Pros and cons of attending a new school

[SlugMD]

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I can see your points and appreciate them. Private loans for this year do knock bcom down to be fair. I like bcom's mandatory research. In regards to research, cusom felt the way some other DO schools say "Well hey we're near some places so maybe if you try hard and get lucky..."

Again, most people on this forum love cusom. Just my opinion. Would've attended if I got the scholarship.


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First of all, I would not qualify for the CUSOM scholarship so that doesn't apply. The 5k/year difference in tuition is a non-factor for me as well.

I actually don't mind the (temporary) federal loan issue. The way I look at it is that with $138,500 being the federal graduate loan maximum, the average student takes out 2 years of federal loans and 2 years of private loans. It makes no difference to me whether or not I take out those private loans year 1 and 4 instead of years 3 and 4

On the flip side, I would attack my four points above in this way:
1. I like the BCOM curriculum much more than CUSOM. It's proven and they give us a ton of extra resources. I provided a lot of commentary in a post above on why I liked BCOM's curriculum. The board scores of CUSOM should not be a huge factor in my decision since I like BCOM's curriculum a lot more.
2. Like you said, very few go through WakeMed. At BCOM, if I choose the Albuquerque hub for 3rd year, then I should be exposed to diverse pathology and thus be well prepared for Step 2 (What do you think of BCOM's clinical hubs? Which hub would you choose?)
3. BCOM requiring research makes it absolutely sure that I do research in medical school as opposed to maybe doing research at the MD schools near CUSOM.
4. I addressed it above but again I see no difference in taking out private loans years 1 and 4 instead of years 3 and 4.

In addition, I would much rather live in Las Cruces than rural North Carolina. I appreciate the connection with NMSU because of all the additional activities we would be exposed to going to a big state university vs a small, christian university. I also liked the social life when I went out on Saturday night. Medical school is going to be very stressful so I want outlets to destress on the weekends.

 

[SurgDoc95]

First of all, I would not qualify for the CUSOM scholarship so that doesn't apply. The 5k/year difference in tuition is a non-factor for me as well.

I actually don't mind the (temporary) federal loan issue. The way I look at it is that with $138,500 being the federal graduate loan maximum, the average student takes out 2 years of federal loans and 2 years of private loans. It makes no difference to me whether or not I take out those private loans year 1 and 4 instead of years 3 and 4

On the flip side, I would attack my four points above in this way:
1. I like the BCOM curriculum much more than CUSOM. It's proven and they give us a ton of extra resources. I provided a lot of commentary in a post above on why I liked BCOM's curriculum. The board scores of CUSOM should not be a huge factor in my decision since I like BCOM's curriculum a lot more.
2. Like you said, very few go through WakeMed. At BCOM, if I choose the Albuquerque hub for 3rd year, then I should be exposed to diverse pathology and thus be well prepared for Step 2 (What do you think of BCOM's clinical hubs? Which hub would you choose?)
3. BCOM requiring research makes it absolutely sure that I do research in medical school as opposed to maybe doing research at the MD schools near CUSOM.
4. I addressed it above but again I see no difference in taking out private loans years 1 and 4 instead of years 3 and 4.

In addition, I would much rather live in Las Cruces than rural North Carolina. I appreciate the connection with NMSU because of all the additional activities we would be exposed to going to a big state university vs a small, christian university. I also liked the social life when I went out on Saturday night. Medical school is going to be very stressful so I want outlets to destress on the weekends.

I personally would like to go to either El Paso or Tucson (depending on which hospital they partner with there). However, I do feel that the Albuquerque and Las Cruces hubs wouldn't be bad either. The las cruces hub having the new residency in ortho would be the main reason I would choose to go to that hospital.

 

[Ho0v-man]

First of all, I would not qualify for the CUSOM scholarship so that doesn't apply. The 5k/year difference in tuition is a non-factor for me as well.

