UC Davis vs RUSH (PLEASE HELP MEEEEEEEE)

[hifromvenus]

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Hi everyone, I've been stuck between these two choices and it's gotten harder to decide because neither gave me aid which would've influenced my decision. I'm a CA resident and I would like to match back into CA during residency for neurology.

UC Davis
Pros

• Close to home (LA) so the plane ride won't be too bad
• Cheaper to live in in Sac and they have university housing (gave me a lease)
• Higher ranked/ more prestigious maybe?
• 3 years P/F and no internal rank !!
• NMBE-based exams

Cons

• Gave me no money
• Sacramento is hot ASF and i hate hot weather
• boring area with little to do
• 83k/year
• interview experience was kinda disorganized so not too sure if this reflective of the school?

Rush
Pros

• big emphasis on community service
• everyone seems to love it here
• Chicago is a dope place and I love the city
• pretty strong match list
• it's cold!
• heard great things about the clinical rotations

Cons

• Rank/research/reputation slightly lower due to no undergrad
• pretty far from home
• didn't give me aid either -_-
• probably won't be able to bring my car
• mandatory lectures
• 93k/yr so about a 40k difference from UCD overall
• no university housing

Both are great schools but they're similar in many ways besides area which makes it hard for me to choose. Any additional info or advice would be greatly appreciated! UCD is about an hour plane ride from home vs a 4hr plane ride to RUSH so moving would be difficult but if chicago is a better area then its worth it for me!

 

[ClashRoyaleKing]

Why wouldn’t you be able to take your car to Chicago? I agree with a lot of your cons for Davis, but it is still the better school. But you can’t put a price on happiness.

How much do you hate hot weather?

 

[hifromvenus]

Why wouldn’t you be able to take your car to Chicago? I agree with a lot of your cons for Davis, but it is still the better school. But you can’t put a price on happiness.

How much do you hate hot weather?

I heard the public transport is amazing so bringing a car is useless. Also i reallyyyyyy hate the heat and I heard it reaches up to 110F out there which scares me. But why do you say UCD is a better school?

 

[ClashRoyaleKing]

I heard the public transport is amazing so bringing a car is useless. Also i reallyyyyyy hate the heat and I heard it reaches up to 110F out there which scares me. But why do you say UCD is a better school?

Rank, research, California connections to UCs. I live nearby and would somewhat agree with the Sac area being boring, but the Bay Area, six flags, sports, Tahoe, ocean are all nearby too so you can always enjoy yourself during your time off. It’s really hot for like 3-4 months out of the year May-August. Last summer was pretty awful not going to lie.

Feel free to pm any Northern CA questions you have or discuss them here too!

 

[hifromvenus]

Rank, research, California connections to UCs. I live nearby and would somewhat agree with the Sac area being boring, but the Bay Area, six flags, sports, Tahoe, ocean are all nearby too so you can always enjoy yourself during your time off. It’s really hot for like 3-4 months out of the year May-August. Last summer was pretty awful not going to lie.

Feel free to pm any Northern CA questions you have or discuss them here too!

You’ve been so helpful thank you!!!

 

[hotsaucemuffin]

Chicago weather is overrated asf. I don’t know actually if anyone besides you has put its weather as a pro! Go to UCD and save yourself from seasonal depression

 

[hifromvenus]

Chicago weather is overrated asf. I don’t know actually if anyone besides you has put its weather as a pro! Go to UCD and save yourself from seasonal depression

haha i just really love the cold! i guess that isn't a good enough reason to choose RUSH over Davis tho lol

 

[DO2015CA]

haha i just really love the cold! i guess that isn't a good enough reason to choose RUSH over Davis tho lol

I thought I hated the heat and loved the cold until I moved to the tundra and let me tell you what… California kids don’t know what they’re talking about when we say that lol. I’m from the Central Valley. 110 is easier to deal with compared to the 4th month straight below freezing. At least you get reprieve at night from the heat. The only reprieve from months of sub freezing weather is staying inside.

There is enough growth going on in Sacramento with the transplants from the Bay that it isn’t as boring as it was 10 years ago. Especially with the development of the DOCO area. And like the above said everything is close by for weekends. It should be more than enough to entertain a med student with the little free time they have.

