Tufts vs Midwestern

[sweetvalentin]

Hi everyone! I'm having a lot of trouble making a decision between these two schools. Before we begin, let me establish that when I factor in my costs of living, the schools end up evening out as far as cost for me. I do not need assistance with calculating that, so I would thank you in advance for not considering costs when giving advice!

I understand that Tufts has been a longer established school with amazing research and reputable professors. They would be ideal for me because I have a strong interest in emergency medicine. My hesitation is that this school is across the country, I don't know anything about the area, and the general having to move again after graduation to the southwest (I plan to settle there.)

Midwestern is more ideal for my quality of life because I have lots of family nearby and it is already a potential location for me to settle down. Apart from that, surgery is also strong interest of mine and I understand that I can begin accumulating experience a little bit earlier here than Tufts. My hesitation here is that the program is so new compared to others and I have yet to meet anyone who chose this school over another, everyone I've talked to only had Midwestern as their choice. Not that that's a problem, I just was hoping to speak with someone who chose Midwestern over another so they could tell me why.

Anyway, thank you in advance for the input! Hopefully it will be helpful in making this decision!

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[BlackCatsRuleTheWorld]

Congrats on your acceptances!

I didn't choose between those schools, but one thing I just looked up is NAVLE pass rates. Tufts has been 99-100% from 2017 to present, and Midwestern's is listed at 89%. From what I've heard many schools have had a decrease in the pass rate due to COVID. If you want, you can ask the Midwestern admissions office about that number and see if they have a plan in place to improve that.

Besides that I would say both are great schools and it sounds like you have a great support system near Midwestern, which is a big deal.

 

[sweetvalentin]

Congrats on your acceptances!

I didn't choose between those schools, but one thing I just looked up is NAVLE pass rates. Tufts has been 99-100% from 2017 to present, and Midwestern's is listed at 89%. From what I've heard many schools have had a decrease in the pass rate due to COVID. If you want, you can ask the Midwestern admissions office about that number and see if they have a plan in place to improve that.

Besides that I would say both are great schools and it sounds like you have a great support system near Midwestern, which is a big deal.

Omg that's super important to know! I will definitely reach out and ask about that because that is a huge decision making factor. I do understand that a lot of NAVLE prep will be on me though. Where is that info reported?

I'm also being super pressured to go to Tufts by my vet friends because of the reputation so I really appreciate your support for both schools. I don't have a lot of people recommending mwu at the moment but these people graduated decades ago so I value the opinions of newer/future grads. Thanks for your input!

 

[BlackCatsRuleTheWorld]

Scroll down towards the bottom here for Midwestern: College of Veterinary Medicine
And here for Tufts: Accreditation | Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine

I wouldn't pick a school based on a reputation or pressure, as tough as that pressure is, you're the one that will be living there and going there for 4 years - not them! Either way you'll be getting a DVM 🙂

 

[WonderingStudent]

I currently attend Tufts so if you have any specific questions I’m happy to help! The area is somewhat suburban - you don’t have to drive too far to get to the nearest grocery store (for me 10 mins), etc. There are fun things to do in the area outside of studying like escape rooms, ice skating, skiing, arcades, interesting stores. Technically the second largest city in Massachusetts is 20 mins away.

Midwestern is on the newer side comparatively but has been around for a good amount of years especially versus LIU and UArizona. It can be advantageous if you want to eventually end up near Midwestern since you will be able to make connections with vets in that area and learn more in-depth about diseases/fungi/bacteria specific for the area. I understand how scary it can be to move across the country especially if you’re not able to see the area in-person!

 

[sweetvalentin]

I currently attend Tufts so if you have any specific questions I’m happy to help! The area is somewhat suburban - you don’t have to drive too far to get to the nearest grocery store (for me 10 mins), etc. There are fun things to do in the area outside of studying like escape rooms, ice skating, skiing, arcades, interesting stores. Technically the second largest city in Massachusetts is 20 mins away.

Midwestern is on the newer side comparatively but has been around for a good amount of years especially versus LIU and UArizona. It can be advantageous if you want to eventually end up near Midwestern since you will be able to make connections with vets in that area and learn more in-depth about diseases/fungi/bacteria specific for the area. I understand how scary it can be to move across the country especially if you’re not able to see the area in-person!

