Harvard vs Stanford(full tuition) vs NYU(CoA) vs Columbia vs Hopkins(CoA) vs Perelman

[m_tsflame]

Apologies in advance for the long post! Finally heard back from all my schools so wanted to ask for help from the SDN community. My cycle has exceeded my wildest expectations and I'm currently feeling pretty overwhelmed. I've cut down my original list a bit, but am having trouble deciding between these last ones. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

General notes: A diverse patient population and student body is very important to me. Finances are somewhat of a large factor as I would like to graduate with little to no debt in order to help my family as soon as possible. I'm also interested in spearheading different diversity programs as a doctor (maybe as a Dean or head administrator) so school prestige could help with that
Specialty interests: Neurology, Psychiatry (Maybe Derm?)

Harvard
Pros

• Reputation+prestige
• Established social network/familiar with the area
• Insane amount of research opportunities
• Large amount of dedicated STEP
• Hospital network
• REACH scholarship (most likely full tuition)
• Good public transportation
• Consistently strong performance on STEP 1

Cons

• The administration seems kind of aloof

• Weather (tired of the NE cold)
• Kind of getting tired of Boston, a new city would be a nice change
• Sparse anatomy teaching
• Required lectures
• The vibe on my interview day wasn't that great
• Very large class size
• Will likely graduate with 60-100K in debt

Stanford
Pros

• Reputation+prestige
• Cali weather
• Also insane amount of research opportunities
• Very flexible curriculum (can take STEP whenever)
• Financial aid covers all of the tuition
• Supportive administration
• LHDP (cool pre-matriculation program for people interested in health disparities)
• Smaller class size

Cons

• Not a lot to do in Palo Alto
• Seems like the patient population skews to the higher SES end of the spectrum
• Terrible public transportation
• Student class doesn't seem to be as diverse as the other schools on the list
• High COL so will probably graduate with 120K in debt

Hopkins
Pros

• Reputation+prestige
• Close to extended family
• Also insane amount of research opportunities
• Non-mandatory classes
• Supportive administration
• Students seemed genuinely happy on their interview day
• Diverse patient population

Cons

• Not sure about Baltimore as a city (close to DC though which is nice)
• Iffy public transportation (within Baltimore)
• Student class doesn't seem to be as diverse as the other schools on the list
• Not sure about financial aid (would probably be the least out of the schools on the list though) ~80-100k debt

NYU
Pros

• Good amount of research opportunities
• Non-mandatory classes
• Supportive administration
• Diverse patient population
• Diverse student body
• Plenty of extra-curricular activities/social events in NYC
• Good public transportation
• Full COA scholarship

Cons

• NYC may be a bit overwhelming
• The class may be very competitive with the new free-tuition program
• Reputation not as established as the other schools on the list (minor, but may be important for my future career goals)

Columbia
Pros (basically same as NYU with a few differences)

• Reputation + prestige
• Insane amount of research opportunities
• Non-mandatory classes
• Supportive administration
• Diverse patient population
• Diverse student body
• Plenty of extra-curricular activities/social events in NYC
• Good public transportation
• High likelihood of matching NYU's offer

Cons

• NYC may be a bit overwhelming
• Very large class size

UPenn
Pros

• Strong reputation within the medical field (not as much for the lay person)
• Large amount of research opportunities
• Non-mandatory classes
• Supportive administration
• Diverse patient population
• Diverse student body
• High likelihood of matching NYU's offer
• Friends that go there now
• Consistently strong performance on STEP 1

Cons

• The first years seemed very stressed on interview day
• Not quite sold on Philly as a city

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[puahate]

Upenn if offer matched. Also philly is nice idk why you arent sold.

 

[Lawpy]

@efle @Lucca gently approve the top tier sweep

Can't go wrong with any of these options.

 

[Lucca]

I liked Philly personally.

Incredibly hard decision, if I were you, my decision would come down to HMS/Penn/Stanford but I didn’t interview at Hopkins so cant speak to it in comparison to those.

 

[lococola]

HMS is probably your best bet but COA at Penn is a really really good offer. If you're 100% set on psych or neuro then think seriously about Columbia if they match NYU. As stated above, there's no wrong option here.

 

[efle]

If Penn or Columbia ends up being like 100k cheaper than Harvard/Hopkins/Stanford I'd do that.

Otherwise sounds like it's between Stanford for nice weather and cushy wealthy safe area to live in, Hopkins if you want to be close to family and do a lot of high-need minority patient work and/or community outreach, or Harvard if you want to start your career at one of their Boston area ivory towers (much easier to home-match to MGH/BWH).

 

[ihaveagf]

Mother of god.... did you cure cancer?

 

[m_tsflame]

Upenn if offer matched. Also philly is nice idk why you arent sold.

