Wake Forest vs Loyola vs UICOM

[indecisivepremed_]

Hello! I know it's late to talk about this but since I was fortunate to be accepted by three schools, Wake Forest and Loyola and UICOM, I want to learn some perspectives from everyone! I wish to specialize in Derm, Cardiology, or Radiology in the future. Which school will be a better fit? I enjoyed my interview days at each school and everyone seems to be very cool during my second look visits. The caveat is I was assigned to the Peoria campus for UICOM whereas Loyola would be in Maywood/Chicago and Wake Forest I would be in Winston-Salem. I am an Illinois resident. What are pros/cons about these two schools? Any perspective is appreciated! Thank you!

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[m1redsox]

Disclaimer: graduating M4 at Wake

I absolutely love Wake, and it has the best reputation (by far) in both derm and rads. However, assuming you’re an Illinois resident, I’m not sure that Loyola or Wake would be worth the tuition difference. Then again, it’s looking like the difference is only ~$15k per year, which I would say is a reasonable difference to pay if you don’t want to be in Peoria or if you liked either Wake or Loyola better. Plus, I assume that also means your family is in IL, which is a big factor for some people. These are all good mid-tier schools, so I guess we just need to hear about the cost difference and your preferences on your living situation (near family vs no preference; big city vs small town vs mid-sized suburb)

 

[indecisivepremed_]

Disclaimer: graduating M4 at Wake

I absolutely love Wake, and it has the best reputation (by far) in both derm and rads. However, assuming you’re an Illinois resident, I’m not sure that Loyola or Wake would be worth the tuition difference. Then again, it’s looking like the difference is only ~$15k per year, which I would say is a reasonable difference to pay if you don’t want to be in Peoria or if you liked either Wake or Loyola better. Plus, I assume that also means your family is in IL, which is a big factor for some people. These are all good mid-tier schools, so I guess we just need to hear about the cost difference and your preferences on your living situation (near family vs no preference; big city vs small town vs mid-sized suburb)

If you don’t mind me asking, what are you matching into? How were your opportunities to do research, shadowing, specialty rotations at Wake? Is the charlotte campus worth moving to in your 3/4 years?

I am an Illinois resident, but I am concerned about my placement in Peoria. I worry that I will not be able to network with physicians as easily making it more difficulty to get LORs, research, and connections in competitive specialities.

 

[indecisivepremed_]

If you don’t mind me asking, what are you matching into? How were your opportunities to do research, shadowing, specialty rotations at Wake? Is the charlotte campus worth moving to in your 3/4 years?

I am an Illinois resident, but I am concerned about my placement in Peoria. I worry that I will not be able to network with physicians as easily making it more difficulty to get LORs, research, and connections in competitive specialities.

Another thing I have noticed and talked to people about, Loyola while does match into dermatology (one of the specialities I’m thinking about) they do not have a department with a lot of physicians. They have a total of 4-6 physicians but they do not have their own department at Loyola. UICOM-Peoria campus has a single dermatologist working for them, but I am not sure how well connected the Peoria campus is with the Chicago campus’s large derm department. Wake seems to have the largest department. I fear this is a similar pattern for other departments as well at UICOM-Peoria (less so Loyola). If anyone knows anything otherwise, please correct me.

 

[m1redsox]

If you don’t mind me asking, what are you matching into? How were your opportunities to do research, shadowing, specialty rotations at Wake? Is the charlotte campus worth moving to in your 3/4 years?

I am an Illinois resident, but I am concerned about my placement in Peoria. I worry that I will not be able to network with physicians as easily making it more difficulty to get LORs, research, and connections in competitive specialities.

I matched ophthalmology. Research opportunities were okay with the ophtho department, but they are much more abundant in other fields (ie our derm people matched 4/4 at great places and they had plenty of research. Plastics and ortho are known to be strong as well and they went 2/2 and 7/7 in the match). Shadowing is extremely easy to come by. Definitely no difficulties there. Specialty rotations are fairly specific to 4th year, but they are easy to get as well. One critique I have is that we should have had an elective during third year, but instead we have a required 2-week anesthesia rotation and an extra 2 weeks of IM specifically for ambulatory medicine.

I have heard great things about the Charlotte campus, but I did not do any rotations there myself because they do not have an ophtho program, and I wanted to continue to do research and network with the admissions committee in Winston-Salem. Winston is still the academic center of the school. Charlotte is really good if you want to do ortho, EM, or PM&R. It is also solid for neurosurgery. With that said, it is totally reasonable to do 3rd year there if you just prefer a bigger city and can handle your research remotely (there is, of course, also research going on in Charlotte too but they have smaller academic departments and do not have residency programs in every specialty like in Winston). Our Charlotte cohort matched really well (ie T10 ENT match, T10 ortho match, T10 anesthesia match, just to name a few), but for example, the person who matched ENT needed to come back to Winston-Salem to do a rotation there and get a letter from the PD. If you do not have the chance to rotate in Charlotte during 3rd year and you would like to, we were able to pick and choose rotations to do there during 4th year.

Yes, Peoria sounds like it may be a resource-poor branch of the school. Of course, I am not super familiar with it, but in general, you need to rotate at the main campus and rub shoulders with the program directors that you are trying to impress.