I moved to south Jersey in December for a research position at UPenn and I'm 3 miles from UMDNJ-SOM so I can tell you my personal experience. The school itself is more renowned to the Philly area if this is the area you would consider doing your residency, with many alumni taking spots at Jefferson, CHOP, and HUP as well as Cooper, Kennedy, and Virtua in the south Jersey area. On top of that, UMDNJ itself is just a more well-known name to the northeast coast. I spoke with medical students there while studying for mcats at their library and they tell me what average DOs say: study hard, volunteer places your first two years so you don't have to wait till 3rd/4th, etc. Since I work within Penn Medicine, I volunteer at Penn after work and fall in love with medicine more and more each day, and lot of the physicians I shadowed happened to be from UMDNJ-som.
I kick myself for only applying to two DO schools this year, but I'll be applying to UMDNJ and PCOM for the coming cycle cuz I would love to work at HUP or CHOP.
Nova I like cuz of the great weather and laid back atmosphere (one reason I applied there) and I like that they start clinicals early on rather than making you wait. The med school classes seem similar overall to other schools. They do have lots of mission trips which is awesome. I don't know behind-the-scenes info though.
In the end it's where you see yourself and what you'd do with it.
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Cheers!
