KS:
First, congrats! It's nice to have choices. Second, it sounds like part of your question really comes down to asking, "What does prestige buy me?" If I understand your question correctly, it sounds like you're choosing between places like Houston, Baylor, UT Southwestern vs TCOM. I just had lunch today with a first-year who was accepted at Houston but elected to come to TCOM because he didn't like his Houston interview experience and just felt like Houston was too big a place for him. He likes the fact that we're a more tightly knit community. But, back to you...
Prestige can be powerful currency in medicine, especially if you're interested in policy or research. Name recognition goes a long way toward securing you faculty positions, grants, and money. There's no fluffing that point. I am hesitant to tell you to go to one school or another. However, I will suggest you consider the following questions in making your final decision:
1) What are your personal goals for a career in medicine, keeping in mind that medical students change their minds often in medical school? Do you see yourself more specialty oriented or primary care oriented. If you're more specialty oriented, then brand-name recognition will probably be an asset down the line for residencies, fellowships, etc. Primary care residencies usually place more emphasis on interviews and personal life experiences (kind of like DO schools!)
2) What did you specifically like about TCOM or get turned-off to at other schools? Each school does have a "flavor" to its student community and campus. Try to specifically tune into what those "flavors" were. Consider visiting TCOM and some other schools you were accepted at again now that you're at the other end of the process. You might have a different experience.
3) Do you like the osteopathic approach to patient care? You are fortunate to have many choices. Others applying exclusively to DO schools, might not be that fortunate. The osteopathic profession is already burdened with DO's who don't find the time, energy, or motivation to practice osteopathically. They could have gotten an education more suitable to their current practice patterns at a MD school.
4) Once you become a DO, you will indeed be a physician, but you will never be a MD. Are you the kind of person who is comfortable being a minority or different? (DO's comprise only 5% of all physicians in the US.) Will you feel frustrated or inadequate if you have to explain to a patient who has never been to an osteopathic physician before what the DO degree is and what osteopathic medicine is all about?
Ultimately, your own success in the residency match process, and your own future career in medicine, will depend more upon how much enthusiasm, ambition, and personal drive you have toward becoming the best physician you can be, than it will with where you went to school. There are successful physicians in academia, private practice, and industry who have graduated from either private or public schools, from either research oriented or primary care focused schools, or from either DO or MD schools. There are many paths...
Still, keep in mind that medical school is long, tedious, and often an exhausting endeavor. No matter how "good" other people think that a school is, your experience will be an awful one if you wake up every day hating where you are.
Good luck,
--dave
