USC vs UCI

[stairway2seven]

hi everyone, I was accepted, very fortunately, at USC and am currently waitlisted at UCI.

I am currently looking into each school so I can have a decision ready if I were to be accepted at UCI and I wanted to ask the SDN community to cover all my bases.

The biggest factor is the money. I was not offered any scholarships and assuming that doesn't change, the difference is ~25k a year. Obviously this is a huge amount and should be the end of the story but I was very lucky to finish undergrad w/o any debt (actually with small surplus now since I've been working for 2 gap years) and have never cared much for money. With a physician's salary, it will be paid off sooner or later. I realize this may be a naive mindset that will probably change but this is how I feel right now.

The schools are ranked similarly and everyone I've talked to says they will provide excellent educations. I've heard the clinical education at USC is top notch and this, as well as the name recognition, will give me an edge when applying for residency. Can anyone attest to this? Or to the quality of UCI's clinical education?

Location - love both, not a factor, family/friends are close by
Specialty of interest - completely undecided, not even a clue
Research - plentiful opportunities at both schools from what I can tell

Anyone's thoughts would be much appreciated

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[Freeinfinity]

I would go to the cheaper one. Med school education is pretty standardized. Name recognition generally isn't as big of a factor as your Step scores, your letters of rec, your overall clinical performance in years 3 and 4, and your interview experience. There are very few things that are worth a 100k difference in cost. For me, a terrible location might, but both schools here are in SoCal. Also, cost of living in orange county would be a little less than LA.

 

[Oh_Gee]

sales tax is less in OC

 

[differentiating]

I don’t think Keck vs UCI will change your residency prospects significantly. If you get into UCI, I’d go with the cheaper option unless your heart is with Keck for other reasons.

 

[AlbinoHawk DO]

Go to the cheaper one.

Also, USC clinical are not top notch. Several people from my DO school, including me, did elective rotations at USC and found them to be nothing special

 

[GoSpursGo]

Moving to school x vs school y

 

[getdown]

hi everyone, I was accepted, very fortunately, at USC and am currently waitlisted at UCI.

I am currently looking into each school so I can have a decision ready if I were to be accepted at UCI and I wanted to ask the SDN community to cover all my bases.

The biggest factor is the money. I was not offered any scholarships and assuming that doesn't change, the difference is ~25k a year. Obviously this is a huge amount and should be the end of the story but I was very lucky to finish undergrad w/o any debt (actually with small surplus now since I've been working for 2 gap years) and have never cared much for money. With a physician's salary, it will be paid off sooner or later. I realize this may be a naive mindset that will probably change but this is how I feel right now.

Anyone's thoughts would be much appreciated

You should sticky this comment and come back in 8-10 years to see how you feel. Remember that interest compounds and hundreds of thousands of dollars @ 7% per year of residency is no fun. If you plan on sticking in OC you might want to factor COL and houses and see if you add that to your overall debt burden how you feel when you pay thousands of dollars a month on loans alone.

 

[realitysickness]

Go to the cheaper one.

Also, USC clinical are not top notch. Several people from my DO school, including me, did elective rotations at USC and found them to be nothing special

Hi there - could you please expand on why you feel the clinical rotations are not top notch? I thought one of the big selling points of Keck was that you get to train in LA County hospital system and that allows for working with underserved populations and getting a lot of great hands on experience...

 

[stairway2seven]

thanks for your input everyone! This pretty much reaffirmed what I suspected. Hopefully I get off the waitlist

 

[AlbinoHawk DO]

Hi there - could you please expand on why you feel the clinical rotations are not top notch? I thought one of the big selling points of Keck was that you get to train in LA County hospital system and that allows for working with underserved populations and getting a lot of great hands on experience...

