Mayo (MN) vs. Columbia (Please Help!)

[Marathondoctor]

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Hi all,

I'm beyond excited to have both of these offers as they're my top choices. The challenge is that they're both my top choices and I'm having a tough time deciding between the schools. Here are some important factors for me in where I attend med school:

• Quality of clinical engagement and clinical opportunities during pre-clinical and clinical years
• Opportunities for strong mentorship and relationship with faculty
• Strong residency outcomes (thinking surgical)
• Good social setting and camaraderie with classmates
• Opportunities to stay involved in music and fitness programs
• Strong opportunities to teach and perform clinical research

Cost will be the same for me at both programs (bless both schools' generosity)

Columbia:

Pros:

• P&S Club: I'm a big musician and pretty athletic person, so this is a big draw
• Lots of opportunities to serve the surrounding community within free clinics
• Outstanding research
• Had some awesome connections with the faculty during my interview
• Beautiful education building
• Very strong residency placements

Cons:

• Could experience more COVID-related changes/challenges?
• Could love or not-so-love NYC (coming from a medium-sized town)
• Larger class size could mean less close-knit clinical opportunities (let's face it - Mayo is awesome)

Mayo:

Pros:

• I vibe with their mission and model of care - I want to be involved in medical education, and Mayo could be slightly more apt to fulfill this goal compared to Columbia?
• Endless opportunity for networking and one-on-one work with faculty in a clinical context
• Equally strong research
• Selectives are a nice way to break up each block
• Sweet gym that's included in tuition
• Amazing Match list

Cons:

• It's in the middle of nowhere - I kind of don't want to live in Rochester, MN
• Likely significantly fewer opportunities for keeping up with the things that I like outside of medicine
• Could get lonely as a single person here

Thanks for your help all!

 

[9blade]

I can't speak much for Mayo, but as a guy who did grad school in NYC and had a lot of friends in the medschool at Columbia, I can say that they are a very social bunch. There are also lots of music talent shows throughout the year in Bard. Lots of the kids there had other things they did outside of medicine. There was a fashion model who recently graduated from there. Was always involved in fashion week stuff. There was also a comedian who would practice his jokes with the class before going downtown to comedy clubs and performing. As far as the gym, yeah..bard hall gym kinda sucks if you're seriously into fitness and it's not open 24/7. They don't have a squat rack or a bench press rack. However, if you join the free weight club, they have everything you need down there including a squat rack and it's open 24/7. I believe it's like $100-$200 or so for the year, which is not bad. A lot of the residents also work out down there.

Going to Columbia won't keep you from matching where you want to match. Lots of my friends from there matched into the specialty they wanted.

 

[Marathondoctor]

Paging @thenucleusaccumbens and @WedgeDawg - I've seen both of you post a lot about each school and would value your input

 

[Marathondoctor]

I can't speak much for Mayo, but as a guy who did grad school in NYC and had a lot of friends in the medschool at Columbia, I can say that they are a very social bunch. There are also lots of music talent shows throughout the year in Bard. Lots of the kids there had other things they did outside of medicine. There was a fashion model who recently graduated from there. Was always involved in fashion week stuff. There was also a comedian who would practice his jokes with the class before going downtown to comedy clubs and performing. As far as the gym, yeah..bard hall gym kinda sucks if you're seriously into fitness and it's not open 24/7. They don't have a squat rack or a bench press rack. However, if you join the free weight club, they have everything you need down there including a squat rack and it's open 24/7. I believe it's like $100-$200 or so for the year, which is not bad. A lot of the residents also work out down there.

Going to Columbia won't keep you from matching where you want to match. Lots of my friends from there matched into the specialty they wanted.

Thanks for the insight! Columbia certainly seems to have it going on in terms of extracurricular involvement

 

[proudofmykids]

It seems the decision will come down mostly to location and how well you’ll handle NYC. Columbia with size should offer more size variety and span of community and research, extracurricular out the wazzu.
Mayo tiny size would scare me.

 

[Marathondoctor]

It seems the decision will come down mostly to location and how well you’ll handle NYC. Columbia with size should offer more size variety and span of community and research, extracurricular out the wazzu.
Mayo tiny size would scare me.

I'm 99% certain that Columbia is going to be the right choice for me partially for this reason. Thanks for the response 🙂

 

[WedgeDawg]

I think Columbia hits all your checkboxes here, particularly the extracurricular ones. Columbia is also amazing if you want to be involved in medical education and mentorship. There are literally too many opportunities to do so if you would like to pursue that. Both are obviously excellent top-notch schools, but based on your post, I would strongly lean Columbia.