Originally posted by DRoshal@UHS
This choice is easy. I also got accepted into LECOM and UHS but you cannot even begin to compare these schools. UHS is bigger and more facilities. The curriculum at uhs is more systems based and clinically enriched. The school is in a city not in some town that nobody knows about. UHS also has the highest pass rate out of all the osteopathic schools on the COMLEX exam . The pass rate is 97.5percent. The school is also big on research since they will be opening a brand new research facility to conduct clinical research trials on campus. These are just a few reasons to obtain your osteopathic education at UHS-COM. Good luck.
1. Is bigger nescesarily better? Maybe you would enjoy the more intimate atmosphere at LECOM. And our class has over 200 people, which isn't exactly small by DO school standards.
2. I find it hard to believe that you can compare your curriculum with that of a school you don't attend. LECOM's LDP pathway is entirely systems based and you get clinical contact in the first semester. I'm sure UHS is great, but I'm not going to say that LECOM is better, since I've never been a student at your school.
3. Do you plan on being involved in research while in med school? Two of my close friends actually work in a lab on campus, but most students don't. If you are interested in research, UHS may have the advantage there. Depends if this is really important to you.
4. Erie is in fact a city, although a small city. To claim that nobody has ever heard of it is absurd. Its not a metropolis by any means, but its not some rural farmland either. And for the record, I don't even know where UHS is. So apparently not EVERYONE knows all about this place either. It just depends on your personal experience and exposure.
5. If you want a big-city experience, LECOM offers rotations in Pittsburgh, NYC, Cleveland, Philly, Detroit, to name a few. You can move to any one of these places after second year. But you don't have to decide until the beginning of second year, so you get a chance to do some research on hospitals, residencies, etc before you decide.
6. Board pass rates. Thats a pretty subjective statistic, since its not really defined in anyway. Do 97.5% of UHS students pass the boards? Is this on the first try, or just eventually? Does UHS prevent students with low GPAs or other weaknesses from actually taking the boards? I don't know the answers to these questions, but I do know that sometimes statistics can be misleading. If 97.5% of the entire student body at UHS passes the boards on the first try, then you can't argue, thats awesome. But be careful taking things at face value, since schools are also businesses, and marketing is a big part of any school. This is true of LECOM as well...
Good luck with whatever you decide, I'm sure UHS is a great school too! I love LECOM, I have been given every opportunity I could ask for here, and most of my professors know me by name. I don't regret coming here for a second. I would urge you to go by how you felt at each campus and by hard facts, not the opinions of students. We are all pretty partial to our own schools, and sometimes people may think they know more than they do about other schools. Go with your gut. Good luck either way!
