Rosalind Franklin or Penn State....HELP!

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JustDocy

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How do I decide between Rosalind Franklin and Penn State. Please help!!! Does anyone know more than me? thanks so much for your input.

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ok so i know this doesnt meet the prestigious schools that most posters here have the choice of but i really do need input. PLEASE HELP!


JustDocy said:
How do I decide between Rosalind Franklin and Penn State. Please help!!! Does anyone know more than me? thanks so much for your input.
 
when you post a question of RF vs any school theres going to be a lot of flames directed at RF but most are uninformed and just going off of what people have heard. That being said, Penn State is a far better regarded school with more opportunities in research, and clinical settings. RF is a great school despite the little issue that they have resolved with probation. The students there continue to match well into top recedencies as I imagine is that case at Penn. If I had to choose, I would base it on my preference of the above mentioned differences as well as on each school's price, location, and atmosphere. Figure out which one(s) matter to you the most. sorry if this didn't help much. good luck.
 
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What selection criteria are important to you? These two schools in particular are apples and oranges. For example, I would take Penn State, but I like small towns. What are you looking for in a medical school? What are your interests outside school? What kind of medicine are you interested in?

That's where you need to start.
 
Rosalind Franklin in a heartbeat!!! the students seem much more satisfied iwth the program....and the doctors i work with say it has a better reputation than penn state
 
i'd choose rosalind franklin:) i like the location better, but that's just a personal decision, so you would have to choose for yourself. that and ros franklin has an impressive match list.
 
thanks for the input so far. how does penn state's match list compare with rosalind franklins match list? the website does not give much info. i am concerned about being in such a rural area, being exposed to an urban setting during rotations. i am from an urban setting.

what is all the flack about given to rosalind franklin? is it a bad school? is penn state considered a better one?

Agh i dont know much about either and both are far from home for me so i really dont know how to compare them. i know more about penn state than rosalind franklin, only because the website was waaay more helpful.

does anyone else have an opinion? thanks i am so confused. :confused:
 
Hi JD,

I interviewed at Penn State and have been in the "interviewable" pile at RFU for a while now, so I might be a little more biased towards the school that actually invited me... ;)

With that said, I loved Penn State. All the students I met there were very laidback and loved the school. The emphasis on humanities and the research component were very appealing to me. Also, I'd consider Penn State more of a suburban area rather than a rural area. It's about 20 minutes outside of Harrisburg, which is apparently a big city, though I've never been there myself. I can't find any specific info about residency placements, i.e. where the students matched, but Penn State did manage to place several in anesthesiology (8), dermatology (2), opthalmology (3), plastics (2), and radiology (2), which I believe are considered the more competitive residencies. However, it does seem to emphasize primary care more.

RFU seems to be a pretty good school too, although I can't really say since I haven't been there. It gets a lot of crap from SDN because it was recently put on probation for financial issues, which I think it has worked very hard to correct. I also think it's not in Chicago itself, but rather North Chicago, which is a suburb outside of the main city. I've heard the students there still score higher than average on their Step 1 scores and Cook County Hospital can't be beat for clinical experience.

With that said, I think I'd feel more at home at Penn State, being a small town girl myself. I hope this helped though.

- Missy
 
naimist said:
Hi JD,

I interviewed at Penn State and have been in the "interviewable" pile at RFU for a while now, so I might be a little more biased towards the school that actually invited me... ;)

With that said, I loved Penn State. All the students I met there were very laidback and loved the school. The emphasis on humanities and the research component were very appealing to me. Also, I'd consider Penn State more of a suburban area rather than a rural area. It's about 20 minutes outside of Harrisburg, which is apparently a big city, though I've never been there myself. I can't find any specific info about residency placements, i.e. where the students matched, but Penn State did manage to place several in anesthesiology (8), dermatology (2), opthalmology (3), plastics (2), and radiology (2), which I believe are considered the more competitive residencies. However, it does seem to emphasize primary care more.

RFU seems to be a pretty good school too, although I can't really say since I haven't been there. It gets a lot of crap from SDN because it was recently put on probation for financial issues, which I think it has worked very hard to correct. I also think it's not in Chicago itself, but rather North Chicago, which is a suburb outside of the main city. I've heard the students there still score higher than average on their Step 1 scores and Cook County Hospital can't be beat for clinical experience.

With that said, I think I'd feel more at home at Penn State, being a small town girl myself. I hope this helped though.

- Missy

I applied to RF, but not Penn state. I'm on the "acceptable interview pile" too. Are you a PA resident, or is Penn less competitive than RF? It could also be that RF puts more emphasis on clinical care and not so much research (if you did a lot research, but don't have much clinical exposure).

Also, I thought that anesthesiology was not that hard to get into? There was a thread about the most difficult residencies recently and the consesus seemed to be that surgery, opthalmology, oncology and dermatology were the hardest and anethesiology was actually not nearly as competitive (along with EM and a few others). I was happy about that, because EM and Anesthesiology are the specialties I'm most interested in (and possibly psychiatry).
 
I know several RF students and formal students who talk very negatively about their own school. Two particular former students (4th years two years ago) told me "don't come to RF. the residency directors at xxx disregarded our application because we're RF students. And this school (xxx) is in Chicago."

Perhaps these two students had rough interviews and wanted to vent in front of me. I don't know. It is really up to you to believe what they said or not. (BTW, I'm just telling you what I heard from several RF students. No need to start attacking my reply).

Fact is, although RF is not the best name is Chicago, the school does offer several advantages over Penn State. RF students can do their 3rd and 4th years in Chicago, as mentioned by previous posters. In addition, RF's USMLE pass rate is very high and from what i saw, the student body is very diverse.


Now, Penn State is an excellent school. I fell in love with PSCOM at my interview and the only thing that is holding me back from attending there is the location. PSCOM is huge on humanistic medicine, it has many research opportunities for students, and Milton Hershey Medical Center is a huge hospital located on campus. PSCOM also has a state-of-the-art simulated clinical skills lab.

Despite the location, I'd choose PSCOM over RF. Personally, I think PSCOM has more to offer.
 
no, it's not a bad school...but it is on probation for financial reasons. they are working to fix those. that's why most people are against rosalind franklin. but their probationary status doesn't affect the education.

JustDocy said:
what is all the flack about given to rosalind franklin? is it a bad school?
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I have heard that the teachers at RF are really good and that they really prepare u for the USMLEs. RF usually has a higher pass rate than the national average. My friend goes there and he got a 97 percentile on the USMLEs....he said he owes it to the teachers! :)
 
thank you so much for all your input. i want the best medical education i can have, and for that i have heard penn state is better. i am just used to more of a city lifestyle and am worried about adjusting to the location and people, who all seem very nice, but used to small town type places. has anyone gone to penn state from an urban area? how have you liked it/adjusted?
 
I don't know much about Rosalind Franklin but I know a second year at PSU and they really like it.
 
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