency match lists. well, i would say this. people who graduate from hopkins go to hopkins residencies. people who graduate from stanford equally go into stanford residencies. some of these might include santa clara county and you might be wondering...what the heck kind of hospital is that?? but santa clara is a stanford hospital (like brigham and women's is harvards). so don't feel weird if you don't recognize the name. stanford students tend to go into specialities and subspecialities (which is often more difficult to get into than primary care). i'm pretty sure i'll match coming from stanford!

and i agree with the poster who said who cares where you did your clerkships...everything you really learn is during residency anyways.

if you want a laid back, easy going, friendly CA lifestyle then come to stanford. i can't say much about hopkins. it was a nice place, very historical (it is often difficult to compare prestige between east and west coast schools....hopkins and harvard have been around alot longer than stanford), great research, lots of opportunities. we have more east coast people than west coast. and alot of the east coast people end up staying.

research at stanford is numerous but not more abundant than hopkins (hopkins is alot bigger). but there is enough, believe me.
stanford is right in the middle of reconstructing their preclinical years into possible scholarly tracts.

that is it for now. hope i answered a few things. ask me anymore if you like. thanks.
 
Stanford does have good support for research. Its a great school.

I chose Hopkins over Stanford though because the biomedical engineering program at Hopkins is better. If I was doing an MD/JD, or maybe an MD/PhD in another graduate program, I might have picked Stanford.

MD/PhDs generally dont participate in med student research programs (or are outright prohibited from participating) because they already have NIH support. Med schools would rather use those funds to go to regular MD students in an effort to encourage them to do research that they otherwise might not participate in. Therefore, the existence of standalone programs like the ones at Stanford wasnt something I really bothered to think about. Hopkins has similar research programs, but I dont know the details about it.

Theres no "right" answer to Hopkins vs Stanford. I know several people that turned down Stanford for Hopkins, but then again I also know people that turned down Hopkins for Stanford. It goes both ways and each person has to decide for themselves what the best school/location is.
 
Originally posted by care bear
is the weather in baltimore and palo alto really all that different? baltimore's not really the northeast, and stanford's not exactly in sunny LA. . .

did you really just ask that? LOL

LA's weather isn't near as good as palo alto, which is near perfect mediterranean climate all year round.......LA is great, dont get me wrong, but palo alto wins hands down..and compared to baltimore? 😀 :laugh:
 
I lived in Moraga as a child & went to preschool in Palo Alto. One thing I do recall about it was that the weather was gorgeous.

If it were my choice to make, I'd choose Stanford, no question. I mean, if I have a choice between a laid-back, high prestige school and a cutthroat high-prestige school, the only question I really need to answer is: am I a masochist or not?

You'll be a doctor either way, with a prestigious medical degree and all the doors that opens, both inside and outside the medical community. Any judgment based on ranking, prestige, etc is just making distinctions where there truly are none. It's like finding a significant difference in a study, only the difference means nothing clinically.

You should go to the place where you want to live for four years. Given what I know about the two cities, they are different enough that it should make your decision easy.
 
Also, I agree with the other people that UCSF beats Stanford any day of the week, hands down

Hell Duke and Baylor also beat it out
 
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