To interview or not at U. of VT

[Tamomo]

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Hi everyone,

This is my first post. I took the Aug. MCAT and applied kinda late, mid October. I received a few interviews and thankfully matched into a TX med school on Feb. 1. During that week Univ. of Vermont offered me an interview as well, it's on April 1st. Should I go to the interview?

I haven't bought a plane ticket yet and from quickly doing an internet search it will cost somewhere around $950 - 1100 and I don't have a job and my bank account is depleted due to the application process.

Is it worth it? The school I am at has great facilities, staff, students, hospitals, etc. but is in a small TX city. I hear Burlington is incredibly beautiful and that the school is good too.
Also, the tuition is another thing, for residents of TX it will be around $8500/yr for tuition, and it is around $21000/yr for out of state to go to Univ. of VT.

If anyone has interviewed there or currently attends the med school I would appreciate the advice.
Thanks.

 

[lattimer13]

uh...try like $35,000 tuition for out-of-staters at UVM. if i remember correctly, the financial aid lady said everything total would be about $55,000 per year. IMO, the TX school for $8500 is the way to go.

i interviewed at UVM in the beginning of february. luckily my plane ticket was only $260 from phoenix on american. i was impressed with the students, faculty, and the plans for the new additions to the med school. everyone was very nice. the negatives for this school for me were the tution, the cold in the winter, and the homogeneity of the population (only 40,000 in the area).

the pictures they showed during the presentation were beautiful VT summers and falls. however, it was overcast and really dreary while i was there. this and the cold didn't appeal to me coming from phoenix.

the students were very happy. i would have been happy there had i start this fall. wish i could give you the answer you're looking for. $1000 buck for a plane ticket sounds like a ton to me and your TX school is obviously close to home and much, much, much cheaper. i can't tell you if you're missing out on visiting UVM. guess you gotta weigh your options and the goods and the bads of each school. check out the interview feedback portion of this website for more info. hope this helps.

 

[ANJ]

I absolutely loved U of Vermont. I thought the people were some of the most down to earth that I have met in medical schools and I have heard nothing but positive things about the school and faculty. I am worried about the winters, but if it were me I would suck it up and go to the interview. But it is a very tough decision and one that only you can make.

UVM is worth it though!

 

[Iron Horse]

As much as I loved the students, faculty, and location, the unholy cost for out of staters made it hard to seriously consider ($50k/yr).

 

[lola]

i loved uvm! it is in a beautiful town, and the students there seemed really down to earth and happy. i think you get a lot of good clinical exposure there, though the patient population is not as diverse as most places. you mentioned the school that you got into is in a small texas city. not sure if you know this, but burlington is small as well, around 40,000 people.
the tuition is $36,000/yr i believe, and i could never justify spending that for a lower tier school if i had the option of paying $8,500 instead, but maybe that's just me. if you have a strong desire to live in vermont and don't mind dishing out the money, then you should check it out. otherwise i'd pass on the interview.

 

[ANJ]

How do you define lower tiered school?

 

[ANJ]

What is your definition of a "lower tiered school"?

 

[lola]

hmmm... maybe i shouldn't have said non-top 50 school instead. don't get me wrong. vermont is a good school, particularly for primary care. but even for primary care, i don't think it's in the top 50. not that rankings mean that much. all i'm saying is that it's not like harvard or even northwestern. i don't know what you would get out of uvm that you can't get from your state school other than living in vermont and experiencing a new part of the country. unless maybe you want to do research? in that case, uvm may have better options. don't know. however, one year of vermont's tuition is more than 4 years of your state school's tuition!!! but hey, if you've got the money and want to experience something new, you should check it out.
on a side note: one thing that is particularly cool about uvm's curriculum is that you get 2.5 years of clinical compared to 2 at most schools.

 

[Joe Joe on da Radio]

to the OP, some things to consider that helped me with my decision to attend UVM over other schools...

i suggest you compare the matchlists of the TX school to UVM. UVM has an outstanding matchlist that rivals that of US News "ranked" schools. i had the impression that UVM was just another "middle to lower-tiered school" when i applied too just from hearsay and SDN. however, based on what i have been told by my attendings and my PI since then, it is anything but. my PI, who is on the residency committee here at ucla, said that they view UVM on the same level as a school like Georgetown. in other words, it is an "excellent" program. sure it is expensive, but more than a 1/3 of their grads match into top hospitals (Harvard affliates, Yale, UC's, etc.) and competitive specialties. there is something about UVM that is highly respected by academic physicians. i guess i'll find out what that is when i start in the fall, but i think it *might* have something to do with the fact that based on total research dollars per faculty member, they rank in the top 25-30 of all med schools. i think UVM gets shafted by US News b/c it is such a small school/city (my undergrad student population (ucla) alone is almost Burlington's entire population!)and can't garner the hundreds of millions of research funding each year b/c they just don't have the sheer number of faculty to do so. but if you look at the ratio of research funding per faculty, i think it's apparent that a lot of good quality research is being done by the faculty that they do have. anyhow, i'm rambling at this point, so to the OP, i think UVM is at least worth checking out. g'luck on your decision and congrats on the acceptance you already have.