Regional Campus Disadvantages?

[anon876]

I applied to MD schools this cycle and have been fortunate to receive several acceptances I am currently considering.

One is a top 30 med school I liked at lot at the interview and in a vacuum could see myself happily attending, but it is a high-cost private school and I'll have to take out loans to pay for most of school (which I appreciate is the norm for med students and I would be okay doing, but it is a huge amount of debt to be in and that is not ideal).

The other school I'm considering is a regional campus of a state school, where I would receive a degree from the state school proper but I would spend the entirety of my four years with the very small regional campus class (about 20 people/year) in a program that recently opened. The people seem nice and serious at the regional campus and they claim that the intimacy of the program will pay dividends with small-group clinical rotations, but the program seems more risky since it is not a main campus and it is new and so untested (though I have been told that since the MD degree they confer is identical to their main campus program this might be less of an issue?). The huge upside to the regional campus program is that I would receive a half tuition scholarship for all four years which, when loan interest and taxes are considered, can be worth in excess of $340,000.

Long story short, do I take the fine MD program at the regional campus and leave med school with shockingly less debt, or do I forgo the scholarship to go the more traditional route? Does anyone with experience in the field know if there is a stigma or anything against people that graduated from regional campuses? I hear all the time that med school is all about working hard as an individual to get high step 1 scores, and that aside from that the differences between schools aren't massive (which means maybe I should take the scholarship). I'm very on the fence and would love any insight.

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[Dr. Death]

Good heck take the scholarship. I don't know what you mean by "more risky." What is the worst case scenario? It closes the branch campus and you move to the main campus? I'm certain that you will be able to achieve your goals from a satellite campus. That is a ton of money on the table and you become an MD either way.

 

[raiderette]

My state has 8 satellite campuses and almost everyone at those campuses love the small class sizes, the individual attention and extra research opportunities. I imagine it could be tough if you don't like your classmates.

 

[anon876]

Good heck take the scholarship. I don't know what you mean by "more risky." What is the worst case scenario? It closes the branch campus and you move to the main campus? I'm certain that you will be able to achieve your goals from a satellite campus. That is a ton of money on the table and you become an MD either way.

Thank you so much for the response. I don't worry that the campus will close, I just worry that residency programs will stigmatize against me for being in a small program they likely don't know much about, and I'm not sure how much the unified school MD degree will allay that concern. You make it sound like that isn't a major worry, which is what I am hoping to learn from posting.

My state has 8 satellite campuses and almost everyone at those campuses love the small class sizes, the individual attention and extra research opportunities. I imagine it could be tough if you don't like your classmates.

Thank you. You don't feel like residencies or future jobs will stigmatize against people who go to those satellite campuses? It is relieving to hear that regional campuses might not be as rare or unusual as I'd thought. I have no evidence to think that I wouldn't like my classmates (everyone was friendly/serious at the interview), but yes that is a potential concern as well in a tiny community.

 

[Mansamusa]

Thank you. You don't feel like residencies of future jobs will stigmatize against people who go to those satellite campuses? It is relieving to hear that regional campuses might not be as rare or unusual as I'd thought. I have no evidence to think that I wouldn't like my classmates (everyone was friendly/serious at the interview), but yes that is a potential concern as well in a tiny community.

No. Future jobs especially will not care.

And you know what, maybe Harvard won't like the program (hypothetically- I don't actually they will hold it against you), but there will always be options within your specialty and you will match somewhere as long as you do well on your boards/clinicals/etc and then you will get a job.

Don't worry what residencies think- think about you. When you realize you can't afford kids or retirement or living in that city you love because you went to a full-cost private school, you may wish that you took the cheaper option.

 

[Med Ed]

I applied to MD schools this cycle and have been fortunate to receive several acceptances I am currently considering.

One is a top 30 med school I liked at lot at the interview and in a vacuum could see myself happily attending, but it is a high-cost private school and I'll have to take out loans to pay for most of school (which I appreciate is the norm for med students and I would be okay doing, but it is a huge amount of debt to be in and that is not ideal).

The other school I'm considering is a regional campus of a state school, where I would receive a degree from the state school proper but I would spend the entirety of my four years with the very small regional campus class (about 20 people/year) in a program that recently opened. The people seem nice and serious at the regional campus and they claim that the intimacy of the program will pay dividends with small-group clinical rotations, but the program seems more risky since it is not a main campus and it is new and so untested (though I have been told that since the MD degree they confer is identical to their main campus program this might be less of an issue?). The huge upside to the regional campus program is that I would receive a half tuition scholarship for all four years which, when loan interest and taxes are considered, can be worth in excess of $340,000.

Long story short, do I take the fine MD program at the regional campus and leave med school with shockingly less debt, or do I forgo the scholarship to go the more traditional route? Does anyone with experience in the field know if there is a stigma or anything against people that graduated from regional campuses? I hear all the time that med school is all about working hard as an individual to get high step 1 scores, and that aside from that the differences between schools aren't massive (which means maybe I should take the scholarship). I'm very on the fence and would love any insight.

You are giving the traditional route too much credit. There is nothing magical, or even desirable, about how most clinical education is handled, i.e. you are a number running on a treadmill inside an impersonal system.

If I knew then what I know now, I would actually jump at the chance to undertake my core clinical education in a regional site with a small cohort of students. That level of intimacy will forge better relationships with faculty and mentors, better relationships with patients, and that trust will pay off in terms of competence and independence. I happen to believe that some of the best clinical education tracks in the last 100 years were the old-school rural FM tracks, where students would play country doc for a year.

Throw on the scholarship and I don't really see a choice here.