Last minute Texas Rank Post

[kitties5ever]

Just wanted some thoughts as I'm struggling with how to rank McGovern vs. El Paso, everything else in my list is set. I'm 99.9% sure I plan to go into family medicine, and definitely do not plan to pursue a competitive specialty. I also do plan to practice medicine bilingually (Eng/Span). I also would like to heavily focus on social determinants of health.

McGovern:
Pros:
-TMC
-Houston
-Closer to support in houston
-Only 3 semester pre-clinical
- More "well known"
- Lets you Stream lectures

Cons:
-Higher COL
-Not P/F
- No longitudinal Spanish program

El Paso
Pros:
- Longitudinal Span Program
- Low COL
- P/F pre-clinical

Cons:
-Location
- No longer recording lectures (??) not super sure about this but I've seen it in a couple of posts

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[randompremed457]

id go with the pass fail school if you don’t really think prestige matters. Also seems like El Paso is a lot more in line with your goals in terms of Spanish/English and sdoH

 

[ese2]

If you're 99.9% sure on FM then Foster is the right choice I think. But I also talked to medical students who were deadset on a certain specialty going in but changed their minds in med school so I would also keep that in mind.

 

[123OkayGoogle]

Houston. You can learn Spanish anywhere. City and school are better with more opportunities

 

[kitties5ever]

Houston. You can learn Spanish anywhere. City and school are better with more opportunities

Can you elaborate? I'm genuinely curious why you say that, as far as the opportunities ?

 

[123OkayGoogle]

Sure you can get into FM from just about any school. But you’ll be exposed to a lot more things in Houston. Population is so diverse that you’ll see so much pathology. Major academic medical center so there’s always something to get involved with. Every specialty that you can imagine will be at UTH and even tho you’re not interested in them there’s a chance you’ll might be. Houston is also a busy city. If you think you fit the environment in El Paso better then I’d choose that.

 

[ese2]

How did you end up ranking?

 

[kitties5ever]

I ended up ranking McGovern over El Paso, I was surprised that I did it tbh but the stuff about El Paso maybe not streaming lectures did make me feel hesitant. And it was how I had originally ranked them due to just proximity to support system (Houston being 3 hours and El Paso being 7). I also know McGovern does heavily value self-directed learning with not too many mandatory events, which I strive on, and so I'm hopeful I can thrive to the point I'm comfortable with even with the grading lol