UVM vs. Brown

[careerchanger16]

I feel very fortunate to hold acceptances to these two programs, but am struggling to decide between them. I am looking for advice on how to choose. Realistically I'm going to have to wait for financial aid packages to be released to make a final decision but outlined below are some of my pros/cons for each.

UVM
Pros

• In-state tuition ~40k
• Cost of living will essentially zero b/c my long-term partner is able to support me while I’m in school
• Support system: My partner and their family are in Burlington, which means help with tasks around the house, cleaning, making meals, grocery shopping, etc. We do Sunday night dinners all together which is a lovely tradition
• Match list is good
• People seem to like the program
• Both pre-clinical and clinical coursework is pass/fail releasing some level of stress
• Burlington is beautiful (right on the water surrounded by mountains) can go sailing, hiking, biking, etc very easily

Cons

• Very little diversity in the patient population
• Impression from interview day was just lukewarm from faculty and students. Didn’t really feel like ‘my place’.
• Lower acuity compared to a big city
• Don’t love the small city (limited food options, lack of public transportation)
• Lack of grades (everything being pass fail) to differentiate you makes me worried it will be difficult to stand out in residency applications and make it harder to match into a prestigious program.
• Worry that I don’t really fit the personality of the school as everyone here seems to be passionate about whatever extreme sport they do and I’m more of a curl up with a book kind of person.
• The school has a huge issue with parking. You have to park in a lot about 25 min walk away, and on a cold dark, VT morning is just really not ideal. Sounds silly, but sometimes the little inconveniences add up.

Brown
Pros

• Impressive match list (like MGH, Yale, Columbia, big name places)
• I hear Providence is a great city, people love living there (food, events, amenities, etc)
• I am interested in academics and policy work, which is a focus at Brown and I feel prestige may matter in these worlds
• I loved my interview day, I just got such good vibes from everyone there
• Higher acuity of a big city
• Diversity of pt population
• Impressive faculty and mentorship
• Scholarly concentrations that align with my interests and will help differentiate me in residency applications
• Amazing facilities, recently built

Cons

• Tuition ~74K (with health insurance and fees) average aid package is $34,000
• Cost of living (guessing: rent $1500/month, food $400/month, gas/other $200 month)
• Lack of support system. long distance relationship, will have to find time to drive back to Burlington (4hour drive) which sounds stressful (maybe impossible) during the first two years. My partner thinks they can relocate to Providence in two years but doesn’t really want to.
• Lots of PLME (high school link program) students, makes me nervous about the maturity of the incoming class.
• Moving sucks and idk if I’ll be able to find a nice apartment in my price range

Similarities: Curriculum. Class size. Students at both schools say they love their respective programs and that student happiness is high.

Summary: Overall I think Brown can be viewed as the more expensive, prestigious choice and UVM can be viewed as the easy, cheap option with more support. I'm tempted to pick UVM due to how easy it would be to transition, but I’m having a hard time letting Brown go because it feels like the better fit (if only considering the school, nothing else). However, the difference in cost is really worth considering as we are fast approaching another recession. Is the debt worth it?

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[ParadoxDelta]

UVM student here, so slight bias. Love my school, very fortunate to go here.
I think having a support system is super important in med school, and the Sunday night dinners would be a lovely way to not find yourself feeling stuck in the library all the time. As for your cons...patient population definitely isn't the very sick patients of an inner city, however we do see a variety of pathology and our catchment area includes rural VT as well as parts of northern NY. For grades, most schools are now P/F during preclinicals and UVM has a reputation for training clinically strong physicians, there's also time to pursue other academic passions (advocacy, research, education) to help your application stand out. Parking is definitely +/-, during clerkships we get closer parking for those really early mornings.
Regardless, feel free to DM if you have more questions.

 

[chilly_md]

Brown is not really a more prestigious option. If they do not offer significant aid, I do not see any real advantage going there over your IS option where you have a close support system. P/F will save you stress, schools will be looking for your Step 2 score and other things. They may still mention in a letter about how strong of a student you are.

