yayyyyyyy!!! let's go into mega-uber-debt
I am leaning towards CCOM. I withdrew from LECOMs and planning to withdraw from CUSOM next. I can't overlook the established schools and what they can offer me in research and rotations, and the location suits me best.
Ahhh dude! I'm actually in a very similar boat. I loved CCOM. It as the closest any DO school got to an MD school in terms of curriculum, facilities, resources, etc... But, the price tag is really scary. CCOM doesn't place a bunch of its students in specialties and many students go into primary care. I don't know how I would be able to pay off the tuition with a primary care salary. LECOM-B is exactly half the cost, has higher board scores, and places twice as many students in specialties than CCOM. As someone that wants to specialize, I'm very conflicted. I don't know what to do either....
Also, if you get into Rowan, which you probably will because you already got into the hardest DO school, I'd consider it. However, make sure you look into Rowan's curriculum, especially 4th year. I'm too lazy to look into it now, but I think Rowan makes you do extra rotations and gives you considerably less time to do out rotations during your 4th year. I've also heard that the curriculum during pre-clinical years isn't as strong either.
Well, LECOM-B actually has ~200 students too. In the last cycle, LECOM-B had 8 gen surg matches and 7 ortho matches while CCOM had 4 gen surg matches and 5 ortho matches.
Match lists aren't important though because they change from year to year.
I actually just called Svetlana, one of CCOM's financial aid adviser. She was very honest and helpful. She mentioned that the school doesn't plan on stopping the tuition increases and that it will keep going up between 4-6% every year we are there. She said that they work very closely with students to borrow only the amount they need, to the penny. She also said that if I'm considered about tuition I could live "frugally" and borrow less. She also said that, if you have bad credit history or you max out federal loans, there are "institutional loans" that MWU gives out. So, you will literally be borrowing money from the school to pay for the school, which I thought reflected the fact that this tuition might become impossible to pay for for all 4 years for many students. She was actually very nice and when I jokingly mentioned that there are schools with half the tuition, she laughed and said "You are paying for quality here," which, I guess, is true. This was actually the first DO school I called that had an entire office dedicated to financial aid with counselors divided by student last name.
Well, out of my list, CCOM is the only one that can offer me what I want, but I would go to PCOM or RowanSOM over this school in a heartbeat, because of the tuition alone. When you start getting acceptances to the top tier established DO schools with lots of research available (LECOM doesn't) then there really isn't a huge difference among them. I have a plan in place so I won't be swampful in debt going to CCOM.
to the OP... this is a no brainer. Choose CCOM and move on.
Congrats!!!Well, I got into RowanSOM, so now it becomes a no brainer. Before, I would've saved $120k just in principal by going to CUSOM or LECOM over CCOM. Adding on interest, I would be $200k less in debt after interest. That is a substantial sum of money that I still don't honestly know how I would tackle it if I went to CCOM instead.
