Thank you all for your input on this thread. I am pretty sure that I will be making my decision to go to OUWB. I believe the school is a fit for me. It has a lot of potential, and I am confident that it will become outstanding. My decision was based on several factors. After talking to people, reading posts, researching, visiting both schools, here are my thoughts.
1. It is nice to become part of the pioneering class to help shape the school. This will help you build strong relationships with the faculty and even the staff at Beaumont. I feel like this would be a tremendous learning experience for OUWB students, something that not every med student gets to experience.
2. They have a strong relationship with beaumont, a stable and outstanding hospital. I find that this relationship is different from the relationship Wayne has with hospitals. I know Wayne had some issues with 'contract' disputes with the DMC. I do not suspect any issues like this will happen to OUWB because "Beaumont" is part of the medical school's name. Even the LCME found their relationship with Beaumont to be extremely strong
3. I find Wayne a bit outdated. From their application process to their interviews, I just did not see anything that blew me away. OUWB is more cutting edge in my opinion. Even when I tried to apply for financial aid at wayne, it said they don't participate in the "online" service. It just seems that Wayne is not evolving that much.
4. I don't think my future residency will be affected because residency is mostly based on board scores and LORs. OUWB's exam questions all come from previous USMLE questions directly from NBME. In addition, they are incorporating a Kaplan course for the entire class for the second year (and paying for it) to help us prepare for the USMLE.
5. Their approach to teaching (integrative curriculum and TBL) seems like is going along with the trend among medical school that are switching to such a curriculum. I feel that team learning is extremely important. There are so many different specialities that no one doctor can do as much as a team. The medical field is very different than before. Take a look at this video:
http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/13/opinion/gawande-doctors/index.html
6. The location is much nicer than Detroit IMO.
7. Although Beaumont Royal Oak is a community hospital, it is a very large hospital. They see more patients than any hospital in Michigan for a given year. Their emergency room also sees more patients than any single hospital in Michigan.
8. Although I know DMC will train me very well, I have no doubt that Beaumont will do the same because they have a high patient volume for us to experience.
9. Beaumont is ranked nationally in several specialities. However, Harper is ranked a bit higher than Beaumont, but they do not have the type of relationship with Wayne that Oakland has with Beaumont.
10. As for research, I am not concerned because Beaumont has a Research Center that is fully accredited. Although there is much more research in Detroit, Beaumont physicians and researchers do publish in top journals.
11. There will be a new medical student lounge within Beaumont Royal Oak just for OUWB students (separate from residents).In addition, Oakland is building a new anatomy lab and a new student lounge. All these will be brand new.
12. At OUWB, I feel like the experience would be superior because you actually get to go to the hospital once a week, you are required to attend most of your classes (you can still skip) which will help you stay on top of things and get to know your classmates, the class size is small helping with individualizing attention, and you will be in a very nice area.
13. Although this is not as important but worth to note. OUWB's inaugural class had some impressive stats. Their mean MCAT (32) was 1 point higher than Wayne's.
14. OUWB staff will listen to you. They also are very quick to getting back to you. I feel that they care a lot about their students and school. I just did not get the same vibe at Wayne.
15. I don't think that just because Wayne is established, it will affect your choice of residency. The LCME does not just accredit any school. All US medical schools are good. They all go through the same rigorous accreditation process. Even established schools can go on probation. They can also lose contracts with hospitals as we have seen with Wayne. It does not guarantee anything. USMLE scores are far more important. Moreover, I feel that because OUWB students will be at Beaumont so often at their first year, they will establish relationships with many of the physicians (and program directors). This may help them when applying for residency. It seems that many Wayne graduates are looking to do their residency at Beaumont.
Wayne still is an excellent school, but I feel like OUWB is a better fit for me. I am by no means trying to make Wayne look bad, but am rather summing up my experience from talking to people and researching. I just do not see any reason to go to Wayne over OUWB.