 

[BritainKittenMittens]

I think Brown tries to balance it's young students with older non-trads, at least that's the gist I got from interviewing way back.

Seems like a personal decision, both pros and cons seem equally weighted and depends on preference. No one would fault you for either decision.

 

[careerchanger16]

Brown is not really a more prestigious option. If they do not offer significant aid, I do not see any real advantage going there over your IS option where you have a close support system. P/F will save you stress, schools will be looking for your Step 2 score and other things. They may still mention in a letter about how strong of a student you are.

Thank you for your advice. I was wondering if you could expand upon Brown not being more prestigious. As much as I hate to admit it, the name is part of the pull. I would love to hear that it makes no difference to make my decision easier. My understanding is that there should be little difference in the clinical training school to school. However, I do worry that it does make a difference down the road if, in the future, I hope to be involved in academic medicine. And does it make a difference to go to a school whose mission, specialties, and opportunities outside of the classroom align with your own? Thoughts?

 

[chilly_md]

Thank you for your advice. I was wondering if you could expand upon Brown not being more prestigious. As much as I hate to admit it, the name is part of the pull. I would love to hear that it makes no difference to make my decision easier. My understanding is that there should be little difference in the clinical training school to school. However, I do worry that it does make a difference down the road if, in the future, I hope to be involved in academic medicine. And does it make a difference to go to a school whose mission, specialties, and opportunities outside of the classroom align with your own? Thoughts?

The name is because of the undergrad. That does not extend to its medical school. It is a good program, but so is Vermont. If you want to pursue a competitive speciality, you can at Vermont. It is hard to justify spending around 200k more based on be details you shared.

Scholarly concentrations are just there to make it more convenient for you. You can still pursue research in the area you like or a similar opportunity at Vermont. The concentration itself likely does not matter much but the associated activities that come with it.

 

[careerchanger16]

The name is because of the undergrad. That does not extend to its medical school. It is a good program, but so is Vermont. If you want to pursue a competitive speciality, you can at Vermont. It is hard to justify spending around 200k more based on be details you shared.

Scholarly concentrations are just there to make it more convenient for you. You can still pursue research in the area you like or a similar opportunity at Vermont. The concentration itself likely does not matter much but the associated activities that come with it.

Thank you! I agree 100% about the cost difference. If I was comparing in-state UVM vs. no aid at Brown, the choice would be made. I think I would need to receive significant aid from Brown to justify choosing that program, but they do have large financial resources so we'll see what happens.

I really appreciate your and other's advice in thinking through this decision! Thank you.

 

[amateurbater]

The name is because of the undergrad. That does not extend to its medical school. It is a good program, but so is Vermont. If you want to pursue a competitive speciality, you can at Vermont. It is hard to justify spending around 200k more based on be details you shared.

Scholarly concentrations are just there to make it more convenient for you. You can still pursue research in the area you like or a similar opportunity at Vermont. The concentration itself likely does not matter much but the associated activities that come with it.

If it doesn’t extend to the medical school, I’m curious why the match list is so strong relative to its ranking. Ivy connections, perhaps?

 

[BritainKittenMittens]

If it doesn’t extend to the medical school, I’m curious why the match list is so strong relative to its ranking. Ivy connections, perhaps?

Its med school isn't as "resourced" as its undergrad and even as prestigious in the medical community, which means the training is probably in line with its tier (upper middle, t30-t40), it still is an Ivy league school so its medical school has "prestige." What this means is it can still attract students from top schools (which it tends to interview from, and a good number are ivy league by virtue of its own undergrad linkage whatever that is called). So these students already tend to be driven, have good research experience, and in many ways, come from privileged backgrounds even by med student standards.

Its student population might explain why its match list is stronger at least historically. For example, by doing a google search I see that Brown has a higher MCAT score than UVM, and this continues on to step 1 and step 2, so when residencies used to care more about scores, this could be a factor. Brown also is closer to more of the action in terms of research, given its proximity to Boston as well as its own research opportunities. And lastly, yeah some residencies might factor in the brand name bias too. If you're a PD and you've historically accepted Brown med students into your program before and they've performed well, you're more likely to in the future.