We should establish that "not top notch" is not equivalent to saying bad. It's okay, but it is not like you'd be missing out at UCI. I will give you an example of one of my friend as something personal could expose me. This friend wanted to go into pediatrics. He auditioned at Keck. Over there they had a small patient load. He mentioned about 5 or so patients for a group consisting of a fellow, 2 residents and 3 med students (2 Keck students). Unlike every place he had been before, these senior members walked in with him and any medical student and basically ran the show while he was just the hands for the physical exam. Needless to say, 5 patients in this scenario or an 8-hour shift is not exactly great. Ultimately, my friend and others that rotated in other services ranked the program low even in comparison to Loma Linda or UCI.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not an expert on every rotation at USC. I don't know all their facilities, but based on my experience and what I heard from others, it was nothing special. The one I mentioned is more critical, but I have heard others say it was no different than any community hospital-based experienced they had while attending Western.

Ultimately, I'm saying that picking Keck just for the clinical rotations is not what I would do. I would say pick the cheapest school. Both USC and UCI should train you well.

 

[Quantal Reasoning]

Seems pretty clear that both are equally as appealing to you... wait for financial info

 

[differentiating]

We should establish that "not top notch" is not equivalent to saying bad. It's okay, but it is not like you'd be missing out at UCI. I will give you an example of one of my friend as something personal could expose me. This friend wanted to go into pediatrics. He auditioned at Keck. Over there they had a small patient load. He mentioned about 5 or so patients for a group consisting of a fellow, 2 residents and 3 med students (2 Keck students). Unlike every place he had been before, these senior members walked in with him and any medical student and basically ran the show while he was just the hands for the physical exam. Needless to say, 5 patients in this scenario or an 8-hour shift is not exactly great. Ultimately, my friend and others that rotated in other services ranked the program low even in comparison to Loma Linda or UCI.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not an expert on every rotation at USC. I don't know all their facilities, but based on my experience and what I heard from others, it was nothing special. The one I mentioned is more critical, but I have heard others say it was no different than any community hospital-based experienced they had while attending Western.

Ultimately, I'm saying that picking Keck just for the clinical rotations is not what I would do. I would say pick the cheapest school. Both USC and UCI should train you well.

In all fairness, my understanding is that the majority of USC/Keck’s peds patients are at CHLA, so that might not be the most representative depending on which hospital they rotated at (Keck vs County vs CHLA).

 

[AlbinoHawk DO]

In all fairness, my understanding is that the majority of USC/Keck’s peds patients are at CHLA, so that might not be the most representative depending on which hospital they rotated at (Keck vs County vs CHLA).

I'm not sure either what facility he rotated in, but it's not a 1 off type thing. Again, I'm not trying to say they have bad rotations. I'm just saying that compared to UCI I wouldn't use rotations as the determining factor for what school I'd choose to attend.

 

[cassyfrog]

UCI for sure.

 

[lalalallala]

I would go to UCI if you get in

 

[junejune]

Hi, I apologize for jumping into this post but I'm stuck making the same decision right now. Leaning toward UCI because my interview day was better there, but I'm just so hung up on what that extra 100k for USC (or any private med school in general) gets you. People are telling me both schools are fantastic and they're both mid tier, in SoCal, but that only makes the decision harder.

Wondering if you've made any progress on this decision and if anyone else has more input.

Thanks.

 

[lalalallala]

Hi, I apologize for jumping into this post but I'm stuck making the same decision right now. Leaning toward UCI because my interview day was better there, but I'm just so hung up on what that extra 100k for USC (or any private med school in general) gets you. People are telling me both schools are fantastic and they're both mid tier, in SoCal, but that only makes the decision harder.

Wondering if you've made any progress on this decision and if anyone else has more input.

Thanks.

You like UCI more but you are concerned that you would be getting something for that 100k that you would be missing out on at UCI? Just trying to make sure I am understanding it right. If you like UCI more then go there - especially since it costs less!! USC does not have something magical that that 100k is going to - it costs 100k more because it is a private school. It is just the nature of public vs private schooling and their sources of funding and the prices they can charge. UCI seems like a better choice in my opinion