•••quote:•••Originally posted by GG16:
•Wash U is an excellent school and it would have been nice to have my father award my degree (he was Wash U med class of 1968) but . . .
1. I am not particularly fond of St. Louis -- I grew up in NYC and LA, and as such, am used to bicostal cities and don't relish the idea of being landlocked. I REALLY want to be at least within driving distance of NYC
2. Wash U was the only school where students (and more than one) admitted that the students were competitive with each other -- to that end, I felt that things were rigid there as far as the curriculum, student relationships with faculty, etc.
3. Curriculum was more traditional than i'd like it to be -- I wanted more of a PBL/Lecture mix than WUSTL offered.
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So, I'll be at Penn in the fall for a variety of reasons (in no particular order):
1. Philly is cheap and very close to Manhattan
2. Penn has a wonderful mix of PBL/Lecture, roughly 50:50
3. 1.5 years of basic science instead of 2 -- you enter clinics in Jan of 2nd year.
4. Very much like the idea of everything under one roof -- the
entire campus is within (basically) one square mile.
5. Very technology oriented -- love the idea of all lectures being in RealVideo the same day and having the virtual curriculum.
6. I really felt that Penn values their students more than most of the other medical schools (perhaps an unfair generalization, but. . .) -- they've been super nice and everyone I know there is so thrilled they picked Penn.
7. One of the few top-5 schools where I genuinely believe the students are largely non-competitive (didn't feel that way at HMS, Duke or WashU).
I hope this helps!!!!!! But WUSTL will give you a wonderful education if you choose it! It's just the ancillary stuff that made me choose Penn.
•••••Thanks for posting, GG16. Here are my (brief) responses (since I have some finals coming up soon).
1. I really liked St. Louis when I revisited, although I hated it when I interviewed. My feelings now are that I'll like it, but it's not as happening as I'd like. Then again, I'm more into clubs than bars, and I hear East St. Louis has some decent clubs. Dunno if I want to risk being killed just for a good night out, though. :wink:
2. I'd prefer students to admit that they're competitive flat out, than for students to hide it before you get there. I agree that there will be competition, hopefully a healthy level, pretty much wherever you go, so at least the students are honest, eh?
3. There is some PBL/small group discussion, but it is predominantly lecture-based. I like that they teach us a lot of info, including minutiae, but that's just me. That was one thing I disliked about Duke. That they don't teach you as much as I'd like to learn. I see the merits of teaching people only the basics, but I want to learn how to learn AND all the current knowledge, even if much of it will be somewhat outdated by the time I graduate. However, I highly doubt that 95% of what I'll learn in med school will serve me no purpose in 10 years, as some schools would have you think.
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1. St. Louis is even cheaper than Philly. And not as grimy either.
2. Penn has a better lecture/PBL breakdown, in my opinion.
3. I also really liked Penn's 1.5 year curriculum. That's one thing other schools could improve upon. I think it's a nice compromise between Duke and WashU's polar opposite curricula.
4. No opinion...
5. WashU lags behind in the tech department, I feel. I want all lectures videotaped and digitized for the Web. I suspect they don't have roaming ethernet nor wireless Internet anywhere (on the med campus, at least), but I'm not sure. However, current students told me that their note taking service eliminates the need for lecture videos. (I'd still like the option, though.)
6. I agree that Penn probably does value their students a great deal. Gaye is really cool, but I actually didn't like the dynamics of the people I met during the Preview. Plus, diversity in terms of Hispanics, East Asians, and South Asians seemed to be lacking. The female dean, Gail? (I forget her name), seemed a little psycho too.
7. Don't know about competition at Penn, but I think like all other schools, you'll get many who are competitive, and some who are not. I wouldn't be TOO fooled by the Preview, though. It's, as one of my friends put it, a big commercial. They sell you on what they want you to know, and they keep you in the dark on what they don't. The class is not as service-oriented and chummy with each other as they make you believe, from what I've heard, as well. That said, I still really liked it myself, and my friends there really love it too.
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Thanks for your input on WashU. Good luck in Philly!