I can't comment on the relative hospital systems for clinical training, but it was my understanding that for Brown, you have to rotate through a few in RI since it doesn't have its own system. I would think this wouldn't be considered a strong clinical training, since the big name ones like Harvard, Hopkins, Penn, Columbia/Cornell, UCSF, UMich, UCLA, Stanford, Northwestern have beast hospital systems according to hospital rankings and strong residency programs according to doximity. I have no idea what the UVM hospital system is like.

Even though the training might be closer to each other, if it were based on brand name and academia alone, I'd still go with Brown. Lay prestige is actually pretty big, and rankings change--Brown is more likely to rise in the medical school community than UVM.

 

[amateurbater]

Its med school isn't as "resourced" as its undergrad and even as prestigious in the medical community, which means the training is probably in line with its tier (upper middle, t30-t40), it still is an Ivy league school so its medical school has "prestige." What this means is it can still attract students from top schools (which it tends to interview from, and a good number are ivy league by virtue of its own undergrad linkage whatever that is called). So these students already tend to be driven, have good research experience, and in many ways, come from privileged backgrounds even by med student standards.

Its student population might explain why its match list is stronger at least historically. For example, by doing a google search I see that Brown has a higher MCAT score than UVM, and this continues on to step 1 and step 2, so when residencies used to care more about scores, this could be a factor. Brown also is closer to more of the action in terms of research, given its proximity to Boston as well as its own research opportunities. And lastly, yeah some residencies might factor in the brand name bias too. If you're a PD and you've historically accepted Brown med students into your program before and they've performed well, you're more likely to in the future.

I can't comment on the relative hospital systems for clinical training, but it was my understanding that for Brown, you have to rotate through a few in RI since it doesn't have its own system. I would think this wouldn't be considered a strong clinical training, since the big name ones like Harvard, Hopkins, Penn, Columbia/Cornell, UCSF, UMich, UCLA, Stanford, Northwestern have beast hospital systems according to hospital rankings and strong residency programs according to doximity. I have no idea what the UVM hospital system is like.

Even though the training might be closer to each other, if it were based on brand name and academia alone, I'd still go with Brown. Lay prestige is actually pretty big, and rankings change--Brown is more likely to rise in the medical school community than UVM.

From schools I’ve interviewed at, I’m personally ranking Brown pretty highly because of how supportive the administration seemed and how happy the students are. With regards to training, I feel that Brown punches above its weight with its instruction, quality of professors, and quality of students. As someone who knows what he wants out of his education, Brown allows for a customizable education—pursue whatever dual degree/research you want was the sense that I got. Maybe I’m looking at it through rose colored glasses, considering it was my dream school in undergrad, but prestige extends beyond rankings. It’s wishy-washy and hard to pin down, speaking as someone who went to a “prestigious” school that no one outside the south has ever heard of. I’d say Brown is in the same tier that Virginia or Case is when it comes to “prestige.” It’s match list agrees. Now, I would still pick UVM if it’s really a 200k difference since I don’t believe the outcomes differ that much.

 

[chilly_md]

If it doesn’t extend to the medical school, I’m curious why the match list is so strong relative to its ranking. Ivy connections, perhaps?

As mentioned by BritainKittenMittens in detail, the school gets applicants from other Ivy League undergrads and high stat applicants who want to to avoid having a top heavy school list. These students who ultimately matriculate may be keen on pursuing competitive specialties. I personally think applicants would place UVA and Case above them based on past threads.

 

[careerchanger16]

Thank you to all those who offered advice and asked questions in this thread! For whatever it's worth to close the loop: In the end, Brown offered me a very significant financial aid package that ultimately swayed my decision to choose Brown over UVM. It was an extremely hard decision but ultimately felt this was the right choice for me personally. Good luck to anyone working through this decision-making process and to anyone who finds this thread in the future. Listen to your gut and you can't go wrong. 🙂