UMich vs Vanderbilt vs UCLA

[gekyumewrld]

UMich - Full Tuition Scholarship + 54k (COA ~100K)

• Pros
  • Cheapest option (+++)
  • One year preclinical (+++)
  • Option to do MD/MBA (++)
  • Large class size (++)
• Cons
  • Tiered clinical grading (---)
  • AOA (---)
  • Would have to do four years of long distance with SO because there are no jobs in Ann Arbor (---)
  • MPSE Adjectives (--)
  • Ann Arbor seems kind of boring (--)
  • Far from SO and friends in NYC and family in SoCal (--)
  • Unsure how stressed students really are. I went to the SLW and everybody seemed fun and relaxed, but I'm scared about the grading scheme and internal ranking system. I've always been more of a chill person, so I don't know if my vibe matches UMich.

Vanderbilt (COA ~300k)

• Pros
  • True PF, both preclinical and clinical (+++)
  • No AOA or MPSE adjectives (+++)
  • One year preclinical (+++)
  • Already familiar with Nashville and love the city (++)
  • It seems like everybody here is genuinely pretty happy. I'm close friends with a current student who loves Vandy and says its a pretty low-stress environment
• Cons
  • Money. It's $200k more to go to Vandy than Michigan. (---)
  • Far from SO and friends in NYC and family in SoCal (--), but I feel like I fit in better with the students here than in Michigan, and I'm already good friends with a current student

UCLA (COA ~280k)

• Pros
  • True PF, both preclinical and clinical (except Sub-I's during 4th year) (+++)
  • No AOA or MPSE Adjectives (+++)
  • One year preclinical (+++)
  • Best location of the three. My family is in SoCal, my SO could move with me to LA after a year (+++)
  • Large class size (++)
  • Vibes. I'd say of these three schools, the students at UCLA seemed the happiest. (++)
  • My family is in SoCal, and my parents are getting older (++)
• Cons
  • Money. It's $180k more to go to UCLA than Michigan (---)
  • Prestige in medicine? Lowest of the three but not really worried about this.

• Summary: Firstly, I'd like to say that I'm very, very grateful for the situation that I am in now. I never would have imagined that my cycle would have gone the way it did. Having said that, I feel like UMich is my top choice right now just because of the financial aid I received. I come from a low-income background, so this is pretty important to me. However, if it weren't for the money, I would have preferred to go to either UCLA or Vandy. I'm not 100% on pursuing a competitive specialty, but I want to keep doors open (even though I know that all three of these schools will do that for me). I'm really turned off by the grading scheme at Michigan, and it seems to be a more competitive environment which I really dislike. If money weren't a factor, I definitely would have gone to Vanderbilt with my second choice being UCLA. I just feel like going $200k more in debt for a marginal difference in terms of outcomes and "vibes" is a short-sighted decision. Does anyone have any input? Thanks in advance.

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[Bowel-Plumber]

Before I comment on your list, I’m a little confused by your scholarship from Michigan. They gave you a full tuition scholarship and a $54k annual stipend?

If so, why should your COA cost $100k? There’s no way you need $54k + 25k per year to live in Michigan as a med student unless I’m missing something

 

[gekyumewrld]

Before I comment on your list, I’m a little confused by your scholarship from Michigan. They gave you a full tuition scholarship and a $54k annual stipend?

If so, why should your COA cost $100k? There’s no way you need $54k + 25k per year to live in Michigan as a med student unless I’m missing something

Sorry, I should have been clearer! The $54k is for all four years. I am getting $13.5k per year.

 

[Bowel-Plumber]

Unless money doesn't matter to you (family helping, expecting to go into high paying specialty, banking on loan forgiveness staying as is or improving), there is a clear winner here.

Michigan has as good or better reputation than the others and will save you about 200k

I think you find Ann Arbor is an absolutely amazing city--the quintessential college town. Great restaurants, bars, sports, arts. Weather is basically the same as NYC area.

Flights are frequent, short, and cheap to NYC.

No way I would pay an extra 200k for Vandy or UCLA over Michigan unless money didn't matter to me. Which, unfortunately, it does.

Congrats on a great cycle! Best of luck with your decision!

Going to agree with this

I hear this conversation all the time and I get how relaxing true P/F can be during clerkships but I don't know what dollar amount I'd attribute to it. I personally believe 200k is pretty steep for that. Also, the fact that you said that you'd choose Vandy over UCLA means UCLA is out of your list since the cost difference between Vandy and UCLA is only 20k. It seems like we narrowed it down to UMich vs Vandy.

So it seems like, based on your preferences of Financial Aid vs Vandy Vibes, you're fine with moving away and being in a long distance relationship (LDR) since we ruled out UCLA in your post. I personally would go with UMich at this point. I think I'll sleep fine at night with going to a school with graded clerkships. M3 clerkships (or I guess M2 since they're 1 year preclinical) are going to suck any way you look at it and I don't think I would pay $200k more just to make that 1 year better by a bit. I still think we're all going to suffer whether clerkships are graded or not. I think the benefit is minimal compared to the years of paying off the debt. But that's just my opinion.

Now if you really value proximity to family and SO, then I would say paying the extra 180k is worth going to UCLA in my opinion. I feel like that's 4 years of being where you want to be plus it removes the strain of an LDR which ruins a lot of relationships and potential marriages so I feel like that 180k is better spent on multiple years of improving your life rather than paying the premium to make your 1 year in clerkships just 10% better or so.

Nonetheless, you should take your UMich offer and hit up both Vandy and UCLA to see if they can do anything. Assuming they can't, my vote goes to UMich in this case. Congrats!

 

[ioloil]

UMich sounds like the winner here, it's a great program and you get more aid. Win win!

 

[deleted1157211]

FWIW-- I've been told students at UMich want the tiered clinical grading to be able to "distinguish" themselves. The recent switch from bell curve to criteria-based grading takes away the comparison aspect which I think is a huge plus. Coming from someone who is choosing to stay in Ann Arbor over returning home to the east coast, this place is amazing and a 1-2hr flight from places like NYC, DC, Boston.