Does anyone have any thoughts on the pros and cons of attending either of these two over the other. I have been accepted at both and find them to be very similar, with less hours in class etc.
Northwestern vs. Case Western
- Thread starter Ballz
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I have an acceptance at Case but I didn't apply to Northwestern. Case seems to have an excellent curriculum. It also has a lot of stuff going on, starting the Cleveland Clinic medical School, it is now affiliated with Cleveland Clinic, so it seems like it is kind of on the rise. Like I said I don't know anything about Northwestern but I think in General it's name rings more bells with the common folk, if you are interested in that kind of thing.
On another subject, without hijacking your thread, have you been accepted to your state school. If so do you think that Northwestern and CWRU offer advantages that are significant enough to pay the extra tuition. I am not arguing that they don't I am just looking for input. I do realize that this depends on your state school and what you want to do in medicine etc.
On another subject, without hijacking your thread, have you been accepted to your state school. If so do you think that Northwestern and CWRU offer advantages that are significant enough to pay the extra tuition. I am not arguing that they don't I am just looking for input. I do realize that this depends on your state school and what you want to do in medicine etc.
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NWestern does not have a better name than CWRU. And if rankings give you a woody, you will see that the 2003 USN&WR ranks them both the same. In previous years, CWRU has been higher. I don't know why CWRU has dropped from 15 to 22 this year. Probably because of me in their med school.
I liked Chicago, but Cleveland is not bad like people say it is. CWRU does a crappy job of getting applicants out and showing them the city.
mike
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Word is that ranking is jumping this year, because CCF's NIH funding will be included with CWRU's.
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CWRU:
Pros--
1. Reputable institution.
2. Hospital sites that med students rotate at include a University Hospital, a county hospital, and a VA hospital (almost all rotations offered at each one), with new rotations opening up at the Cleveland Clinic.
3. Flexible curriculum in the first two years allows you to do some cool stuff. I did CPR in a helicopter over downtown Cleveland as a first year med student.
4. Curriculum is very web based with lots of high tech learning tools.
5. Cleveland has more to offer than people joke about. Lots of good restaurants, world class museums (especially art), brand new stadiums, a very active theatre district, big nightclub section, lots of little sections to Cleveland. Nice areas to live in surrounding the med school that are affordable.
6. Traffic is not as bad as Chicago. The med school is just a little east of downtown in Cleveland.
Cons--
1. Very high tuition.
2. Faculty are good, but the administration (EXCEPT the registrar's office) leaves something to be desired.
3. Some of the facilities are old/****ty, but some are being renovated.
4. The anatomy labs are fairly low-tech.
5. Cleveland only has a few places with good deep dish pizza.
6. Cleveland sports teams never win anything.
7. CWRU is pass/fail for the first two years, which is bad if you're a good student, as you'll be judged on board scores (one day) and clinical grades (highly subjective/random) when applying to residencies. Despite this, CWRU matches well.
8. Following that prego pt around the first two years is a pain in the ass.
9. CWRU is notoriously touchy-feely/PC. Consider this is you are a future surgeon or a "frat boy" who offends alot of people. You'll need to be a little more low-key.
Hope this helps,
mike
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There are quite a few students from Northwestern here at Case, so perhaps you could get in touch with one of them. If you have specific questions about Case, I'll do my best to help.
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There is no gross ranking that they tell you about (ie: you are 18 out of 145), but there is definitely quartile ranking in the dean's letter.
The last sentence of the Dean's letter at CWRU is: "Therefore, I am pleased to introduce Mr. X as an [outstanding, excellent, very good, good] candidate to your residency program." The adjectives correlate with the quartiles you are as a student and these quartiles are based on your LAST two years of med school (which is highly subjective/random). In addition, like everyone else, you're judged on your board scores, but even more so from CWRU because the rest if pass/fail.