Ya, it was my first impression but I think it'll grow on me if I end up going to Penn.

 

[TempuraOreos]

The goal for you, like me, is to get that offer match. One of my friends, basically told me, "Money talks." Harvard/Penn/Hopkins/Stanford are basically equal, with NYU/Columbia slightly below in terms of prestige and ranking. From my understanding Hopkins doesn't offer match but Penn is willing too. But with an applicant like you, I feel like they'll do it in a heartbeat. Can't speak on Stanford or Columbia. I'm hoping you've sent that leveraging email.

I've been told not to put to much weight on the interview day experience gut feeling as it was a one day experience. Use the experiences from second look to get a better feel for the schools, students, admin, etc.

 

[m_tsflame]

If Penn or Columbia ends up being like 100k cheaper than Harvard/Hopkins/Stanford I'd do that.

Otherwise sounds like it's between Stanford for nice weather and cushy wealthy safe area to live in, Hopkins if you want to be close to family and do a lot of high-need minority patient work and/or community outreach, or Harvard if you want to start your career at one of their Boston area ivory towers (much easier to home-match to MGH/BWH).

Ya, I'm leaning towards this line of thinking too. Thanks for the input!

 

[m_tsflame]

Mother of god.... did you cure cancer?

Lol not even close. I think my MCAT and unique life experiences/ECs helped.

 

[m_tsflame]

The goal for you, like me, is to get that offer match. One of my friends, basically told me, "Money talks." Harvard/Penn/Hopkins/Stanford are basically equal, with NYU/Columbia slightly below in terms of prestige and ranking. From my understanding Hopkins doesn't offer match but Penn is willing too. But with an applicant like you, I feel like they'll do it in a heartbeat. Can't speak on Stanford or Columbia. I'm hoping you've sent that leveraging email.

I've been told not to put to much weight on the interview day experience gut feeling as it was a one day experience. Use the experiences from second look to get a better feel for the schools, students, admin, etc.

Thanks for the advice man! I was thinking of waiting to send my leveraging emails once I received initial financial aid offers. Should I just send the emails now to speed up the process?

 

[efle]

The last person I remember seeing that was URM + 100th percentile MCAT was Narmerguy, and he also swept the top 10 with a single exception (waitlisted at Penn, IIRC?)

 

[capriccio]

Penn if the offer is matched—it has the student and patient body you want, prestige/connections oozing out, research opportunities, and you have a preexisting social support network already there. I liked what I saw of Philly when I interviewed there—at the very least it seemed like an "easier" city to live in compared to NYC.

 

[TempuraOreos]

Thanks for the advice man! I was thinking of waiting to send my leveraging emails once I received initial financial aid offers. Should I just send the emails now to speed up the process?

I can't make that decision. I have sent it to the ones that are open to it.

 

[TempuraOreos]

The last person I remember seeing that was URM + 100th percentile MCAT was Narmerguy, and he also swept the top 10 with a single exception (waitlisted at Penn, IIRC?)

Lawd that's insane. He must have recently matched then?! Can only imagine where he ended up!

 

[freedoctor17]

I get happy when i see posts like this because i know as soon as you make a decision 3 to 4 schools im waitlisted at will have a spot open

But this is amazing, congrats on the options! Also if you are from a low income background you'll practically be guaranteed full cost of attendance at Columbia (if your family efc is 0). But from what it sounds like most of your options will kepp you under 100k in debt. I saw a physician on here post about how they graduated with 100k of debt and paid it off in one year out of residency while still having another 100k+ to live off of for that one year. So you probably don't need to limit yourself by cost too much with any of these options.

 

[meronebib]

I’m kind of surprised by the poll results so far. I think you should definitely take Harvard. 60-100k debt over 4 years is nothing in the grand scheme of things, especially for a Harvard degree. All of these schools are about equal in prestige, with the exception of two: Harvard (the top, maybe Hopkins included) and NYU (a little less than the others). You talk about leadership positions in academia, and having a Harvard pedigree will help you the most with that. You also have family in the area, and that will mean a lot with the stress of medical school. Go Harvard my friend.

 

[efle]

Absolutely do not buy the hype of Harvard being in some class of its own!! Hopkins, Penn, Stanford and Columbia are every bit as impressive to residency PDs (as evidenced by their equal scores on the USNews PD surveys). All of them have more research opportunities than you could ever need. No doors, academia or otherwise, would ever be closed to a graduate of one of them vs HMS.

 

[m_tsflame]

I can't make that decision. I have sent it to the ones that are open to it.

