SUNY Upstate vs USF Morsani (SELECT)

[meepmoop]

Hi all! Just got WL acceptance at USF Morsani and now I very gratefully have an exciting, yet stressful decision to make. I’d appreciate any any insight y’all might have!

SUNY Upstate
Pros
- Not only in state, but in city (free housing 10min drive from medical system and tuition is $10,000 less/year) with support system right there
- 100% match rate in 2022
- Seemingly collaborative environment with P/F M1 and M2

Cons
- VERY close to home. Was not really looking to move back home, but knew there would be a strong possibility
- Slightly run down building/facilities
- Weather (may seem like I’m reaching but snow in April takes a toll on you)
- Not great/practically no match opportunities for top fields

USF Morsani (SELECT)
Pros
- Significantly higher rank (46 vs 87), which may start to play a much larger role in matching with Step 1 P/F, rank has been on an upward trend too
- OOS, but elderly grandparents are nearby and it would be nice to see them more often and parents visit South Florida relatively often
- In Tampa for 2 years (cool new city with great weather)
- New facility

Pro/Con (can’t quite figure it out lol)
- SELECT program results in a formal graduate certificate in Medical Leadership
- Unsure what specialty I may want to pursue, but worried this is a program that might push students to primary care fields
- M3 and M4 are in PA at Lehigh Valley, a great hospital system
- Weird vibes with interviewer from USF, but great vibes with interviewer from LVHN

Cons
- $40,000 more in tuition, not counting additional rent for 4 years
- have to move to PA for last two years of school
- H/HP/P/F grading system and have heard conflicting things about class environment/culture
- USF has an extremely high SOAP rate, but unclear how much of that involves SELECT students - also a huge percentage of matches are within USF itself

Summary: I’m trying to figure out whether the pros of USF Morsani outweigh the financial difference between that and Upstate. I never fully committed mentally to Upstate, so I think that may be contributing to this internal debate as well.

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[hydroflaskhomie]

Leaning SUNY Upstate for you. Have you asked USF for financial match?

How are the match lists for each school? You say no matches for SUNY Upstate in competitive fields - does SUNY Upstate have departments for these (e.g. no derm matches, no derm department)?

Are you set on competitive fields or undecided?

 

[chilly_md]

Upstate seems to have too many advantages to pass up.

 

[a1324566]

Just earlier this week I chose a different SUNY close to home over USF SELECT and really struggled with the decision for awhile since I was really hoping to leave New York. I spoke to a lottt of students so some helpful things I learned

-Preclinical grades aren't reported anywhere and don't count for rank/senior AOA, they only count for junior AOA

-SELECT students can do elective rotations in Tampa, but CORE students get priority

-The high SOAP issue was mostly limited to CORE (if you look up the 2021 match list, most but not all of the HCA matches are largely the SOAP ones, you can see the core vs select split)

I personally was leaning USF but ended up choosing SUNY because the specialty I'm interested in would be really hard to pursue after the move. LVHN lacked a home residency in it so if I couldn't get back to Tampa that would be a problem and I did not want to risk it. As the other commenter said if you have any specialties in mind it may be helpful to see if Upstate and Lehigh Valley have home programs, that was ultimately what helped me decide.