Temple (LKSOM) vs SLU (asap-ish help lol)

[SweetBurger]

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Temple

Pros
- Medical School is brand new was actually gorgeous seemed like an incredible place to learn
- North Philly is under-served and has a diverse patient population
- Seems like temple has inhouse residency programs in most surgical subs ( mini con: couldn't find vascular surgery outside of a gen-surg fellowship but maybe this doesnt matter)
-US News higher rank (although i mean this seems negligible)
- incredible anatomy lab (maybe this a lame thing)
Cons
-Fox-chase just sold to Jefferson (seems like its now collaboratively run)
- North Philly isn't the safest area and I have never lived in a city ever in my life so this will be a nice learning curve
- seems like it's expensive to live
(2020 match had only 1 diagnostic rad match which is a specialty im interested in not sure if this is just the interest of the class or just very hard to get diagnostic rads coming out of temple. 2019 match list did have more diagnostic rads matches)

SLU
Pros
- St. Louis is relatively cheap to live in (compared to philly)
- Also appears to have all inhouse residency programs for most specialties including surgical subs
- The medical campus although older has a lot of grass and greenery which felt a little more homely given not from being from the city
Cons
- did have some accreditation issues in the past but these seem like a distant issue from what I have read
- St. Louis dangerous
- old campus, old facilities, old anatomy lab
- heard of a new possible difficulty of being able to do research at WashU (not sure how true)

I really enjoy research I want to be able to continue research as a medical student i'm not sure if I'd be limited more at one institution. I think I'm leaning towards Rads in terms of interest rn and wondering if either institution would be limiting.
Both at the moment are pretty even-steven in terms of Cost of Attendance. Need to make a decision soon. I'm pretty torn as like both institutions a lot and there really isn't a clear winner in my head.

 

[billnyethepremedguy]

I'd definitely go Temple, Philly is amazing and the new med building is incredibly exciting. Research wise, Temple has almost 3x the NIH funding as SLU. Based on your list I really see no significant cons to Temple.

 

[Engrailed]

Temple! Seems like you would love it there more than SLU

 

[billnyethepremedguy]

Also seeing you go from 0 As to 4 As this cycle has been the ultimate comeback story

 

[Greendale human being]

Go wherever helps you match into your desired specialty more, which seems to be SLU. I visited both schools and thought SLU seemed nicer personally. If you’re gonna live in a city, SLU’s rent prices beat phillys for sure. Also don’t forget about their new hospital opening up this year which looked really nice. As for terms of safety, I had a friend attend school in St Louis and said they never felt uncomfortable living there in terms of safety.

 

[lovelybones789]

full disclosure: temple is one of my waitlist schools, so i may be a little bit biased as i know more about them but i really like that temple has such a diverse patient population, it was personally one of my favorite things about the school and something that continues to draw me to them. I love how they focus on underprivileged populations and train doctors who also focus on that. the only thing I'm personally concerned about with temple is that their finances don't seem to be great and I know drexel was recently in the same situation and are now doing really poorly. But who knows what will actually happen with that. Ultimately, I don't know which school matches better into radiology programs, but I would say if one matches better, I would go with that school because at the end of the day getting into solid residency programs is really the end goal of medical school. They're two really great options so I don't think you could go wrong with either school so congratulations on having such a successful cycle!

 

[Icebird]

Seeing you get multiple acceptances now makes me happy; Temple and run have a fun journey my friend!

 

[mcatstudent1]

Just graduated med school and matched Diagnostic rads actually. Most of the things you are worrying about don’t actually matter. I would vote for Temple. They are in different regions. Would you prefer Northeast or mid west for residency, as this will determine the regions where half your residency interviews will come from. I vote Temple for diversity in clinical experiences, awesome city, and likely a more diverse med school class. You only spend the clinical year truly in the hospital and lots of preclinical and m4 away so you could live in center city and commute in or live someplace else. In house vascular also does not matter! Lots of friends just matched without that and you likely will go through two different specialties after that!

 

[mcatstudent1]

Doing med school in phill helps get you residency in philly or NE; I would not chose based on buildings, etc; Midwest winters are super COLD; very little time to do research in med school, would say not Temples strength but may be able to do aways at Jefferson or UPenn in clinical years for letters/research. SLU is a solid program, also may be able to do research at wash u on elective. Overall, likely very different locales, different level in diversity of patients and classmates (Tenple=diversity), and very different locations for 4+ years. Also region of med school determines region for >50% of interviews, and phill has more residency programs if you are not hankering to go back to Midwest. Med school at the end of the day is what you put in, step scores, clinical grades.

 

[billnyethepremedguy]

Just graduated med school and matched Diagnostic rads actually. Most of the things you are worrying about don’t actually matter. I would vote for Temple. They are in different regions. Would you prefer Northeast or mid west for residency, as this will determine the regions where half your residency interviews will come from. I vote Temple for diversity in clinical experiences, awesome city, and likely a more diverse med school class. You only spend the clinical year truly in the hospital and lots of preclinical and m4 away so you could live in center city and commute in or live someplace else. In house vascular also does not matter! Lots of friends just matched without that and you likely will go through two different specialties after that!

It's funny how we look at every little detail when we're in the process of something then a few years down the line realize most of the stuff we were worried about doesn't even matter.

 

[MedScat]

Temple student here: Although the administration isn't always the most organized, I am overall very happy with my education. They give a lot of opportunity for you to give feedback. The new buildings are actually really nice when you have to be here all the time - especially the sunny library. Philly is expensive but if you're willing to commute a little the suburbs are slightly cheaper. I'm from the suburbs of NYC so i was kind of used to working in the city but living in the burbs and thats what I do in philly now too and I love it. I just took Step 1 and I'm actually happy with the way they prepared us for it even though I complained about them focusing on small stupid details the whole year lol (everyone in med school loves to complain so get used to this, no matter where you go)

I don't know much about SLU but I love being a temple student! I hope to eventually match in the NE. Also, many people at Temple want to do primary care so that might be why you didn't see too many diagnostic radiology matches.