I got accepted to these two places. Please help me decide! I appreciated both places when i visited but for different reasons; i'd just like to hear anyone elses general perspectives. Thanks so much :-D
Northwestern vs. Dartmouth
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I think it comes down to whether you want to live in a ballin city with a diverse population, lots of research and service opportunities, and a tremendous amount of awesome things to do in general or live in the boonies.
haha
Northwester has twice as much NIH funding, and it's Chicago. Rural New Hampshire may not be bad as an undergrad, but assuming you are in your mid/early 20s, Chicago has a lot more to offer to someone at any age, but especially a young person
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Can't ignore dat Ivy Mystique though. Plus Northwestern has such an unprestigious name.
If you see yourself reading Gray's Anatomy as the fireplace crackles against the backdrop of a light snowfall in rural New England while you're smoking a pipe and discussing the finer points of the brachial plexus with your fellow Ivy League colleagues then go to Dartmouth for sure.
If you see yourself reading Gray's Anatomy as the fireplace crackles against the backdrop of a light snowfall in rural New England while you're smoking a pipe and discussing the finer points of the brachial plexus with your fellow Ivy League colleagues then go to Dartmouth for sure.
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inb4 someone gives the "While Dartmouth is an Ivy, it's prestige comes from its undergrad" shpeal
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Prolly northwestern. And this is coming from a Dartmouth grad.
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Northwestern ftw.
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Wow, this isn't even a question for me. Northwestern all the way! 🙂 Congrats on getting accepted to two great schools.
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You will have more research opportunities at Northwestern by far, not to mention that its med school has much greater prestige. Also, you will get better clinical opportunities being outside Chi-town than you would being in the middle-of-nowhere New Hampshire...unless you're really interested in rural med.
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My best friend in med school went to Dartmouth for undergrad, and for med school, he go into the school we're both currently at, a few other schools, and Dartmouth. For him, it was an easy choice: as I stated above, Hannover was great when he was in college and lived in the dorms and had a close group of friends, but as a more independent twenty-something, Hannover was too small and Boston wasn't close enough.
A friend of my from UG went to Dartmouth for med school, and she did one of her cores at CPMC in San Francisco. Whenever I would meet up with her, she would talk about how happy she was to get out of New Hampshire and how much she dreaded going back. She loved Dartmouth's tight-knit atmosphere, but things as mundane and simple as a lack of restaurants made living in Hannover difficult for her.
I interviewed at Dartmouth, and it seemed gawd-aweful boring. Honestly I would recommend going there only if you have a car and don't mind living in the middle of nowhere. Even my faculty interviewer warned me about this. He then went to ask me what I liked to do for fun. I really liked the school, and if I end up there I would drive to Boston (where I have lots of friends and 2 hrs away from Hanover) about once a month.
I would probably pick Northwestern if I were in your shoes.
I would probably pick Northwestern if I were in your shoes.
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whoa, let's not get carried away here. Brown and Dartmouth yes, Cornell no.
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This is your winner
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Dunno, I'd call it a tie between the two, but maybe that's just because I'm from the Midwest-ish.
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Reputation of the two schools in the medical world isn't that comparable; Cornell has a significantly better rep, partially that may be bc of the many years NW had huge amount of bs/MDs
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Meh, I'd have to disagree with you here. They're equal, at best. At least that's my impression, as a med student in the northeast.
Sure, Cornell has elite home residency programs, but so does NW. From a research perspective, these schools are similar, but Cornell's conflict-of-interest scandals aren't doing them any favors. From an admissions standpoint, cornell loses frequently in cross-admits among the top 20, and it's my impression NW's yield is higher. (I don't attend either of these schools FTR)
My point was that NW is "arguably" better than Cornell, and Ivy League means about as much as Big 10 or ACC in the medical world.
what does this mean?
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What else did you expect? Prestige is important to many and frequently discussed in these types of threads.
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I don't recall saying I was surprised at how the conversation was going.
