What's the most important factor in picking a school?

[Torilynn92]

Hey guys! I'm looking for some input into what's the most important factor in selecting an osteopathic medical school. Of the schools I am interested in, one has extremely high board scores, the other has 100% match rate (although no word on whether people matched into their top choices or not), another is affiliated with a large public university, and yet another has a ton of available resources for students (including iPad, macbook, official board prep materials, and they pay for your COMLEX and USMLE first take).

There's also the locations to consider - some of the schools I'm interested in are *exceptionally* rural, but within an hour or two of a midsize city, and others are right smack dab in the middle of a large metro area.

I also have been bombarded with all this information about rotations - some schools guarantee a year at a core site during OMS-III, others say "ehhh, you'll do 8 weeks here, 8 weeks there." Some have a required rural medicine and EM rotation 4th year, others have entirely selective and elective 4th years.

Basically....how to I decide what's important and what isn't?? When I was deciding on an undergraduate university, I was for some reason totally hung up on the food options in the area (dining hall food availability, basically), which in retrospect isn't the best criteria for choosing an undergrad school. I don't wanna fall into the same category of "focused on something totally irrelevant" in medical school choices!

Thanks!

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[mathnerd88]

It depends on the individual, and what their future goals are. For me, it is location, rotations, and research opportunities. You want to be happy where you go to medical school, and you also want to be able to take advantage of good rotation sites to build rapport with the hospital staff there.

Also, research is important if you want to go to more competitive residencies.

 

[arc5005]

Totally depends on the individual. I think if you want to match to a difficult specialty then you need to go to a school that is going to give you the best education, is well known, has high board scores, and matching rates for the specialty you want. If you care more about location, then that would be extremely vital to your mental health, since being far from a city might be rough for 4 years if you really care about being in a city. What do you care most about?

 

[TUVIX]

It seems like the majority of people go with location. Probably second to that I think it's reputation of the school. Then maybe cost. For some people cost is the highest, as it probably should be. For me it's kind of a tie between location and cost.

 

[mathnerd88]

It seems like the majority of people go with location. Probably second to that I think it's reputation of the school. Then maybe cost. For some people cost is the highest, as it probably should be. For me it's kind of a tie between location and cost.

Cost should be important when you're comparing schools of equal caliber that are also established. There are huge differences between DO schools in terms of quality of rotations, research opportunities, etc.

 

[Mavs88]

I think for me it would be curriculum in first two years + quality of clinical rotations. Of course everyone's different and you should lay out everything for each school and really give yourself a long time to see what you feel will be best.

 

[OverlyRomantic]

For me: Location, location, location.

Did I mention location?

 

[cryhavoc]

If I get into multiple DO schools, it will be a mix of match rate and cost.

If I get into any MD school, let's be honest, if I'm hit by lightning lucky, even then I won't get into enough to have to make a choice.

 

[ClassicJandT]

It really depends on what your end goals are. For instance, I have absolutely no desire to do surgery or anything remotely competitive and I'm perfectly fine with trading salary for better work hours. As a result, cost is far and away the most important factor for me. Any DO school will get me to where I want to go. Opting for an inexpensive school will allow me to have the financial flexibility to choose what field I go into and what hours I work without having to worry about how I will pay back my loans.