Northwestern vs Columbia

[dino12482]

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Interested in ophthalmology and hope to match to top academic programs on either of the coasts. Cost is 50k for northwestern, 70k for columbia

Columbia
Pros:
-prestige
-truly diverse patient population (local + many international patients)
-Ophtho department has many legendary attendings
-Clinical training is amazing
-went to college in NYC and love the city
-1.5 year preclinical

Cons:
-High cost of living
-Far from rest of manhattan (where all my friends live)
-Students seemed less close knit than Northwestern


Northwestern
Pros:
-Faculty/admin seem to care about students and student feedback
-Closer to home (Wisconsin)
-Ophtho department is not as well-regarded as columbia
-Amazing facilities
-Student body seemed very collaborative

Cons:
-AOA and 2 year preclinical
-less prestigious
-Feinberg situated in rich part of Chicago (maybe less diverse patient pop?)

 

[eyeeye_captain]

Go where you think you have the highest chance of personal success. It’s very difficult to match a competitive specialty if you don’t have a competitive app. I don’t think the money is quite far enough apart to take Columbia off the table, but nobody knows what the new loan market will look like.

Assuming you actually do ophthalmology, the departments at both have a pretty similar number of big names. They both have kind of a hierarchical reputation, but the residency cultures are very different ends of the autonomy spectrum (Columbia sink or swim, NW overly handholdy). Neither would hold you back connections wise except for possible regionality biases.