Wake Forest vs. Hofstra

[BrahmsFan]

Hofstra:
Pros -
*Location is way, way better
*Hofstra's close connection to Northwell Health --> some people have suggested this makes finding a residency much, much easier. Major pro if true, but is it?
*Very, very early clinical exposure. This is true of Wake too, but it seems like Hofstra takes it to another level
*True P/F system
Cons -
*The curriculum:
***Longer preclinical years than Wake (2 vs. 1.5)
***PEARLS --> it sounds like it will make learning things take needlessly long amounts of time, and I don't like that the students have to figure out what to learn from some vague case study. If any students could comment on this, that would be awesome
Wake Forest:
Pros -
*Alum of WFU - familiarity with everything and some connections already
*Have family that will be attending undergrad there
(traditional curriculum / short preclinical)
Cons -
(not P / F, location)

Summary: I much prefer the location of Hofstra, and would gladly pick it if I weren't worried that PEARLS will really be a time-consuming frustration throughout school. However, if applying to residency is way easier than at Wake, that could tip the scales.

(edit: I should add I want to do residency in the northeast, or near Chicago)

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[JohnJacobJingleheimer]

You sound a lot more excited about Hofstra, so Hofstra. I think you’ll have enough resources and opportunities for you.

 

[BrahmsFan]

While maybe true, it isn't really what I'm asking. I'm more interested in, does Hofstra open doors (i.e. make matching easier) that Wake won't? Supposedly it's an up and coming school that's respected in the northeast, but maybe Wake is just as sought after. And, as someone who has always preferred traditional learning, is PEARLS too much of a con?

 

[JohnJacobJingleheimer]

While maybe true, it isn't really what I'm asking. I'm more interested in, does Hofstra open doors (i.e. make matching easier) that Wake won't? Supposedly it's an up and coming school that's respected in the northeast, but maybe Wake is just as sought after. And, as someone who has always preferred traditional learning, is PEARLS too much of a con?

I don’t think either of these schools really open doors that the other doesn’t… that’s really only a thing when you’re comparing two schools with vastly different resources and reputations. I think both of these schools are mid tier programs, despite hofstras low ranking, and therefore leave plenty of options open to you, though you’ll have to work hard to standout at either school if you want to do something competitive. Regionally, there will be advantages for either school. So, if you want to match in NYC, Hofstra will open doors there more easily than Wake. That really only exist within their own immediate geographic region. As for PEARLS, I can’t really speak to that, nor do I believe anyone. Learning styles are completely independent. You know more about yourself and your style of learning than anyone on here, so you’ll be able to best make an educated guess as to whether or not that approach to learning is something you could adjust to.

 

[chilly_md]

Agree with the above. You won’t match easier at one school over the other. Hofstra students probably stay in the Northeast but then again, a lot of their students probably lived somewhere in the area beforehand. If you want to go to Chicago or some place in the northeast, Wake isn’t going to hold you back.

 

[BrahmsFan]

Perfect, thank you both! That makes sense - matching is pretty much the same, unless I were dead-set on NYC or something like that. This is exactly what I was looking to know - very helpful!

 

[TheDataKing]

Hofstra is not true p/f just fyi - for their second 100 weeks, "students earn a final grade of Honors, High Pass, Pass or Fail or a temporary designation of Conditional Pass in each of the six core clerkships (“courses”) (Psychiatry, Neurology, Obstetrics and Gynecology, Pediatrics, Medicine, and Surgery) of the Advanced Clinical Experience (ACE)." - you're graded H/HP/P/F in your core clerkships & in the MSPE (Dean's letter for residency) they have "A statement and graph that represents your overall comparative performance in medical school, relative to your peers, in which you are put into one of four school-specific categories (“adjectives”) used to differentiate among levels of student performance."

Wake Forest on the other hand is p/f in preclinical (it counts toward AOA still) and does use H/HP/P/F for clerkships but they do not rank students in the MSPE with adjectives/quartiles/etc. which is advantageous

true p/f is Yale/Vandy/etc who literally have clerkships and preclinical p/f