 

[RangerBob]

UC Davis is notably the better school. And will set you up better to stay in-state for residency. You can still match in CA if you went to Rush, but it’ll be more effort (and $ due to the air travel). If you leave CA, you may find that while it’s wonderful in many aspects, so are other places of the country, and you may opt to do residency out of state as well.

Chicago is fun, but you’d likely still need a car for rotations out in the suburbs (the L is great and will get you downtown, but not to most of the suburbs). I don’t know how many rotations Rush students do at community hospitals/suburban Rush satellite clinics/hospitals, but it is hard to get to anywhere in a Chicago suburb without a car.

It’s not the cold of the Midwest that got to me as a CA native—it was the heat/humidity. 90’s and humid during moving day was the most miserable I’d ever felt. You get no reprieve if you’re in the shade like you would on a Phoenix summer day. And the worst part was it may only cool down 10-15 degrees on a summer night in the Midwest—and it’s still humid (technically the humidity is the reason the evenings are so warm). That was rough for me, having been used to it being much colder at night than the day, here in CA. On the plus side, you can actually comfortably eat outside at night in the Midwest. Just have your bug spray…

I have never lived anywhere in CA where I felt AC was necessary, but my wife talked me into buying an AC unit pretty quickly in Chicago.

That said, Chicago is a fun place. They really care about their seasons—gardeners, adult sports leagues, sundresses/bikinis/shirtless male joggers, backyard BBQers and the many festivals all come out in vogue as the season warms up. Some come out when it starts hitting the 30’s regularly in Feb—by then you’re so used to the cold that you really are warm when it’s sunny and 32 and you really do think it’s swimsuit weather. But things really get moving closer to May and it’s a pretty exciting time of the year.

People were friendlier in Chicago than SF or LA. And they get even friendlier the further you get from the city. My friend from Omaha thought that was all funny (similar to how I thought he was funny for thinking Chicago was expensive—it was a bargain compared to SF), but it shows all things are relative. I really liked Midwesterners. The people and the change of seasons are the two things I miss the most about the Midwest. If I couldn’t live where I’m at in CA, I’d want to live in the Pacific Northwest or Great Lakes region.

Davis is fun place. Sacramento not as much, but there’s so much around it. In CA, there’s just so much nature close at hand. If you’re big on the outdoors you’ll find yourself disappointed by IL. The streets/neighborhoods are beautiful, but IL state parks/park preserves have nothing on Yosemite/Point Reyes/any CA state park. We really have phenomenal public lands in CA. You have to go to Michigan or Wisconsin to find things that actually compare to even a CA regional or state park. The Boundary Waters up in northern MN was beautiful and rivaled Yosemite in my eyes.

Congrats on the two acceptances by the way, and best of luck!

 

[hifromvenus]

UC Davis is notably the better school. And will set you up better to stay in-state for residency. You can still match in CA if you went to Rush, but it’ll be more effort (and $ due to the air travel). If you leave CA, you may find that while it’s wonderful in many aspects, so are other places of the country, and you may opt to do residency out of state as well.

Chicago is fun, but you’d likely still need a car for rotations out in the suburbs (the L is great and will get you downtown, but not to most of the suburbs). I don’t know how many rotations Rush students do at community hospitals/suburban Rush satellite clinics/hospitals, but it is hard to get to anywhere in a Chicago suburb without a car.

It’s not the cold of the Midwest that got to me as a CA native—it was the heat/humidity. 90’s and humid during moving day was the most miserable I’d ever felt. You get no reprieve if you’re in the shade like you would on a Phoenix summer day. And the worst part was it may only cool down 10-15 degrees on a summer night in the Midwest—and it’s still humid (technically the humidity is the reason the evenings are so warm). That was rough for me, having been used to it being much colder at night than the day, here in CA. On the plus side, you can actually comfortably eat outside at night in the Midwest. Just have your bug spray…

I have never lived anywhere in CA where I felt AC was necessary, but my wife talked me into buying an AC unit pretty quickly in Chicago.

That said, Chicago is a fun place. They really care about their seasons—gardeners, adult sports leagues, sundresses/bikinis/shirtless male joggers, backyard BBQers and the many festivals all come out in vogue as the season warms up. Some come out when it starts hitting the 30’s regularly in Feb—by then you’re so used to the cold that you really are warm when it’s sunny and 32 and you really do think it’s swimsuit weather. But things really get moving closer to May and it’s a pretty exciting time of the year.

