UVA vs Emory

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Hey all,

I'm currently having a difficult time deciding whether to attend Emory or UVA SOM. The schools are incredibly similar in many regards and I'm particularly curious whether the difference in ranking (21 vs 25) has any effect on residency matching.

Input from students who previously chose between the two would be greatly appreciated.

 

[sector9]

Moving to "School specific discussions"

 

[drizzt3117]

Hey all,

I'm currently having a difficult time deciding whether to attend Emory or UVA SOM. The schools are incredibly similar in many regards and I'm particularly curious whether the difference in ranking (21 vs 25) has any effect on residency matching.

Input from students who previously chose between the two would be greatly appreciated.

I'd pick emory personally, broader pt population and a vibrant, diverse city. Schools are similar in rep tho, no real difference in applying to residencies.

 

[protonate]

Hey all,

I'm currently having a difficult time deciding whether to attend Emory or UVA SOM. The schools are incredibly similar in many regards and I'm particularly curious whether the difference in ranking (21 vs 25) has any effect on residency matching.

Input from students who previously chose between the two would be greatly appreciated.

Doesn't Emory still have grades during pre-clinical years?

 

[kexy]

Doesn't Emory still have grades during pre-clinical years?

No, I'm pretty sure they are pass/fail during pre-clinical.

 

[90minIPA]

Doesn't Emory still have grades during pre-clinical years?

Nope. Emory has been P/F without preclinical ranking since 2007.

I think you should go to the second looks and try to get a feel for each school. These schools have very different locations, patient populations, preclinical curricula, clinical teaching sites, etc. As an Emory student I'm inclined to recruit you (srsly, Emory is awesome...), but I think your decision will mostly come down to personal fit.

You can't really make a wrong decision here, both schools are solid.

 

[Veritas86]

I was wondering this myself. Strongly leaning toward UVA for undergrad and postbac. But I've heard good things about Emory too.

 

[afob100]

So I can (sorta) comment on this since I interviewed at Emory (then withdrew) and ended up choosing UVA (due to the awesome financial aid). I think my biggest issue with Emory was Grady Hospital. Now a lot of the students there loved the hospital with its hand-on experiences and inner-city patient population. But personally, I did not find this appealing...the hospital was plagued with financial troubles when I interviewed and it seemed severely understaffed = I guess more opportunity for med students?.

Students also did not seem to like their rotations at the actual Emory Hospital because of its largely private patient population (I'm guessing students don't get to do much since those patients don't want students working on them?).

I think UVA has a nice mix because the University Hospital sees patients from all over the state and surrounding states = a different kind of diverse patient population (more rural patients from Southwest VA, WV, TN) but also relatively well-off patients from central VA. Also, away rotations in Salem + Roanoke allow you to get some more hands-on exposure similar to Grady but in a less chaotic setting.

In all honesty, the schools are very similar quality-wise...your best bet is to choose on location/finances. Don't underestimate the amount of financial aid you could receive from UVA...they give up to $17k for OOS students bringing tuition to $34k compared to Emory' ~$46k (minus whatever aid they give). Also note that cost of living is MUCH lower in cville...you can get a decent apartment within walking distance of the school for $500-600 a month including everything.

But assuming the school costs are similar, where would you fit in? Urban (Atlanta) or suburban/rural (cville)? Do you enjoy hiking/outdoorsy activities or the city-life?

I think it's definitely a personal choice and you can't go wrong with either school.

 

[90minIPA]

I think my biggest issue with Emory was Grady Hospital. Now a lot of the students there loved the hospital with its hand-on experiences and inner-city patient population. But personally, I did not find this appealing...the hospital was plagued with financial troubles when I interviewed and it seemed severely understaffed = I guess more opportunity for med students?

This is the archetypal county hospital environment. You'll see this at Cook County, Bellevue, BMC, LA county etc... All of these hospitals hemorrhage money because they care primarily for under-served populations. If the county hospital environment doesn't appeal to you, it's something to take into consideration when choosing schools.

But med students at Emory uniformly love Grady. The patients are memorable, pathology is diverse, work is gratifying, and students become excellent clinicians in this type of environment. It's hard work but it pays off.

Students also did not seem to like their rotations at the actual Emory Hospital because of its largely private patient population (I'm guessing students don't get to do much since those patients don't want students working on them?).

Hmm. I can't speak for the student you mention, but EUH has a reputation for having excellent clinical teaching among students here. I've only heard good things about rotations at Emory, and many of my classmates are plenty active in their Primary Care preceptorships at Emory Clinic.

I wouldn't put TOO much stock in a conversation from the interview day anyway... you'd want to go to second look and spend more time speaking with multiple students.

 

[mvenus929]

This is the archetypal county hospital environment. You'll see this at Cook County, Bellevue, BMC, LA county etc... All of these hospitals hemorrhage money because they care primarily for under-served populations. If the county hospital environment doesn't appeal to you, it's something to take into consideration when choosing schools.

Just for the record, UVA cares for the entire indigent population of Virginia. We get people who come down from Alexandria and Fairfax, etc because they don't have insurance and thus can't go to the multitude of hospitals in the DC area. We're also the tertiary care center for all of southwest Virginia, so we get a lot of zebras as well. It's probably not as busy as Grady (I've never seen that hospital, so I couldn't really tell you one way or the other), but we do have an amazing mix of patients.

