Stanford vs. Hopkins

[zoomx3]

last minute thread here, but I'm still extremely conflicted between these two. Both gave me almost the same fin aid, and I really liked both during my interviews (couldn't make it to second look for either).

Stanford:

+ love california and I'm an east coast person who really wants to practice in cali, so I think there are some benefits to moving there for med school
+ being in/near the undergrad campus; I wouldn't want to be interacting with purely med students for all 4 yrs
+ I have more friends who'll be in the SF/Palo Alto area than in the Baltimore area

- hospital isn't as great as Hopkins
- across the country from SO who will be in NYC

Hopkins:

+ great hospital
+ slightly shorter preclinical curriculum? I'm not sure how much the extra 1-2 months matter... since neither are true 1.5 yr preclinical

- feel really meh about Baltimore... coming from NYC, I feel like there's not much to do there and it's feels sketchy in certain areas
- 4 more years of bad weather
- also not where SO is, so we'll either have to live in between or visit often

I honestly feel like they're pretty similar given this list of pros/cons... and I'm not sure how important it is for an east coast person to move to cali so that I can match a cali residency more easily

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[mmmcdowe]

How close are you to proposing to your SO? Sounds like you'd be happier at Stanford.

 

[wiloghby]

Please please please go to Stanford. You will absolutely love it. It is paradise on Earth. I lived right next to campus off of El Camino Real for 2 years after graduating college; my roommate was a Stanford med student. And I had several other friends in grad school there whom I would visit on campus. I've never enjoyed living in an area more, and my Stanford med roommate absolutely would say the same. She even dated someone in San Francisco (30 miles away) and was commuting back and forth on nights and weekends and still matched MGH for residency. So she had a great time and all the fun she had did not hurt her career. In fact being there for 4 years definitely helped her avoid burnout out, while the prestige of the institution let her match wherever she pleased.

Johns Hopkins is also a great place to study, but I don't think you're going to gain any career advantages by choosing JHU over Stanford. If you are really into serving the indigent, Johns Hopkins has a clear advantage over Stanford just by virtue of the surrounding patient population. But even then, I'm sure you could get involved at Stanford in the East Palo Alto area. But it doesn't sound like that's the case anyway.

TL;DR GO TO STANFORD!@##)!

 

[DaenarysDuhh]

Congrats on these amazing choices!

What kind of medicine are you interested in? Or where do you see your career going? Im sure there are people who can compare the offerings of the two schools better than i can, but Hopkins is great for public health or for working with urban underserved populations. Stanford is right near the tech center of the country right now, so if health tech is at all an interest then Stanford is a strong option. Also i believe it is strong in health policy as well, and it provides a lot of opportunities to do imterdisciplinary work at other parts of the university.

Palo Alto is paradise - amazing weather and lifestyle. You would be signing up for a cushy environment. Going to JHU would mean living near the very patient population you are serving, which would be very appealing to some i think. Living in Baltimore would be grittier and more "real life," living in Palo Alto would be more of a glorious bubble.

If i were you, i would ask myself what is most important to me. If you dont care at all about an urban patient population (which you wont see much of in Palo Alto) and instead want to have a comfortable environment that lets you really escape from school, palo alto is the place.

 

[Optimus-Prime]

By the way... Megabus tickets are like $10 from Baltimore to NY