UPDATED! Brody (ECU) vs Rush

[just_a_bagel]

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

• 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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[ClashRoyaleKing]

What are your goals for residency? Academic medicine or research? Competitive specialty? If you want to go into a more competitive specialty or want to have the capacity to potential match competitive, I'd think Loyola or Rush would be the way to go. If not, probably save the money and go to Brody. 58k for tuition is not that bad for a private school, to be honest. I'm staring down the barrel of 70k tuitions at some of the schools I interviewed at. If you need to go to Loyola or Rush to accomplish your goals in medicine, I think 56k or 58k for tuition is a steal.

 

[hydroflaskhomie]

I don't think Rush or Loyola has enough of an edge over Brody here, follow the money.

Only thing that would give me pause is if the STEP passing rate is like <85%, then that feels like a problem.

 

[just_a_bagel]

What are your goals for residency? Academic medicine or research? Competitive specialty? If you want to go into a more competitive specialty or want to have the capacity to potential match competitive, I'd think Loyola or Rush would be the way to go. If not, probably save the money and go to Brody. 58k for tuition is not that bad for a private school, to be honest. I'm staring down the barrel of 70k tuitions at some of the schools I interviewed at. If you need to go to Loyola or Rush to accomplish your goals in medicine, I think 56k or 58k for tuition is a steal.

I don’t think I want to do research. I’m thinking I’ll likely do IM and then choose from there - maybe cardiology, nephrology, not quite sure. If I don’t do IM, I would think I’ll probably do OBGYN or Psych. So neither of those are especially competitive to my knowledge. I don’t know exactly what I want to do but I don’t think I’ll feel very passionate abt surgery lol but I want to ideally have a private practice in the future. I totally hear you that 56-58k isn’t bad, but compared to 22k it feels hard to justify. But I don’t want to choose a school that will limit my options, esp because I’m not set on what I want to do and I want to be open.

 

[just_a_bagel]

I don't think Rush or Loyola has enough of an edge over Brody here, follow the money.

Only thing that would give me pause is if the STEP passing rate is like <85%, then that feels like a problem.

I will definitely ask what their STEP passing is. I talked to a student there who told me that since Brody only accepts NC students and has a lower MCAT avg, there’s a chance that the students attracted to that school may be ones who for demographic reasons may struggle academically? Not entirely sure. But you’re saying that if the STEP pass rate is below 85%, it makes you hesitate that the curriculum doesn’t prepare students for the exam? Is there a way I can individually work to make sure this doesn’t happen if I study ahead of time and start with third party resources near the beginning of M2?

 

[ClashRoyaleKing]

I don’t think I want to do research. I’m thinking I’ll likely do IM and then choose from there - maybe cardiology, nephrology, not quite sure. If I don’t do IM, I would think I’ll probably do OBGYN or Psych. So neither of those are especially competitive to my knowledge. I don’t know exactly what I want to do but I don’t think I’ll feel very passionate abt surgery lol but I want to ideally have a private practice in the future. I totally hear you that 56-58k isn’t bad, but compared to 22k it feels hard to justify. But I don’t want to choose a school that will limit my options, esp because I’m not set on what I want to do and I want to be open.

With that information, definitely go to Brody!

 

[hydroflaskhomie]

I will definitely ask what their STEP passing is. I talked to a student there who told me that since Brody only accepts NC students and has a lower MCAT avg, there’s a chance that the students attracted to that school may be ones who for demographic reasons may struggle academically? Not entirely sure. But you’re saying that if the STEP pass rate is below 85%, it makes you hesitate that the curriculum doesn’t prepare students for the exam? Is there a way I can individually work to make sure this doesn’t happen if I study ahead of time and start with third party resources near the beginning of M2?

I would say that I’d be more worried that students aren’t counseled/directed well if passing is below 80-85%. Definitely you can control your own destiny, just do Uworld and 3rd party resources like sketchy etc.

 

[just_a_bagel]

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.

 

[m1redsox]

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.

Even anesthesia, gen surg, and radiology are reasonable from any USMD school if you apply to the right programs. I think you would be at a disadvantage with derm and the surgical subspecialties though (plastics, ortho, nsg, ent, ophtho). Go to ECU if you're comfortable ruling those out.

 

[just_a_bagel]

Even anesthesia, gen surg, and radiology are reasonable from any USMD school if you apply to the right programs. I think you would be at a disadvantage with derm and the surgical subspecialties though (plastics, ortho, nsg, ent, ophtho). Go to ECU if you're comfortable ruling those out.

Will I be limiting myself in any specialities that aren’t derm & surgical subspecialties? My mentor and my M4 friend were saying Rush’s name will carry further for residencies than ECU will. Will ECU limit me to staying in NC? I don’t mind the idea of staying in NC but I also don’t want to limit myself to that.

 

[m1redsox]

It will not limit you location-wise. With region and program-specific signaling, you can match anywhere. Students at ECU tend to match in that region because that’s where they’re from and they want to stay, not because they can’t leave. However, ECU’s reputation as a low tier MD program may limit you with the big name T20 programs in many/most specialties. Those programs tend to take students from other T20 schools. Does it limit you that much more than Rush to justify the price difference? Hard to know. Probably not. Most of matching is dependent on the individual.