Long SOM Vs Hackensack SOM

[tanglewood2020]

Hi Y'all! I'm trying to decide between Long School of Medicine in San Antonio and Hackensack Meridian in New Jersey. I'm a non-trad, 27, and I've always lived in Texas. I really want to go to New Jersey because I have some family up there and I love the area, but I can't find a ton of info about Hackensack anywhere online. I am nearly exclusively interested in family medicine (I have 9 years experience in the medical field and am fairly set on this).

Long
Pros

• Near my support system
• Established
• Diverse programs I'm interested in (Medical Spanish, Refugee clinic etc.)
• Known to have great culture
• Hit it off well on the accepted students' day with students
• Big class
• Rotations close by

Cons

• Possible more expensive (full info not out yet, yearly COA probably around 30k)
• San Antonio; not a bad city, but I really want to go somewhere else (I'm from Austin)

Hackensack
Pros

• Near NYC (huge for me)
• Near full ride (10k a year in loans)
• Highly self-directed 4th year (seems you can do whatever you want)

Cons

• Drive for rotations as far as an hour
• School itself feels more corporate
• Smaller class size (150ish)
• Actual School is in the suburbs (I'd live in Jersey City, halfway between school and NYC)
• Far fewer programs. It seems you can dive into anything at Long. I can't find analogous programs on Hackensack's website
• Newer, less established. Fewer traditions and connections

Summary: Long is the familiar and safe bet; I know it's a great school with great people and limitless opportunity. Hackensack is a bit of a black box for me. I cant find much info about its culture online. If anybody has more info about Hack I'd really appreciate it.

Community, connection, and networking is very important to me personally and professionally. Personally for obvious reasons, professionally because I want to work in healthcare leadership and innovation alongside primary care.

Note: I didn't include anything about graded vs ungraded or mandatory vs non-mandatory lectures because they kinda balance out for me.

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[m1redsox]

If you are set on FM, then go to the cheapest school. I think if you decided to change your mind specialty-wise, then your resources at a newer school would be more limited compared to Long, but you can match FM from anywhere.