Georgetown or MCW?

[thebluesteye]

Hi all,

I was accepted a few months ago to Georgetown and at the time, it was really the best school I'd been accepted to at the time. I recently found out I got off the waitlist at MCW, however, and have a couple days to decide what I want to do.

I'd really liked both schools when I interviewed based on what I say, and so am a little conflicted now with what to do. Both schools seemed similarily ranked as well. One issue that's come up, after recently talking to a current student, is the atmosphere at Georgetown being really competitive amongst the student body.

I'm from California, so I don't have ties to other area, and location is really not a consideration for me. I'm also interested in eventually going into pediatrics, if that changes anything. Given all this, does anyone have any comments or suggestions?

Thanks so much

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[Eastern Blot]

First off, congrats on the acceptances! I also interviewed at both schools and thought quite highly of both of them. Of course there will be extremely varied forthcoming opinions on this thread, but I will put in my own 2 cents. If you are interested in pediatrics, it will be difficult to pay off the substantial debt you will acquire from Gtown. Have you seen the match lists at Gtown? Impressive surgery residencies all around. As my interviewer and I discussed... could you imagine paying back the loans PLUS INTEREST with a career in peds!?

Also at Gtown, there were many other programs and students from all different schools and colleges.. not to mention among the medical community there is the SMP! I felt like just one of many, many entities on campus there. On the other hand, the MCW was all about the medical students due to the lack of other professional programs or even an undergrad! Big plus here in favor of the MCW in my personal opinion.

The facilities (Frater hospital or however it's spelled) impressed me much more than the Gtown hospital (SDN members will likely comment on the financial problems the Gtown hospital is having as well). My student host at Gtown told me the hospital is being renovated, or just plain rebuilt? It's a 10 year project and he said he and I just had bad timing in terms of not being able to use the new, projected hospital. (<-- this is all based on my memory off the top of my head. Further comments from others could/would be helpful here). The children's hospital at the MCW was great too! (think peds!))

Gtown has the new block, organ based system much like the MCW proposed, but ultimately postponed this spring. Personal preference for whatever you like on this topic.

Urban setting in both places, just a matter of size difference. I'd imagine very similar patient populations for all technical purposes.

MKE housing is dirt cheap.. like $450/month. DC is $1500/month

I am very interested in research opportunities, and it seemed both schools had some, but limited research opportunities. Gtown expressed the option of the 5th year for research like many other research heavy schools have, so that was a plus!

Clinical training 3rd and 4th years were heavily emphasized to us Gtown interviewers at lunch, and I'm convinced they truly do let their students run the show. The MCW didn't stand out in a positive or negative way in terms of the clinical training, so I wouldn't fret much here.

That's everything I can think of, immediately speaking. I am not matriculating at either school, but they were both great. PM me if you want to further discuss! Good luck, and again, congratulations!

edit: about your point on competitiveness... all I will say is that my student host was talking about how the Gtown med students set the curve from which the SMP students will compete. So med students dont compete with SMP.. SMP competes with SMP. The SMP is like a "last stand" for most students hoping to apply to medical school, so he found many of them were, indeed, die hard gunners. With that being said, there is very little difference between SMP and M1, so half your study group/friends will be SMP, and their competitive lifestyle and behavior will surely spread to the M1 class. And it's hard to disagree with this if you were to play it out in your head.

 

[Justforkicks4]

Hey,

I'm a current M2 at MCW and I've really enjoyed my time here. There are lots of positive things I could say about the school, but I think the strength of our Children's hospital and all the associated docs are real assets. I'm an officer in the Peds Student Assoc. and I've been really impressed with the opportunities for MCW students at CHW. For instance, there's a peds externship that ~10 students are doing this summer where they basically get paid to rotate throughout the hospital and shadow docs all summer. As far as research goes, MCW also has a pretty strong program for students. There's 200 students in my class and 91 of us are doing paid research throughout the college this summer.

If you have any other question, feel free to shoot me a PM. Congrats on you success!

 

[byurazorhog]

It really depends on what you want to do in terms of specialties and how much you're willing to pay for your MD degree. I can't imagine living in DC and paying through my nose for everything from the exorbitant COA at Georgetown to the day to day living expenses. Some would argue Georgetown seems to have a better match list but probably not by much if that's even true. I'm very impressed with MCW match list this year and I truly feel that you could do very well for yourself and have all doors open for you at MCW. I'm going to UW-Madison so I'm biased in favor of a school in Wisconsin haha. Like you also mentioned, the environment at MCW is a lot more convivial and laid-back than it is at Georgetown. Not to say that one is necessarily better than the other but I would prefer a less cut-throat atmosphere personally.

You can't go wrong with either but my vote is for MCW. Good luck with your decision!