100% cheaper to be living in Brisbane (i've made myself an excel file for all the expenses at each school)! Same boat here with the Sydney interview LOL
This is so hard!
Congrats! Yup the cohort for UQ for the first two years sounds massive given there's the US cohort too and there's a lot of recorded lectures which can be a pro or a con depending on one's learning style. I believe it's 21 days unless seats get filled up first. (which ever comes first).
For living expenses at Sydney vs Brisbane i've done some rough math (in AUD) :
UQ: assuming $200/week rent for a private room near campus (based on current prices and you could go cheaper too) + tuition accounting for annual increase of 6% --> your looking at $396,609 at the end of the 4 years for rent + school.
Consider adding around $6000 for airfare for the 3 rotations that you might want to do outside of Australia (this could be less or more depending on where you are flying to and when you are flying). In addition, assuming 2 months /rotations (~ 9 weeks each) for 6 months in total, I've budgeted $10, 000. This again depends on where you are thinking of doing your rotations and if you happen to have family or someone taking down some of the expenses. This is definitely a key advantage of the program in that you can do some of your rotations in Canada (Queens University) or US to network for residency. If so we're looking at $412,609 at the end of 4 years at UQ.
Sydney: assuming $300/week rent for a private room near campus (i've also been able to find some for around $250 but feel that this would be more realistic) + tuition --> $409,290 at the end of the 4 years at Sydney.
Sydney also allows for 1 elective rotation abroad, so assuming that doing a rotation is Canada at McMaster is something you want then it's around $2000 for airfare and $2000 for rent and living expenses. So, we're looking at around $413,290 at the end of it all.
*Food, books/supplies and other living expenses are pretty variable depending on the person so I didn't include my own here. I'm thinking $20, 000 over the 4 years is probably reasonable depending on how you're going to live your life or if you are thinking of working while in school or during summer holidays
