just_a_bagel
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I am so grateful to have options but I’m very overwhelmed by making this decision. I have a lot of thoughts and need a lot of advice so please bear with me. Any advice would be SOOO greatly appreciated.
UPDATE: I ruled out Stritch School of Medicine at Loyola Chicago. I got waitlisted at UNC. I’ve talked to 2 people close to me, one is an M4 who matched Ortho who said to choose Rush since I don’t know what I want and Rush gives me more options than Brody SOM. The other person I talked to was my mentor at my postbacc who said that if I’m leaning towards not choosing Radiology / Ortho / Anesthesiology / Derm / surgery then the price difference isn’t worth it for Rush even though she acknowledged that Rush would open more doors for me. She said that those doors are likely ones I won’t pursue.
Brody SOM at East Carolina University
Pros
Cons
Rush Medical College
Pros
Cons
Some other thoughts:
If you read all of this and care to respond, thank you SO much.
UPDATE: I ruled out Stritch School of Medicine at Loyola Chicago. I got waitlisted at UNC. I’ve talked to 2 people close to me, one is an M4 who matched Ortho who said to choose Rush since I don’t know what I want and Rush gives me more options than Brody SOM. The other person I talked to was my mentor at my postbacc who said that if I’m leaning towards not choosing Radiology / Ortho / Anesthesiology / Derm / surgery then the price difference isn’t worth it for Rush even though she acknowledged that Rush would open more doors for me. She said that those doors are likely ones I won’t pursue.
Brody SOM at East Carolina University
Pros
- Cheap tuition (22k per year, in state tuition) and cheap cost of living
- Close to home (I’m from NC)
- Small class size, feeling like I could make solid connections with faculty and staff since I’m someone who takes initiative to reach out
- Vast majority of M3 rotations are at its own hospital, so won’t have to travel far.
- Non-mandatory lectures, traditional curriculum, pass/fail preclinical.
Cons
- Doesn’t have some competitive speciality home residencies. Currently not sure what I want to pursue but I’m thinking it probably won’t be one of the super competitive ones, so I’m not sure how much this matters.
- Lower step pass rate than some other schools. I wonder how much of this is due to in-house exams and no NBME practice built into the curriculum, but I’m hoping I could get ahead of this by starting step studying earlier?
- Less funding for research
- I’m gay and not sure how Greenville, NC is going to feel about that lol. But of course I can get through anything for my medical education.
- Internal ranking
Rush Medical College
Pros
- Flipped classroom, seems like a cool curriculum style. All learning is on your own time and all class work is small group cases. Group of 6 students to 1 MD who facilitates. (I haven’t done flipped classroom before so I have no idea if this is a “pro”)
- Chicago has a lot of opportunities! And generally pretty liberal, which makes me feel good about living with my partner.
- Students seem really enthusiastic to be there
- Explore program - 20 hours of shadowing included in curriculum
- Integrated curriculum (1 pass system. Is this curriculum style a positive? I have no idea.), in-house exams
- No internal ranking. Pass/fail preclinical.
Cons
- Cost of living is a lot since the campus is located by downtown Chicago
- Expensive. Tuition is ~$56k
- Personally not a huge fan of living in such a big city but I could get through it if this is the best option for me.
Some other thoughts:
- In terms of cost I’m just comparing tuition instead of the entire cost of attendance, because the entire COA is hard to compare.
- I have NO idea if the extra $$ is worth it for Rush.
- Feeling concerned that I might not have enough access to research or subspecialty resources at Brody?
- As of right now I am waitlisted at UNC so I have to figure out where on my list UNC is when the time comes to choose a school or decide if I want to stay or get off the waitlist.
If you read all of this and care to respond, thank you SO much.
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