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Wow if Dartmouth, Brown, and Cornell are that bad, what are your opinions of school that aren't in the....top 30. I'd hate to have my residency app reviewed by the people in this thread.
hahahhaha!!!...Coffeekid, when you say "THAT" bad, do you mean that NW is bad so picking NW over those three choices makes them "THAT" bad?
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No not at all. I don't know enough specifics about NW to judge whether or not it is that bad or not. Nor do I know enough about Cornell or Brown. I can see that by US News standards apparently Cornell is ranked two places higher than Northwestern but other than that I have nothing. My point was that all of these schools are very competitive and I hope that the people that actually matter aren't this dismissive of any med schools.
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I don't think anyone said there was a single BAD school among these...I think you've got your pants in a twist over nothing.
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NYP >>>>> NMH, for starters, then you have MSKCC and HSS... It's really just not a comparable experience.
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Not sure you'll get many more helpful responses. We can't make your decision for you!
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Then choose Dartmouth? It's really matter of whether you want to be in a rural area or an urban/suburban area, and that Feinberg has more research money and probably a better reputation. Which school did you feel more comfortable interviewing at? Which one made you happier? Can you go to Second Looks?
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Totally disagree, dartmouth's list this year was far worse than last year's, although it was about what you'd expect for a school of it's reputation. Compare its list to the ivy directly below it, Yale, every single internal med match was top 15 except one with 7 1a matches.
Anesthesia was the strongest, Harvard derm obv good, Neurosurg was good. Those were the bright spots.
IM was mediocre, one 1a match, maybe 4 1b/2, rest were run of the mill. Optho, rads and peds were top heavy with 1-2 good match(s) and the rest mid tier at best, rest was nothing special.
Anesthesia was the strongest, Harvard derm obv good, Neurosurg was good. Those were the bright spots.
IM was mediocre, one 1a match, maybe 4 1b/2, rest were run of the mill. Optho, rads and peds were top heavy with 1-2 good match(s) and the rest mid tier at best, rest was nothing special.
I would go to Northwestern.
Dartmouth is losing its president. Last I heard the medical school was in shambles. Faculty funding took a huge hit. Many of the big name faculty have left. They were discussing curriculum problems and redoing the whole curriculum. Honestly, the medical school is poorly managed, and the facilities are fairly old. Most of the improvements in the Dartmouth College system are being made in the undergraduate side (new buildings, etc). The hospital is pretty small, the population is very homogeneous, and the area is very rural.
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Yikes. I just declined my acceptance there yesterday. Your post makes me feel like I dodged a bullet. I like the rural area, though, and the people at the school seemed very nice.
Could you please elaborate on where you got this information? For one thing, DHMC is one of the largest hospitals that I've ever seen...
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To be fair, Dartmouth is losing its president because Obama nominated him to lead the World Bank. Still a loss for Dartmouth, but not quite the shambles Porfirio implies. (he/she has posted this same rant before.)
And Dartmouth's curriculum is traditional, so like all schools, they are planning to go through the whole process of rebuilding/integrating the curriculum, etc. As someone who dislikes small group learning, I actually consider it a major credit that they have been reticent to follow in the PBL/team-learning craze, but I may be in the minority on that.
That said, OP, Northwestern is in a large city, and Hanover is a small community in the woods/mountains. You are comparing two very different things and I think one will feel clearly right in the end.
And Dartmouth's curriculum is traditional, so like all schools, they are planning to go through the whole process of rebuilding/integrating the curriculum, etc. As someone who dislikes small group learning, I actually consider it a major credit that they have been reticent to follow in the PBL/team-learning craze, but I may be in the minority on that.
That said, OP, Northwestern is in a large city, and Hanover is a small community in the woods/mountains. You are comparing two very different things and I think one will feel clearly right in the end.
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396 beds... How massive. What would you do if you saw NYP or Jackson?
I guess I didn't realize the hospital only had that many beds...pulling up to it on my interview day at Dartmouth, it certainly seemed ginormous compared to everything around it in NH. ;-)
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