Thank you for your response! It's hard to tell what's around or even where the urban-most areas are out there so that's helpful to know that there's plenty to do there. You can't tell by any of the pictures lol

I've only met two people who have graduated from midwestern and they are both very happy so I feel like even though it's newish it's not fair to count it out. hadn't even thought about the importance of being familiar with medicine specific to the area! This was helpful input thank you.

 

[WildZoo]

Re: NAVLE pass rate, that's is reported by the school, most have their most recent on their website, some will keep the last few years. If they only have the most recent, they should be able to provide historical info if you ask. And yes to some extent NAVLE preparation is your responsibility, but in some ways it is also used as a measure of the school's ability to provide their students with the knowledge they need to be successful. There is a bit of a confounding factor with the academic standards for admissions though. Unfortunately the NAVLE is a standardized test and doing well on it rests a decent bit on test taking ability. And GPA can be a decent indicator for that. So schools that have higher GPA cutoffs for admissions might have higher NAVLE pass rates too just because they're selecting for students that have those test taking skills. Not sure on how much difference there is in that for Tufts and Midwestern admissions, just pointing out it's a complicated statistic!

At any rate, I wouldn't put much stock in reputation. Maybe if you're interested in specializing, since networking and letters of reference are so important for that (and you can look at VIRMP match statistics for each school if you're interested in that info) and sometimes the reputation of your letter writers makes a difference. You certainly don't need to specialize to do emergency medicine. If you're more leaning ECC, that's a different story. In that case you may want to see if they have boarded ECC vets at each school. But if you're more looking at getting a general vet school education, proximity to your support system and where you want to be after graduation would be a major factor.

I think you just have to think about what is most important to you, not about what anyone else thinks you should do. Take comfort in the fact that there isn't a wrong decision here 🙂

 

[sweetvalentin]

I think you just have to think about what is most important to you, not about what anyone else thinks you should do. Take comfort in the fact that there isn't a wrong decision here 🙂

Your entire response is super helpful, I hadn't considered any of that at all. you're right, there's no wrong decision . Thanks a million!

 

[ccatgirl]

I am also trying to decide between these two schools & I am also interested in emergency medicine if you would want to chat on groupme?

 

[MindlessAdventures]

Current house officer at Tufts. Honestly I would not recommend Tufts at all solely based on the clinical year experience. Students are ill prepared for day 1 of practice due to often lacking basic knowledge, are often treated as nothing more than paperwork monkeys, and the general hospital culture is incredibly toxic. While NAVLE pass rates may be higher than Midwestern, from colleagues I know that graduated from there they had a better learning experience and were able to take more active roles in cases. Especially if you are interested in ECC the faculty have little to no interaction with students while on clinical rotation 4th year and there is rarely time for us house officers to discuss cases with students due to high volume and low staffing.

 

[sweetvalentin]

Current house officer at Tufts. Honestly I would not recommend Tufts at all

Thanks so much for that honesty! I actually got offered a scholarship by UPenn that I don't think I can turn down, lmao. crazy how fast big things can change like that.

 

[kaybear]

Current house officer at Tufts. Honestly I would not recommend Tufts at all solely based on the clinical year experience. Students are ill prepared for day 1 of practice due to often lacking basic knowledge, are often treated as nothing more than paperwork monkeys, and the general hospital culture is incredibly toxic. While NAVLE pass rates may be higher than Midwestern, from colleagues I know that graduated from there they had a better learning experience and were able to take more active roles in cases. Especially if you are interested in ECC the faculty have little to no interaction with students while on clinical rotation 4th year and there is rarely time for us house officers to discuss cases with students due to high volume and low staffing.

With the new curriculum structure in place, do you feel that Tufts has gotten better/worse in these aspects? I am interested in doing the Lab Animal Medicine MS along with DVM curriculum. Does that change how clinical year goes?

 

[deleted867257]

Update: Midwestern currently does not have board certified surgeons on staff as full-time faculty, also no criticalists or a true 24/7 ER rotation. I’d take this into heavy consideration pending applicants career goals.

 

[Cowsrcool]

Update: Midwestern currently does not have board certified surgeons on staff as full-time faculty, also no criticalists or a true 24/7 ER rotation. I’d take this into heavy consideration pending applicants career goals.

Please post this in the midwestern applicant thread!