Western U of the Pacific Northwest VS Touro California

[gabbre601]

Hey guys!

Thought I was done with my decision making after accepting a seat at COMP NW, but just received an II from Touro Cali! Wanted to get your folks' thoughts on whether I should accept the II or decline it. For context, I think I am interested in peds and will likely pursue a specialty position (though don't think I'm interested in surgery, derm, or anything like that). With that in mind, I plan on pursuing research a bit to be a little competitive, but have no intentions on being a gunner. I think I will probably take USMLE as well as COMLEX, so if either of them have curriculum that you folks feel is better aligned to both that would be helpful. Rotation site security is also important to me, at least on the scale of staying in relatively the same area of a city for a year.

Touro California
Pros

• Hour drive from family
• In a large metropolitan area
• P/F grading
• Beautiful area
• Few mandatory lectures!

Cons

• Seems like Western may have more prestige? Unsure if this extends to the PNW campus
• Board scores have been lower recently?
• Dress code, idk how strict it is though? A little non-descript in their hand book (t shirts but without large images? What counts as a large image?)
• Might not be in the safest part of town?
• Can't find much info on stability of rotation sites

Western University of the Pacific Northwest
Pros

• Consistent board scores
• Beautiful area
• Family in Portland

Cons

• Smaller town
• H/HP/P/F grading
• Mandatory lectures

Thank you folks for the input and lmk if you think one option is obviously better than the other (with reasons why)!

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[berry_tart]

Have you visited Touro? I recently went and it definitely did not give large metropolitan area, so I'd def visit if you haven't to see if you vibe with it

 

[gabbre601]

No, I have not, I live around a thousand miles away from it, haha. I've been to San Francisco once and saw on a map that it looked like Touro was in the suburbs. Western is in a small town (around 20k iirc) and 20 mins from the next closest town, so I just meant that it appeared to be close to San Francisco and has a larger population (about 120k). If I get the chance and it's worth it I'm definitely considering heading back up to visit the area! Anything else you saw while you were visiting that stuck out to you?

 

[berry_tart]

No, I have not, I live around a thousand miles away from it, haha. I've been to San Francisco once and saw on a map that it looked like Touro was in the suburbs. Western is in a small town (around 20k iirc) and 20 mins from the next closest town, so I just meant that it appeared to be close to San Francisco and has a larger population (about 120k). If I get the chance and it's worth it I'm definitely considering heading back up to visit the area! Anything else you saw while you were visiting that stuck out to you?

Dm me and I'll tell you more