I am fortunate to have admission offer from MSUCOM this year. I need to indicate my preference for campus location. What are the differences between the locations?
I have to pick between:
East Lansing, Detroit Medical Center and Macomb Center
Nicer furniture at the DMC and MUC sites versus MSU Football & Basketball games in EL. Seriously though, the best thing to do would be to visit all three sites. All three sites have similar opportunities. I'll try to list out some aspects to consider. However, I would encourage you to visit the sites, and scope out the surrounding areas to make a final decision. I am an OOS student, and found it to be extremely helpful in making my decision.
1. Lectures - The school broadcasts lectures, live, to all three sites. Also, the lecturers rotate from site to site through out the semester. So you will get face to face contact with lecturers, regardless of the campus. Keep in mind that lectures are recorded too. A lot of students spend more time at home watching previously recorded lectures than attending them. Obviously this is subject to your learning preferences. So the area you live, i.e. appartment/house, may come into play, as this will be where you spend a significant amount of time at if you choose to study at home and watch lectures online. During lectures, any student at any site is free to ask questions of the lecturer, regardless of the site the lecturer is at.
2. OMT Labs/Small Groups/ Labs = OMT labs are broad casted live, and all three campuses have really nice OMT Labs. They divide up students in to small groups of ~10 or so students with an assigned small group OMT lab professor. You will get plenty of individualized attention then. Anatomy lab is prosection, but you have the opportunity later on to do elective dissection at any campus, I believe. Other than OMT, labs typically are not broadcasted to all three sites. However, each site has their own faculty to assist students. From what I have heard the faculty at all three sites are excellent.
3. Elective Courses (i.e. Sports Medicine) = You will get the same elective opportunities regardless of the campus. Some electives require work outside of the campus. So this may have some variation to it. If the lecture is on campus then it will likely be broadcasted to all three sites.
4. Student Orgs. = Again, same opportunities regardless of the site. Meetings will typically be broadcasted to all three sites. There are leadership positions for E-boards of student organizations available to anyone at any of the three sites. As far as I know, I believe the only restriction is that the President of an org should be from East Lansing. However, do not quote me on that. Either way, you can join any organization, and the E-boards work hard to incorporate all three sites.
5. Clerkships = Granted this doesn't really matter site wise, but may help in your decision making. Most of the base hospitals for MSU are by MUC and DMC. Only 2 base hospitals, Ingham and Sparrow, are located in East Lansing/Lansing area. This isn't really a big deal. However, if you don't want to move for your clinical rotations, then MUC/DMC wouldn't be a bad option. However, the campus you are at plays no role in where your base hospital will be.
6. Campus Facilities = DMC & MUC are much newer. So there campuses will be much more modern and nice. East Lansing is in an old dorm. So the current campus is a little older and less modern, appearance wise. However, East Lansing's has all the same technology as the other two sites. Its more of an esthetic thing.
7. Research = You're by plenty of teaching hospitals and research facilities regardless of the campus. If you have time to squeeze in research, it shouldn't be an issue regardless of the site you are located at.
If you are going to choose a site, the best advice anyone could give you is to visit each campus. Sooner is better than later. East Lansing was the first site to fill when I applied. I'm not sure if that is a similar trend or not. You get pretty much the same opportunities regardless of the site you choose. I don't think you get short changed at any site. I would say it is more of an issue of where you want to live. MUC and DMC are smaller, and you will get to know your classmates pretty well. East Lansing is a lot larger, and you might not get to know everyone in your class. It is a class of 300+, so you are bound to not know everyone. Every time we have an exam, I see someone I never knew was in our class. Unless the medical school is adding more students to our class, and isn't telling us about it, just kidding. If you have any other questions, feel free to PM me. Congrats on the acceptance!
