There are a few ways to pick your podiatry school.
#1 - "The I can't live anywhere else approach." This probably mostly applies to east coasters, but essentially people who live in NY want to go to school in NYC because the rest of the country doesn't exist or something like that. In doing this you are likely commiting to go to school in NY, to residency in NY, and to probably practice in NY. The problem with this approach is that everyone else in the country knows that the training and practice of podiatry in NY is terrible and also CoL is overpriced. Try and find a person from NYC who thinks the residency training there is strong. NY trained podiatrists elsewhere in the country trip over themselves to tell students not to go to NY. West coasters who employ this strategy ie. I have to be in California are setting themselves up for indescribable cost of living issues. Presumably there are Pennsylvanians/east coasters who also believe Temple is the place to be.
#2 - "The prestige approach / AKA DMU forever, DMU Harvard of podiatry or maybe Scholl/Arizona." The history of podiatry schools is that none of them through time would ever publish their pass rates / residency match rates except for DMU. So back in the day DMU was the only podiatry school with published rates and they were essentially crushing every other school for like 20 years. They were probably picker on how they picked students. First DO/DPM curriculcum school. I went to DMU. DMU isn't perfect, but I'd go there again. The science/medicine course were top notch. Grain of salt - there were always students in the past coming on here to talk about how stupid something was at NY or Barry or Kent. Never felt that way at DMU. It also happened to be the cheapest cost of living through time. Probably also helps that if you are willing to live in Iowa you probably aren't an east coaster so your job prospects will be better afterwards. I'm sure there's people who feel that way about Arizona because of its high matriculation stats and potentially better weather. I've met people who were certain Scholl was awesome. The heart of this is - whenever someone on here says "all podiatry schools are the same" - there are going to be people who don't feel that way. This forum through time had a solid chorus of people who were very pro-DMU.
#3 - "Scholarships". This isn't an unreasonable idea for picking a school. The problem through time is that the scholarships had to be earned (and can be pulled) and so you really need to focus on total coast of tuition which is probably hard to calculate. A question could be raised of whether scholarhips should be class rank based or GPA based. Scholarships aside - a lot of the cities podiatry schools are in are broken, stupid expensive. Think total cost.
#4 - "My family lives there and I can live for free". I wouldn't go to NYC (something is just too corrupt/broken/terrible) just because my family lived there, but I would probably pick any other podiatry school - even Kent or Barry - if CoL was free. This ranks up there with scholarships except you don't have to earn it or worry the school will pull it. A few years ago (...*cough* 10-12*cough) if you could get free cost of living you could be a podiatrist for like a bit over $100K. How do I know this? Cause I did it. My wife worked. If everyone in this field was $100K in debt the world would be a better place for podiatrists.
#5 - "I can study on the beach". Barry is for you. You may not be a podiatrist when its all said and done though. Maybe you'll be a model or an instagram influencer.
#6 - "I am a South American Orthopedic surgeon who escaped Hugo Chavez". Barry is actually probably the place for you.
#7 - "LDS". Sort of under the impression Arizona is the place for you.
#8 - "Its the week before podiatry school starts and I just realized I love feet." You probably believe that Scholl, Temple, or Kent is just the perfect place for you.
#9 - "Something meaningless about the school has caught my eye ie. research. Cool. Do your thing. Let us know how many papers you have published by the time you are practicing. Please though. Please, please, please - do not pay for a masters. Dear lord.
#10 - "I want a really, really, really DO focused curriculum even though I won't be a DO". Arizona or Western.
#11 - "I'm from Texas." Based on cost there's a pretty solid case that you should suffer it up on the border. Shibuya is amazing though. Listening to that guy for 3 years could really take you places.
#12 - "I value diversity". ...historically probably not DMU.
#13 - "I want a school with amazing clinics/pathology". This was clasically the Temple/NY talking point. The clinic just has such amazing pathology. That said, whenever I talk to people who trained at these schools they always say something like - "Yes, Temple had amazing toenail pathology". Or "Yes, NY was an amazing nail jail".