UChicago or Vanderbilt? Help me decide.

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FourMoreMonths

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Looking for advice with my final decision...

I have scholarship and financial aid information from both schools (Vanderbilt and UChicago), and total cost is close enough to not be a big factor.

I would be extremely grateful if anyone would reply with insights, information, pros and cons, and/or what you would personally do in this situation.

I'm purposefully leaving out personal information so that any responses will be as objective as possible.

Thanks so much for any help!

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Looking for advice with my final decision...

I have scholarship and financial aid information from both schools (Vanderbilt and UChicago), and total cost is close enough to not be a big factor.

I would be extremely grateful if anyone would reply with insights, information, pros and cons, and/or what you would personally do in this situation.

I'm purposefully leaving out personal information so that any responses will be as objective as possible.

Thanks so much for any help!

Vandy was awesome when I visited. If I had a choice, I would pick Vandy, but I love the South, the warm weather, and the locale around Nashville. Congrats.
 
I have no real input for you, but if you chose Vanderbilt it'd make me happy knowing there is one more spot that I could potentially fill later on at UChicago 🙂

That being said, you can't go wrong, and I'm unbelievably jealous of you. Congratulations!
 
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Both are awesome schools; you wouldn't go wrong with either one. Congrats on the success!

They are in very different areas, may or may not be close to wherever you might be close to, different people in each area that you may or may not like... etc etc. It's up to personal choice on this one, and that's all you'll be getting from people who respond, but they won't personally be you... 😀 I wish I had this choice, but I just have a waitlist (to vandy). 😀

My biased opinion: Chicago all the way! Pritzker is awesome. True P/F years 1, 2, and 4. Uncurved. Chicago-style pizza was home-grown here. Hot dogs.
 
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P/F is overrated. I vote Vanderbilt all the way. Better school, better location (to me)...better choice.
 
who wants to go to chi town in the winter? negative 10 degrees and 30 below wind chill? vandy all the way. it's all bout da dirty south, ya dig?
 
Well, I'm going to Vandy and know nothing about Pritzker, but I can make a little pitch for Vanderbilt.

1) If there's one thing that school emphasizes, it's approachability. Every student talked about how nice and easy to talk to the faculty and administration are, and they certainly brought that out at Second Look. Fwiw, our future classmates are amazing, fun people that I really look forward to spending 4 years with, and the upperclassmen were pretty awesome, too.

2) I have a couple of friends at Pritzker and my boss went there for med school, and they actually advised me against applying. They felt the school was in decline (however, I do believe they're changing things around a lot this year, what with the smaller class size and stuff I think the "feel" of the school is going to be quite different) instead of becoming more and more present in the national scene. Incidentally, this is n=3, one of whom went to Pritzker a bunch of years ago, so take it with a HUGE grain of salt.

3) Vandy is true P/F the first year, and they add an honors second year (although everyone assured me it doesn't make the class more competitive...but who knows, I suspect most med schools are competitive to an extent). I definitely like the P/F thing cause it seems less stressful on a day to day basis.

4) Every single hospital is on the same campus, which is also the undergrad campus and the grad campus of every other grad school. This is HUGE, as far as I'm concerned, cause I don't want to have to drive around town madly third year or have to move away cause my clinicals are on the other side of the city (I'm looking at you, Emory!).

5) I love that Vanderbilt is a big fish in a pretty small pond. The mayor of Nashville came to talk to us (ahem, campaign, ahem) about the city at second look, and it just made me realize how big a deal Vandy is in those parts. Their trauma center covers just about most of Tennessee and thereabouts, according to the LifeFlight people. I like that there aren't any other MAJOR academic institutions around to compete with for resources, great physicians, etc. This is really different from Boston and New York, which are the cities I'm most familiar with, and I assume Chicago is similar in that respect.

6) I hear U Chicago is stunning, so I'm not sure whether this is really a useful argument to make, but Vandy is just lovely. The anatomy lab is kind of ridiculous. The library is huge and bright and gorgeous. I like that it's right by "downtown" (although granted, Nashville's downtown isn't really on par with a huge city's downtown, but ya know, how much time will you really have to go to a museum anyway).

K, this is all I can come up with. Rebuttals are encouraged.
 
UChicago.... where fun goes to die. nuff said.
 
I don't know! What's wrong with you?!
:laugh: Really I haven't made a decision because I'm not supposed to be thinking about med school (or being on SDN for that matter) at all until after finals.

I'm sure once I know I haven't failed everything I'll see the light. After spending time at another school (very similar I think to Pritzker) I realized Vanderbilt just provides an exceptionally supportive environment. Also what you said about Vandy being so dominant regionally is an important consideration.
 
I love my school, but I'm not sure I can really contrast it with UChicago anymore than LET has. Nashville is very different from Chicago 🙂

PM me if you have any questions -- always happy to help.
 
pre-usnews rankings has chicago above Vandy. Just sayin' 😉
 
pre-usnews rankings has chicago above Vandy. Just sayin' 😉

This is a great reason to choose one school over the other, because we all know that rankings dont change from year to year 👎
 
Of course they change from year to year!! from Chicago and Vandy being tied at 16 to Chicago number 13 and Vandy number 15. Clearly, Chicago wins. 😉 😉 😉

I sure hope you got my sarcasm in the last post. That's what the winky dude was for. I'll try again. 😉 😉 😉 😉 😉 😉 😉
 
OP, sorry to bog down your thread. Both schools are clearly awesome, and you have a tough, but great, decision in front of you. Best!
 
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