 

[drizzt3117]

Just for the record, UVA cares for the entire indigent population of Virginia. We get people who come down from Alexandria and Fairfax, etc because they don't have insurance and thus can't go to the multitude of hospitals in the DC area. We're also the tertiary care center for all of southwest Virginia, so we get a lot of zebras as well. It's probably not as busy as Grady (I've never seen that hospital, so I couldn't really tell you one way or the other), but we do have an amazing mix of patients.

The thing is, unless you're rotating at one of the inner city hospitals, you won't get the same mix of patients that you'll get at an inner city county hospital. At our interview day at Grady they showed us an echo and cardiac MRI cine of a patient with a knife fragment still lodged in their myocardium that moved with each beat, and a MRI of a woman with an invasive breast cancer that had ulcerated through her skin and more of the tumor was outside of her than inside. There's a mix of undertreated (or nevertreated) people with crazy presentations of chronic disease and ridiculous trauma that you won't find elsewhere. The two months I spent at an inner city Milwaukee hospital were pretty eye opening.

 

[mvenus929]

The thing is, unless you're rotating at one of the inner city hospitals, you won't get the same mix of patients that you'll get at an inner city county hospital. At our interview day at Grady they showed us an echo and cardiac MRI cine of a patient with a knife fragment still lodged in their myocardium that moved with each beat, and a MRI of a woman with an invasive breast cancer that had ulcerated through her skin and more of the tumor was outside of her than inside. There's a mix of undertreated (or nevertreated) people with crazy presentations of chronic disease and ridiculous trauma that you won't find elsewhere. The two months I spent at an inner city Milwaukee hospital were pretty eye opening.

I'm by no means saying it's the same. We don't have nearly as many traumas as a large city has, period. But my roommate saw a patient recently with invasive cervical cancer because she hadn't followed up on her abnormal pap many years ago. One of the family medicine attendings told us a story about how he found a three-month old tampon on a pelvic exam. The people in rural Virginia don't go to the doctor unless they absolutely need to most of the time, so we can see some pretty strange things in a typical day at clinic. Not knife lodged in the myocardium amazing, but some very odd presentations none-the-less. And it's a large mix of people from the very well off to people who have no where else to go to people from all over the world (Charlottesville is an International Refugee Committee site, so we get a lot of refugees as well).

tl;dr: it's not the same mix of patients, but that doesn't mean it's not an interesting mix. We're not a homogeneous population.

 

[ddez]

Choose the cheaper school after financial aid. Both very good schools in anyone's view. All things being equal though, I'd choose Emory in a heartbeat. Virginia may be > Georgia, but Atlanta > Virginia.

 

[jdover52]

Hey all,

I'm currently having a difficult time deciding whether to attend Emory or UVA SOM. The schools are incredibly similar in many regards and I'm particularly curious whether the difference in ranking (21 vs 25) has any effect on residency matching.

Input from students who previously chose between the two would be greatly appreciated.

OP, I was in the exact same situation 3 years ago, trying to decide between UVA and Emory. Both schools had great students and I got a good vibe from both places when I interviewed. I ended up choosing Emory because of location and cost. Atlanta > Charlottesville, nothing against Charlottesville but Atlanta has more things to see/do/experience. As for cost, with the financial aid packages, cost was similar for me (cost of living was slightly more expensive in Atlanta, although Atlanta is an extremely cheap city considering its size)

Lastly, if you're at all interested in MPH/global health or infectious disease, Emory SOM works very closely with Rollins MPH program and the CDC (med students are automatically accepted into the MPH program if they want to). Hope that helps, PM me if you have other questions.

 

[justinbaily]

I ended up withdrawing from Emory because I didn't want to move to Atlanta for clinical rotations. I've also never bought the argument that doing your rotations in a hospital where the housestaff is chronically overwhelmed is a great educational experience. In my somewhat limited experience so far, I've found that I get to do the most interesting and challenging things when the UVA residents and attendings have the time to supervise and teach. I remember a student explaining to me that at some of the larger public hospitals you got to be the one to place IVs, etc because the residents and the nursing staff were too busy, but here you could ask any nurse if you could insert an IV or draw blood on their patient and the overwhelming majority will be happy to walk you through each step.

I've been very impressed by the variety of pathology, the quality of teaching and the diverse patient population at UVA. I also really like Charlottesville and the proximity of the medical center to the main grounds and the corner.

 

[Steeler7588]

My two favorite schools when I was applying! I'm at UVa now.

To answer your main (only?) question: I don't think you need to worry about any difference in prestige when applying for residency. They seem to be pretty similarly regarded.

Other than that, pick by which school you felt most comfortable at. Cost. Location. Your third year experience will be very different (for the record, I like UVa's setup a lot but I thought Grady would have been a neat place to be as well). You finish basic sciences at 1.5 years at both places and they're both P/F - awesome things. Emory does mandate 5 months of research, whereas UVa allows you that option but by no means requires you to do that time - useful if you have no interest in that.

Both are schools I liked a lot. I'm happy at UVa, would've been happy at Emory. Good luck with your decision!

 

[PaedsDoc]

Hey guys, I have a question about UVA - how many weeks are the mandatory "away" rotations for clearkships?

 

[ilikesports]

Hey guys, I have a question about UVA - how many weeks are the mandatory "away" rotations for clearkships?

See the current UVa thread. Sounds like average is 10-12 weeks and none if you have children.