People were friendlier in Chicago than SF or LA. And they get even friendlier the further you get from the city. My friend from Omaha thought that was all funny (similar to how I thought he was funny for thinking Chicago was expensive—it was a bargain compared to SF), but it shows all things are relative. I really liked Midwesterners. The people and the change of seasons are the two things I miss the most about the Midwest. If I couldn’t live where I’m at in CA, I’d want to live in the Pacific Northwest or Great Lakes region.

Davis is fun place. Sacramento not as much, but there’s so much around it. In CA, there’s just so much nature close at hand. If you’re big on the outdoors you’ll find yourself disappointed by IL. The streets/neighborhoods are beautiful, but IL state parks/park preserves have nothing on Yosemite/Point Reyes/any CA state park. We really have phenomenal public lands in CA. You have to go to Michigan or Wisconsin to find things that actually compare to even a CA regional or state park. The Boundary Waters up in northern MN was beautiful and rivaled Yosemite in my eyes.

Congrats on the two acceptances by the way, and best of luck!

Wow this was an amazing read, thank you for taking the time out to tell me!! I've been in the city all my life to the point where I'm unsure if i could live in a different social climate… but Davis being the better school might be the end-all here.

 

[hifromvenus]

I thought I hated the heat and loved the cold until I moved to the tundra and let me tell you what… California kids don’t know what they’re talking about when we say that lol. I’m from the Central Valley. 110 is easier to deal with compared to the 4th month straight below freezing. At least you get reprieve at night from the heat. The only reprieve from months of sub freezing weather is staying inside.

There is enough growth going on in Sacramento with the transplants from the Bay that it isn’t as boring as it was 10 years ago. Especially with the development of the DOCO area. And like the above said everything is close by for weekends. It should be more than enough to entertain a med student with the little free time they have.

I’ll have to read up on the DOCO area, and yeah I guess for fun I could take trips to SF. Great points, thank you!!

 

[skyman0701]

I'd say Rush. Research opportunities here are underrated. Lot of research opportunities for all the specialities you want to pursue. Almost half the class matches back to CA every year, and match list in the past few years has been very strong as well.

 

[DO2015CA]

UC Davis is notably the better school. And will set you up better to stay in-state for residency. You can still match in CA if you went to Rush, but it’ll be more effort (and $ due to the air travel). If you leave CA, you may find that while it’s wonderful in many aspects, so are other places of the country, and you may opt to do residency out of state as well.

Chicago is fun, but you’d likely still need a car for rotations out in the suburbs (the L is great and will get you downtown, but not to most of the suburbs). I don’t know how many rotations Rush students do at community hospitals/suburban Rush satellite clinics/hospitals, but it is hard to get to anywhere in a Chicago suburb without a car.

It’s not the cold of the Midwest that got to me as a CA native—it was the heat/humidity. 90’s and humid during moving day was the most miserable I’d ever felt. You get no reprieve if you’re in the shade like you would on a Phoenix summer day. And the worst part was it may only cool down 10-15 degrees on a summer night in the Midwest—and it’s still humid (technically the humidity is the reason the evenings are so warm). That was rough for me, having been used to it being much colder at night than the day, here in CA. On the plus side, you can actually comfortably eat outside at night in the Midwest. Just have your bug spray…

I have never lived anywhere in CA where I felt AC was necessary, but my wife talked me into buying an AC unit pretty quickly in Chicago.

That said, Chicago is a fun place. They really care about their seasons—gardeners, adult sports leagues, sundresses/bikinis/shirtless male joggers, backyard BBQers and the many festivals all come out in vogue as the season warms up. Some come out when it starts hitting the 30’s regularly in Feb—by then you’re so used to the cold that you really are warm when it’s sunny and 32 and you really do think it’s swimsuit weather. But things really get moving closer to May and it’s a pretty exciting time of the year.

People were friendlier in Chicago than SF or LA. And they get even friendlier the further you get from the city. My friend from Omaha thought that was all funny (similar to how I thought he was funny for thinking Chicago was expensive—it was a bargain compared to SF), but it shows all things are relative. I really liked Midwesterners. The people and the change of seasons are the two things I miss the most about the Midwest. If I couldn’t live where I’m at in CA, I’d want to live in the Pacific Northwest or Great Lakes region.