If we had grades in the first two years, I would have gotten "honors" in just about everything. I got 240+ on my step 1. For clinical grades, I got mostly high pass with less than 50% honors (no passes). Therefore, I was an "excellent" candidate.
mike
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In the medical field, Northwestern may or may not have a better name, but it certainly has the better overall (to the general public) name. Whether or not that overall reputation is important, I don't know, but It's undergraduate is ranked a lot higher (#10 vs #37 for Case), it has an internationally regarded business school, and a law school around the top 10.
The reputation of its medical school, I would say is slightly below that of Case IMO right now, but as people have said, choose the school, not the reputation. Since location is the most important to me, I would choose NU. The area is beautiful and the lakeside location is a plus to me.
The reputation of its medical school, I would say is slightly below that of Case IMO right now, but as people have said, choose the school, not the reputation. Since location is the most important to me, I would choose NU. The area is beautiful and the lakeside location is a plus to me.
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I was just talking about the med school. You have to be overwhelmingly underendowed to choose a med school based on the status of the law school.
Plus, we're by a lake! The SOM here is right by severance hall, and the Cleveland Museum of Art... both pretty areas. The one side of campus opens up to some very pretty suburbs. The other side opens up and eventually becomes ghetto.
mike
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I'm not saying choose the medical school because the law school is good, I'm saying that the overall reputation of a school is important in addition to the medical school's reputation (if reputation is important at all to you of course). Basically, if you attach the name Harvard to anything, you will wow people, even if a department or school within that University is only average. In medicine, NU and CWRU probably have comparable names, but since most people go into private practice and don't deal with academics, overall reputation is IMO more important.
Personally, as long as two schools both have good names, I wouldn't use rep. to choose.
Personally, as long as two schools both have good names, I wouldn't use rep. to choose.
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I have an acceptance at Case and at my state school (Colorado)--right now I'm definitely leaning towards Case. I think Cleveland is really really underrated as a city, it gets a lot of undeserved crap--I've been there a few times before, I really liked it. I think Denver still kicks Cleveland's ass, and not just in football (Ha!) They're fairly similar in my opinion, only Denver has much better weather and the Rocky Mountains. But the Case curriculum is probably the kicker for me, plus the fact that all my buddies in Denver are gone and I'm looking to get outta Dodge.
Yah the tuition is much higher (I'm keeping my fingers crossed for one of scholarships, which would help a lot) but the campus is beautiful, the curriculum is sweet, and P/F for me is ideal.
Anybody else in the same boat?
Good luck Ballz!
You should pick Case if for no other reason than Northwestern rejected me, the rat bastards 😡
Yah the tuition is much higher (I'm keeping my fingers crossed for one of scholarships, which would help a lot) but the campus is beautiful, the curriculum is sweet, and P/F for me is ideal.
Anybody else in the same boat?
Good luck Ballz!
You should pick Case if for no other reason than Northwestern rejected me, the rat bastards 😡
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Not that the Cubs do. 🙂 I guess the Bulls are getting better, but they've sucked pretty badly. The Bears...well they sucked this year. Don't know much about the White Sox and the Blackhawks.
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Hi
I agree Northwestern and Case seem pretty similar. I felt like Case has a few more non-trad students and is more touchy feely place, despite some administrative issues. But location: Chicago certainly wins over Ohio!
I agree Northwestern and Case seem pretty similar. I felt like Case has a few more non-trad students and is more touchy feely place, despite some administrative issues. But location: Chicago certainly wins over Ohio!
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I don't quite agree with this type of list in comparing two different schools.
Just make things easy for yourself, which one cost less, is closer to your family, appears to be in better city?
if you still cannot decide, then flip a coin.
all the talk about prestige, matchlist, student competitiveness, how many go into ortho (read Georgetown thread), which one has "better" teaching hospital (read NYU vs Mt Sinai), etc. is exessive.
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Excessive how? People do care about prestige. People want good residencies. Hospitals matter for getting residencies. The topics themselves aren't excessive.