I actually don't mind the (temporary) federal loan issue. The way I look at it is that with $138,500 being the federal graduate loan maximum, the average student takes out 2 years of federal loans and 2 years of private loans. It makes no difference to me whether or not I take out those private loans year 1 and 4 instead of years 3 and 4

On the flip side, I would attack my four points above in this way:
1. I like the BCOM curriculum much more than CUSOM. It's proven and they give us a ton of extra resources. I provided a lot of commentary in a post above on why I liked BCOM's curriculum. The board scores of CUSOM should not be a huge factor in my decision since I like BCOM's curriculum a lot more.
2. Like you said, very few go through WakeMed. At BCOM, if I choose the Albuquerque hub for 3rd year, then I should be exposed to diverse pathology and thus be well prepared for Step 2 (What do you think of BCOM's clinical hubs? Which hub would you choose?)
3. BCOM requiring research makes it absolutely sure that I do research in medical school as opposed to maybe doing research at the MD schools near CUSOM.
4. I addressed it above but again I see no difference in taking out private loans years 1 and 4 instead of years 3 and 4.

In addition, I would much rather live in Las Cruces than rural North Carolina. I appreciate the connection with NMSU because of all the additional activities we would be exposed to going to a big state university vs a small, christian university. I also liked the social life when I went out on Saturday night. Medical school is going to be very stressful so I want outlets to destress on the weekends.

If you can, sit down and talk with the financial aid person at bcom. I forget her name. Make sure you understand the differences in the loans and all of your options. I've never mentioned someone in a post before so hopefully I'm doing this right, but @OrdinaryDO seemed rather savvy on the private loan options at bcom before he decided to go elsewhere. There's potentially different payment options and other things that seemed stressful. I never got that deep into it because it honestly kind of scared me.

I remember thinking I would have liked, if given the option, to stay in las cruces. El Paso is only 45 minutes away so if you wanted to rotate in X, but it's not in las cruces but it is available in El Paso or vice versa that would be convenient. Don't know if that would have been practical or not though.

This has sort of turned into the pros and cons of attending bcom thread.


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[SlugMD]

If you can, sit down and talk with the financial aid person at bcom. I forget her name. Make sure you understand the differences in the loans and all of your options. I've never mentioned someone in a post before so hopefully I'm doing this right, but @OrdinaryDO seemed rather savvy on the private loan options at bcom before he decided to go elsewhere. There's potentially different payment options and other things that seemed stressful. I never got that deep into it because it honestly kind of scared me.

I remember thinking I would have liked, if given the option, to stay in las cruces. El Paso is only 45 minutes away so if you wanted to rotate in X, but it's not in las cruces but it is available in El Paso or vice versa that would be convenient. Don't know if that would have been practical or not though.

This has sort of turned into the pros and cons of attending bcom thread.


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True, being in Las Cruces would be convienant because you get to stay there for all of your education. I am a little concerned about the pathology I may not be exposed to since the population is only ~100k

Yeah, I think the thread became that way because of my subconscious desire to choose between BCOM and CUSOM.

My CUSOM interview is 11/15 so if accepted on 11/18, I would need to choose one by 11/21 because that is when my BCOM deposit is due. I don't want to rush my decision which is why I would rather start thinking about it now.

@OrdinaryDO can you comment on what I said about there being no difference between between taking out private loans years 1 and 4 instead of years 3 and 4? I have a great credit score so I'm sure I would get a good interest rate for the private loans.

 

[SlugMD]

I personally would like to go to either El Paso or Tucson (depending on which hospital they partner with there). However, I do feel that the Albuquerque and Las Cruces hubs wouldn't be bad either. The las cruces hub having the new residency in ortho would be the main reason I would choose to go to that hospital.

Good point, those are bigger areas so more patients and diverse pathology. Las Cruces would be nice for that reason only but I don't think it would be wise to choose a hub only for a potential residency. Are you interested in Ortho too or did you just bring up that reason because I told I was?

 

[SurgDoc95]

Good point, those are bigger areas so more pathology. Las Cruces would be nice for that reason only but I don't think it would be wise to choose a hub only for a potential residency. Are you interested in Ortho too or did you just bring up that reason because I told I was?

At this point I'm not sure what I'd like to go into but the physician I shadowed the most was an orthopedic surgeon so I'd like that option!

 

[SlugMD]

At this point I'm not sure what I'd like to go into but the physician I shadowed the most was an orthopedic surgeon so I'd like that option!

Good point and what's cool is that the program has 3 spots/year.

Btw, I looked at the El Paso sites more and it turns out that one of the sites is University Medical Center which belongs to Texas Tech-El Paso. This is very impressive because it's a level 1 trauma center and we would rotate with MD students. If you go to the El Paso hub, make sure to do as many rotations at University Medical Center as possible.