Alright, I'll keep that in mind

I get happy when i see posts like this because i know as soon as you make a decision 3 to 4 schools im waitlisted at will have a spot open

But this is amazing, congrats on the options! Also if you are from a low income background you'll practically be guaranteed full cost of attendance at Columbia (if your family efc is 0). But from what it sounds like most of your options will kepp you under 100k in debt. I saw a physician on here post about how they graduated with 100k of debt and paid it off in one year out of residency while still having another 100k+ to live off of for that one year. So you probably don't need to limit yourself by cost too much with any of these options.

Thanks for the help! Do you know what specialty he practices in? Sounds like a pretty competitive one to be able to pay off his loans that quickly!

 

[freedoctor17]

Alright, I'll keep that in mind

Thanks for the help! Do you know what specialty he practices in? Sounds like a pretty competitive one to be able to pay off his loans that quickly!

I don't remember if it was mentioned but from what I can tell plenty of specialties can start at around 200k+ especially in certain locations, so if he lived off just have his yearly salary that would make it fairly easy to pay off the 100k of debt with the other half if you're able to be very disciplined with your money that first year.

 

[CarpeDiem1993]

lol. this is truly, just. wow. congratulations does not even begin to meet the word that should be used.

Harvard.

 

[efle]

Harvard

Let me guess, you stand by this even if Penn would be $100,000 less?

 

[luigi1996]

If you are only getting full tuition at Harvard, your debt will def not be that low. COL in Boston is high af. If I had to take a guess, it will be pretty similar to Stanford's. You also do not seem to want to be in Boston and that's completely understandable, I feel the same about my current undergrad that also accepted me. Imo, 100k is not worth it for Hopkins/Harvard/Stanford name because you won't need it to be successful. Even if people will say, it's not so much, you can pay it in a year... Who cares? it is still 100k you have the option to not take. If a taco was 3 and they raised it to 4, **** im still pissed even though an additional dollar doesnt hurt my wallet. Obviously, my analogy isn't perfect, but still.

You will do well no matter where you go, so I would choose the cheapest option. I like Penn more than Columbia, simply because the medical spaces are gorgeous, philly has a close proximity to NYC, and I find philly to be less crowded/overwhelming than NYC. The student culture seems really chill and the research at Penn is incredible. Again, I agree with the above posters, that there is no wrong choice.

 

[dark_knight]

Where do you see yourself wanting to practice?

 

[mcmcmc613]

Congrats on an amazing cycle! I'm choosing between Stanford and Hopkins (leaning towards Stanford) so I can share my thought process with regard to those two schools. Most of your cons about Stanford are spot on, but I would place some more weight on the impact of MedScholars and TAships. These opportunities *heavily* reduce tuition + provide generous stipends, and from what med students there have told me, research + TAing consequently reduce COA substantially. Also, Stanford's student budget is slightly inflated IMO, as there are a number of places where you can dramatically save money. I also received a full tuition grant from Stanford and have spoken a little with financial aid, so please PM me if you want to talk anymore/have any questions.

 

[skk_]

fwiw, if you have full tuition and make use of medscholars/TAing to any extent, your COA here (Stanford) will probably end up being around 10-20k, potentially even zero. If you stay in Stanford housing, COL shouldn't really be that much of an issue given how heavily the school subsidizes housing costs. You also actually have a lot of flexibility in where you want to schedule most of your rotations, since we have four training sites that we rotate through, not just SUMC (also the VA, Kaiser, and Santa Clara Valley, which is a large safety-net).

tbh I wouldn't make any concrete decisions without going to second looks/revisit weekends and really taking the time to evaluate each school carefully based on what you value - I ended up choosing between the exact same set of schools you are during my cycle minus Hopkins (although with a lot less money being offered lol), and my impressions of several of them changed fairly dramatically between interview day and after second look/revisit weekend.

 

[jessicajonesharvard]

If you are only getting full tuition at Harvard, your debt will def not be that low. COL in Boston is high af. If I had to take a guess, it will be pretty similar to Stanford's. You also do not seem to want to be in Boston and that's completely understandable, I feel the same about my current undergrad that also accepted me. Imo, 100k is not worth it for Hopkins/Harvard/Stanford name because you won't need it to be successful. Even if people will say, it's not so much, you can pay it in a year... Who cares? it is still 100k you have the option to not take. If a taco was 3 and they raised it to 4, **** im still pissed even though an additional dollar doesnt hurt my wallet. Obviously, my analogy isn't perfect, but still.

You will do well no matter where you go, so I would choose the cheapest option. I like Penn more than Columbia, simply because the medical spaces are gorgeous, philly has a close proximity to NYC, and I find philly to be less crowded/overwhelming than NYC. The student culture seems really chill and the research at Penn is incredible. Again, I agree with the above posters, that there is no wrong choice.

