Being a very recent grad of CHM and having my best friend who will be graduating from Wayne State this Thursday, I'd say that both schools are very good. He thinks Wayne State does a better job than MSU of U of M at preparing their students clinically and of course I think MSU does a better job. I'm sure the students at U of M think that their school does the best job. In the end, you're going to get very good training wherever you go.
Some things my friend at Wayne and I tend to agree on is that the financial aid department at MSU is vastly superior and more responsive than Wayne's, although it has been getting better at Wayne State. The administration does seem to be more responsive at MSU (I mean we do only have about 100 people a year) and when you go to the communities, each community has their own dean and support staff, so basically you're more or less pampered by that staff because once in the communities there's only about 15-25 students/year, so it's even smaller. The whole class size things during the first two years doesn't really matter much either. Probably only about 75% of the class will attend lectures after the first few weeks of school anyway, so plenty of open seats at either school. MSU also has a real nice student facility (which I never got to use as it was built just as I was entering my clinical years) which I'm very impressed with and good computer labs.
We get every major holiday off at MSU, even during our clinical rotations (no matter what rotation you're on, even surgery and IM). This doesn't seem to be the case at Wayne where you aren't gauranteed those days off. Trust me, it's nice to know that you won't be working on Christmas, at least not until you're getting PAID to be in the hospital. Call sucks at both places although it's gotten better at MSU with the surgery call being reduced by a little so we're not doing q3's in surgery anymore. This is a bit community specific as well. Some of our communities don't have enough call rooms so some call is home-call (what this means is that you'll just be up all night, no bed for you to try and get some rest).
I'm rambling, but I'm a little tired so bear with me....the first years tend to "suck" a bit more at WSU (according to my friend), but he says the clinical years are incredible. Board scores are too individualistic to even compare, no matter what school you go to. There's people who score in the top 1% at both MSU and WSU, and also people who fail it. Match results are good at both places and neither school is considered to be a top 20 powerhouse like the other state school (UofM), but I'm going into the residency that I wanted, and got my 3rd choice while most of my classmates got their 1st choice in residency. I heard WSU match was excellent as well.
I didn't move for my clinical years so it wasn't bad for me, but moving can be a pain so that's certainly a negative for MSU. Also (well at least for now) you get your meals paid for at every community except Grand Rapids as a student (although, you never know when this will end, but it's so nice to not worry about paying for food during the 3rd and 4th years) and of course parking is pretty cheap at MSU (when you're on campus) and you don't pay for parking during the clinical years here.
Negatives about MSU, certainly for me the primary care focus didn't help me much (I decided on radiology), but luckily MSU is fortunate enough to have some incredible radiologists on campus (I lucked out on that one). We're P/F during years 1 and 2 and H/P/F during the 3rd year. The only problem is that the H grade won't appear on your transcripts (COM apparently doesn't give honors and both colleges have to agree to it in order to have this placed on the University's transcripts...this is the excuse they told us when a lot of the class complained about it). This can be a problem trying to get into competitive residencies, because although the Honor grades will be on the Dean's letter, this isn't released till November 1 and I had a half dozen interview offers before that date and they offered me an interview without knowing I honored all those clerkships. This is no big deal for primary care residencies though.
The people there are great. Some of the students that were with me during my 3 and 4th years will be lifelong friends, but I'm sure Wayne is the same in that regard.
The clinical experience (ie procedures) seems to be comparable. I've never put in a chest tube and neither has my friend from Wayne (trust me, I want to, the residents just wanted that procedure too bad) but we've both done just about every other procedure (tons of intubations, art lines, central lines (femoral, IJ, subclavian), codes, peripheral IV's and I'm not worried at all about my physical exam skills or medical knowledge going into residency.
I'm in the Detroit area now and will be doing my residency at Beaumont, but I live in Farmington Hills now which is pretty nice (albiet expensive) but I couldn't imagine living in Metro Detroit and a good majority of the WSU students live in the suburbs and commute. My friend lives about 45 minutes away from the school and did that drive or longer for all 4 years. I was a 7 minute drive away from my hospital in Lansing, and when you have to be there at 4 am to pre round on your surgical patients, every precious minute of sleep matters.
You'll be trained just fine no matter where you choose though. Go with your gut. Oh, and although my friend is graduating (see, another plus for MSU, we graduate at the begining of May, they graduate at the beginning of June and remember some residencies actually start toward the middle or third week of June), if you want to talk to him, I can get his e-mail for you so you can hear about WSU straight from him.