Touro Nevada vs KCU

[photovoltaic123]

Hi all,

I didn’t think I’d be posting here this late, but here I am. I’ve been sitting on these two acceptances for months, and I was set to pick touro over KCU, but a few circumstances are swaying me a little more to KCU this late. I have 3 days to decide. I am currently waitlisted at two Texas MD schools, but unless my fortunes change in the next week or so, I’m not able to see a path forward to acceptance at the moment, having exhausted all my resources in updates thus far.

Specialty interests: Strong interest in diagnostic radiology (possible interest in interventional fellowship later), GI, hospitalist, PM&R

Touro Nevada
Pros:
-Location: this is a huge deal to me. I originally applied to this school for sentimental reasons, having visited Vegas 5 years ago and really liked the area, considered moving here later in life
-rotation sites are in the area as opposed to splitting the class across the country
-good radiology/imaging research opportunities
-some good matches past few years
-interviewers were very interested in my app and who I was as a person and made me feel wanted

Cons:
-cost is about 50-60k higher overall I believe, but I would be willing to pay this if I went there
-transparency: for some reason their full match list isn’t available this year and it took me quite a bit of effort to get details regarding this on the fb group (and for a few other questions I had regarding the grading)
-not as established, but still reasonably fine

KCU

Pros
-very established, a top DO school
-appears to be a stronger match list overall
-transparency: admissions office was very organized and an upperclassman reached out to me and answered all my questions which made me a little more interested to go there
-cheaper

Neutral:

-Rotation sites: there’s a lot to pick from, but concerned about being separated from classmates, and potential difficulty doing long term research projects due to separation

Cons:

-interview day was sort of underwhelming, and I couldn’t get a feel of the research opportunities, but this is more attributed to the virtual interview format most likely
-location: I don’t really like the Midwest much, since I went to undergrad there, but this could be mitigated somewhat by picking a rotation in a warmer area. There are days I wonder if I would be missing out by not living in Vegas for 4 years, as I feel like I would be happier there.

All help is appreciated!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[ChocolateChip>Oreos]

KCU!

 

[photovoltaic123]

KCU!

Elaborate your reasons a little?

 

[ChocolateChip>Oreos]

Great school, great match, strong board scores, cost, not a crushing amount of OMM

 

[TabbyTuxy]

Sounds like your heart is in Nevada. I also really value location and stability, and I think it would be a relief to really settle into a place for four years, build relationships there, and not worry about being uprooted for rotations. When clinicals are stressful, it will be nice to come home to the same place and unwind without worrying about logistics of moving around. For some folks, that's a minor consideration -- but it sounds like you're pretty place-oriented, like me, and there's something to be said for that.

Sketchy that TUNCOM didn't release a match list this year, but your specialties of interest aren't too competitive. And you may excel more in a school and place you love.

More to consider:

What is class attendance like at each? Does one have a lot of mandatory activities?
How picky are you hoping to be with prestige and location of residency?

 

[photovoltaic123]

Sounds like your heart is in Nevada. I also really value location and stability, and I think it would be a relief to really settle into a place for four years, build relationships there, and not worry about being uprooted for rotations. When clinicals are stressful, it will be nice to come home to the same place and unwind without worrying about logistics of moving around. For some folks, that's a minor consideration -- but it sounds like you're pretty place-oriented, like me, and there's something to be said for that.

Sketchy that TUNCOM didn't release a match list this year, but your specialties of interest aren't too competitive. And you may excel more in a school and place you love.

More to consider:

What is class attendance like at each? Does one have a lot of mandatory activities?
How picky are you hoping to be with prestige and location of residency?

I would say class attendance is mostly conducive to people who prefer to stream lectures at home so I don’t think there are a lot of mandatory activities for both schools. As far as prestige and location go, I’d prefer to match at a decent academic program somewhere west or back home in Texas, maybe in Florida, but I think this might be too picky to be honest. I had some aspirations to go into research/teaching in an academic setting, hence a preference for an academic residency. The biggest thing that is preventing me from turning down KCU immediately is the fact that they seem to have a broader geographic reach in their residency matches and some feel it would be a mistake to turn them down for this reason. Touro appears to have more regional matches, but I’ve been told that this is due to the preferences of the students being local to those areas whereas KCU is bringing students from more states. I was admittedly stunned at how good some of touro’s non-regional matches were over the past few years, so there’s that. I got a match list from an upperclassman of touro’s matches this year with breakdown by specialty. The distribution was pretty good but the names of the programs aren’t available yet.