soonthere said:
bigsheed,
thx. for the response. i know that rwj and downstate are pretty similar in terms of location. but, i am concerned about residencies, reputation, etc. how do they compare???
In terms of reputation, I think Downstate and RWJ are about the same. If you care about the US news ranking sort of thing, RWJ is ranked 50-something, but Downstate is not. However, the only reason that Downstate is not ranked is because they didn't participate in the survey. So don't be fooled by the ranking.
I have looked at the residency matchlists for both schools and they are both equally impressive. I believe many do go to NYC hospitals like Cornell, Columbia, NYU, and Sinai, etc. I am not entirely sure, but Downstate might have an edge on NYC hospitals for residency just because of a physical proximity.
But I believe the location of each school is something you might want to factor into when deciding. I, for personal reasons, do not like upstate NY at all, so SUNY-Upstate is out of the question for me. Besides, I do think the reputation at Downstate and RWJ is better than at Upstate.
In terms of location for both Downstate and RWJ, I was pretty scared of the neighborhood around Downstate when I went to interview there. I have also heard from people who are familiar with that area telling me that it can get pretty shady and dangerous. On the other hand, RWJ is in Piscataway, NJ, which can be a suffocating suburbia for a city person. But, really safe. Maybe I felt safer just because I am from about 20 minutes from that area.
So I picked RWJ over Downstate. You are not really losing anything either way. Go with what felt right when you went to interview there.
Maybe I will see you next year.
Good luck on your decision.
