I was accepted to Illinois and waitlisted to K-State back when I was applying and eventually went on to Illinois when I was never called off the K-State waitlist. At the time, if I had been accepted to K-State off the waitlist, I would have chosen to go there for a couple of reasons: 1) closer to my home (7.5 hour drive instead of a 16 hour drive) and 2) a tiny bit cheaper at 5k per year. Not once did I consider curriculum or anything like that when deciding where to apply or where to attend.
You're obviously in the opposite position as far as distance goes, so a couple of things to consider since Manhattan and Champaign are the relatively same level of rural:
- If you are considering flying, remember that flying out of the actual city of Manhattan or Champaign is going to be expensive. I never flew out of Champaign; I always took the bus to Midway in Chicago and flew out there. It was approximately 25% cheaper than flying out of Champaign. The caveat is that it took almost the same amount of time as driving because you have to get a bus time where you arrive in time for your flight without a thin margin of missing your flight. So sometimes I was stuck in Midway for 3-5 hours prior to my flight. Between the drive up to Chicago (2hrs), the wait (5hrs), the flight to Denver (2hrs), you're at a 9 or 10hr adventure. Driving took 6 hours longer, but was also 50% cheaper in gas compared to flying. So if you want to consider Manhattan, actually see what it's like to fly from Manhattan vs Kansas City vs driving home.
- Travel will be affected by weather at both schools because #midwestlife. My longest drive between Champaign and Denver was 26 hours because of blizzards between Denver and Champaign in addition to my car breaking down 23 miles from my parents' house. Likewise, I missed my first day of rotations because of flight delays from Denver to Chicago, so then I had to rearrange my flight to Chicago and my bus ticket down to Champaign.
AAVMC Public Data says that K-State is 5k-ish cheaper per year. Keep in mind that's at a ~7% interest rate, which starts the minute you take the money. That's $9.91 in interest *per day* according to my excel sheet. And then it gets compounded when you graduate, so then you start accruing the 7% interest on the interest you've already accrued. So that 5k more expensive tuition is actually $8,617.15 more expensive per year, or approximately an extra $34,468.60 by the time you graduate. It's up to you to know if you can offset that $34k to make the extra tuition (essentially the cost of an additional semester) and resulting interest at Illinois more worthwhile.
As far as my time at Illinois, I loved it. I didn't go in thinking I would do any specific type of medicine, so I did a ton of different things including the wildlife clinic, equine emergency team, ICU shifts, etc. The exotics program is pretty strong at UIUC with multiple people from 2019-2021 currently in various residencies for exotics/zoo medicine. I don't regret going to Illinois, but I also inherited a life insurance policy that paid for several years of school from the outset, and then paid for the interest from the years before the policy became mine. I'm dealing with less debt than I would have had I gone to my in-state school. I'm still paying $1200/month on the ten year plan (throwing in an extra 100/month, which will pay it off in 9 years instead). I felt truly supported at the school through various negative life events. I loved my class and probably 95% of the professors.
ETA: my math is actually incorrect. I'm underestimating the amount of interest you will owe because I just accounted for the accrued interest for the loans for just first year; I didn't do the math for the 2nd-4th year loans. So the difference will actually be *larger* than 34k.