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Prestige...outside of top 10, it does not matter. I don't think that the pecking order between Case, NYU, Mt. Sinai, Georgetown, etc. matters a whole lot. Just as long your school has some national reputation, the residency directors will have heard of it. Granted, Harvard and Hopkins can open some jaws, but which schools outside of top 10 can turn these residency directors' heads? none. They have seen enough graduates from different med schools going through their programs and they are not going to nod their heads more vigorously at you when you say you are from Case while the guy sitting beside you is from Northwestern.
Hopitals...as I said in the other thread, you all are placing too much emphasis on yourselves as future med students. So what if Bellevue has 5,000 more patients going through it then Long Island Jewish hospitals. A med student can only handle 4-5 patients at a time and these pts will take up lots and lots of your time. When you round, the patients under other people's care will not make much impression on you because you don't understand their pathophysiology and treatment options well, SINCE you are busy reading up on YOUR patients. At the same time, you are busy absorbing the bread and butter cases. So arguing over teaching hospitals is useless. Med students are there to learn FROM THE BASICS, and not there to manage the difficult, rare cases and save lives. Showing off Cleveland Clinics, MGH, etc. therefore becomes irrelevant.
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If you're interested in Case's reputation as a medical school, you should keep up to date with news on the university's Web site: http://www.cwru.edu. Hundert is an extremely ambitious university president -- I suppose you have to be, if you've attained the presidency of a semi-major university at the age of 45. Hundert might turn out to just be all about talk, but so far the signals are that his ambition (and desire for legacy) will do good things for the university. As the Cleveland Clinic and CWRU come into a greater degree of academic collaboration, their reputations will both be enhanced (although I suspect CWRU's reputation will benefit more than CCF's). If you're a rankings type of person, the NIH grant money flowing to both CCF and CWRU will be combined and attributed to CWRU. The University Hospitals new research building will be opening up soon, with consequent implications for faculty recruitment and NIH research money. Word on the street is that the medical school floors (essentially the 3rd and 4th floors of the building) will be renovated into laboratory space, the University Health Services building will be transplanted elsewhere on campus, and a new medical school building erected in its place. (But that is a rather long term thing and probably won't make any practical difference to people applying now.) The 2nd floor of the medical school library is currently undergoing renovation and will be completed by June.
CWRU is a good place to be as a medical student. I can't think of a better place to learn medicine. Most people are betting CWRU will be an even better place to be from four years from now. The downside, as plenty have noted, is that you're in Cleveland.
All that said, if you've been accepted into your state school, you should give it some serious consideration.
-AT.
CWRU is a good place to be as a medical student. I can't think of a better place to learn medicine. Most people are betting CWRU will be an even better place to be from four years from now. The downside, as plenty have noted, is that you're in Cleveland.
All that said, if you've been accepted into your state school, you should give it some serious consideration.
-AT.
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This is actually a pretty good way of deciding where you truly want to go; just hear me out. After you flip the coin and see the result, see if you find yourself wanting to reflip the coin or go 2 out of 3. You would be surprised to find out that you already have a pretty clear idea of which one you would prefer. Sounds crazy, but try it out. I've seen it work for other people.
Remember that each person is giving their personal preference of which med school to attend. In the end it comes down to what med school is the best for YOU.
-dsomme
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The CWRU medical school just poached its new Dean from Yale: Ralph I. Horwitz, currently the Harold H. Hines, Jr. Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at the Yale University School of Medicine and chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine.
FYI,
-AT.
FYI,
-AT.
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I saw McGill's name creeping up in there!
"Horwitz...trained in internal medicine at McGill University and the Massachusetts General Hospital."
D
deleted9493
Personally, I would take northwestern over cwru. I don't think one is any more prestigious than the other. I do think that northwestern's campus is intoxicating to the eyes...and its location about perfect....whereas Cleveland isn't so aesthetic. Granted, I don't think cleveland is quite as bad as people often perceive it to be but it really does dim in comparison to the area that northwestern is in.
Don't get me wrong, case western is a solid school....but if I were accepted at both....the decision would take me about 2.23 seconds.😀
Don't get me wrong, case western is a solid school....but if I were accepted at both....the decision would take me about 2.23 seconds.😀