Davis is fun place. Sacramento not as much, but there’s so much around it. In CA, there’s just so much nature close at hand. If you’re big on the outdoors you’ll find yourself disappointed by IL. The streets/neighborhoods are beautiful, but IL state parks/park preserves have nothing on Yosemite/Point Reyes/any CA state park. We really have phenomenal public lands in CA. You have to go to Michigan or Wisconsin to find things that actually compare to even a CA regional or state park. The Boundary Waters up in northern MN was beautiful and rivaled Yosemite in my eyes.

Congrats on the two acceptances by the way, and best of luck!

Haha that’s hilarious because I was in the Deep South before going to the Midwest and I haven’t thought there was any humidity. Like you said it’s all relative. Moving from CA to the Deep South in June without an elevator in my apartment was murder

 

[hotsaucemuffin]

UC Davis is notably the better school. And will set you up better to stay in-state for residency. You can still match in CA if you went to Rush, but it’ll be more effort (and $ due to the air travel). If you leave CA, you may find that while it’s wonderful in many aspects, so are other places of the country, and you may opt to do residency out of state as well.

Chicago is fun, but you’d likely still need a car for rotations out in the suburbs (the L is great and will get you downtown, but not to most of the suburbs). I don’t know how many rotations Rush students do at community hospitals/suburban Rush satellite clinics/hospitals, but it is hard to get to anywhere in a Chicago suburb without a car.

It’s not the cold of the Midwest that got to me as a CA native—it was the heat/humidity. 90’s and humid during moving day was the most miserable I’d ever felt. You get no reprieve if you’re in the shade like you would on a Phoenix summer day. And the worst part was it may only cool down 10-15 degrees on a summer night in the Midwest—and it’s still humid (technically the humidity is the reason the evenings are so warm). That was rough for me, having been used to it being much colder at night than the day, here in CA. On the plus side, you can actually comfortably eat outside at night in the Midwest. Just have your bug spray…

I have never lived anywhere in CA where I felt AC was necessary, but my wife talked me into buying an AC unit pretty quickly in Chicago.

That said, Chicago is a fun place. They really care about their seasons—gardeners, adult sports leagues, sundresses/bikinis/shirtless male joggers, backyard BBQers and the many festivals all come out in vogue as the season warms up. Some come out when it starts hitting the 30’s regularly in Feb—by then you’re so used to the cold that you really are warm when it’s sunny and 32 and you really do think it’s swimsuit weather. But things really get moving closer to May and it’s a pretty exciting time of the year.

People were friendlier in Chicago than SF or LA. And they get even friendlier the further you get from the city. My friend from Omaha thought that was all funny (similar to how I thought he was funny for thinking Chicago was expensive—it was a bargain compared to SF), but it shows all things are relative. I really liked Midwesterners. The people and the change of seasons are the two things I miss the most about the Midwest. If I couldn’t live where I’m at in CA, I’d want to live in the Pacific Northwest or Great Lakes region.

Davis is fun place. Sacramento not as much, but there’s so much around it. In CA, there’s just so much nature close at hand. If you’re big on the outdoors you’ll find yourself disappointed by IL. The streets/neighborhoods are beautiful, but IL state parks/park preserves have nothing on Yosemite/Point Reyes/any CA state park. We really have phenomenal public lands in CA. You have to go to Michigan or Wisconsin to find things that actually compare to even a CA regional or state park. The Boundary Waters up in northern MN was beautiful and rivaled Yosemite in my eyes.

Congrats on the two acceptances by the way, and best of luck!

No AC ever??! I need to go to there

 

[RangerBob]

Haha that’s hilarious because I was in the Deep South before going to the Midwest and I haven’t thought there was any humidity. Like you said it’s all relative. Moving from CA to the Deep South in June without an elevator in my apartment was murder

I’m not sure I could survive the humidity of the Deep South…

 

[RangerBob]

No AC ever??! I need to go to there

Well, yes, it is very nice. But having a home in the Midwest that was 1/8th the cost of our current (average cost for the area) CA home was also nice.

 

[DoneDone3451]

RUSH

 

[hifromvenus]

RUSH

Why do you say rush?

 

[Basalganglia4life]

I’m wl-ed at both schools, but you should go to rush so can get off ucd waitlist !

 

[deleted1190059]

Davis is a beautiful and fun area, and I think you'd have a great time (and it's an incredible school ofc haha)