I disagree. 60k ~ 100k debt isn't that bad. At this point, it is more important to find a better "fit" (atmosphere, research interest, etc.) than deciding based on finance. 0k debt vs 60k debt is really nothing in the end. If you feel home at Harvard, please don't let 60k in debt stop you...

 

[m_tsflame]

Where do you see yourself wanting to practice?

I honestly have no clue. I'll be fine with anywhere along either coast .

 

[m_tsflame]

lol. this is truly, just. wow. congratulations does not even begin to meet the word that should be used.

Harvard.

Thanks! Still feels surreal. Hopefully Harvard can come through with the financial aid though .

 

[m_tsflame]

fwiw, if you have full tuition and make use of medscholars/TAing to any extent, your COA here (Stanford) will probably end up being around 10-20k, potentially even zero. If you stay in Stanford housing, COL shouldn't really be that much of an issue given how heavily the school subsidizes housing costs. You also actually have a lot of flexibility in where you want to schedule most of your rotations, since we have four training sites that we rotate through, not just SUMC (also the VA, Kaiser, and Santa Clara Valley, which is a large safety-net).

tbh I wouldn't make any concrete decisions without going to second looks/revisit weekends and really taking the time to evaluate each school carefully based on what you value - I ended up choosing between the exact same set of schools you are during my cycle minus Hopkins (although with a lot less money being offered lol), and my impressions of several of them changed fairly dramatically between interview day and after second look/revisit weekend.

Thank you for your input! Ya, second looks will definitely play a big part of my decision .I wish they didn't overlap as much though

 

[tanbrucewayne]

Have you heard/asked about the “Living Expense Award for Diversity Enhancement and Recruitment” (LEADER) grant from Stanford?

 

[m_tsflame]

Have you heard/asked about the “Living Expense Award for Diversity Enhancement and Recruitment” (LEADER) grant from Stanford?

Someone from SDN just told me about it this morning. I'm not familiar with it though. Do you know any details about it?

 

[tanbrucewayne]

7.7: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

I'm not sure either, just found this on their website. worth asking the fin aid department about

 

[m_tsflame]

7.7: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

I'm not sure either, just found this on their website. worth asking the fin aid department about

Awesome, I'll call them and ask. Thanks for the help.

 

[WedgeDawg]

Can't go wrong with any school and trying to nitpick minutiae between them is going to be impossible and not fruitful.

I would follow 1) money and 2) location. Once you get final aid offers (if you really want to try to get a lot of money from Columbia/Penn, make sure you tell them you have full tuition from Stanford in addition to full COA from NYU), eliminate any that make you go more than 10k in debt, then choose based on location and gut feel.

You can do anything anywhere from any of these schools. If you want specifics on Columbia, feel free to PM me.

 

[m_tsflame]

Can't go wrong with any school and trying to nitpick minutiae between them is going to be impossible and not fruitful.

I would follow 1) money and 2) location. Once you get final aid offers (if you really want to try to get a lot of money from Columbia/Penn, make sure you tell them you have full tuition from Stanford in addition to full COA from NYU), eliminate any that make you go more than 10k in debt, then choose based on location and gut feel.

You can do anything anywhere from any of these schools. If you want specifics on Columbia, feel free to PM me.

Thank you for the advice! I agree that money and location will probably be the deciding factors now since these schools are so close in everything else.

 

[BECSPK]

What makes you say that Penn has a high likelihood of matching the full COA offer? I remember them joking on interview day about not having "NYU money." Do you think that it is worth it to reach out to Penn admissions and inquire about this?

 

[puahate]

What makes you say that Penn has a high likelihood of matching the full COA offer? I remember them joking on interview day about not having "NYU money." Do you think that it is worth it to reach out to Penn admissions and inquire about this?

They are joking

 

[BECSPK]

They are joking

Lol I get it was a joke, but full COA seems like a lot to match.

 

[efle]

What makes you say that Penn has a high likelihood of matching the full COA offer? I remember them joking on interview day about not having "NYU money." Do you think that it is worth it to reach out to Penn admissions and inquire about this?

Penn gives a bunch of full rides every year (~20 IIRC). Their joke is probably about not having the money right now to do that for all 150 people. They absolutely do use merit money to poach cross admits from Harvard/Hopkins/Stanford, so it's worthwhile for OP to see if they can get at least a matching offer with Harvard and Stanford's full tuition scholly offers

 

[TempuraOreos]

Lol I get it was a joke, but full COA seems like a lot to match.

Penn, from what I've seen, is the only Top 5 will to match fin aid, so they must have a good amount to give.

 

[efle]

Penn, from what I've seen, is the only Top 5 will to match fin aid, so they must have a good amount to give.

They, like WashU, try to get an edge over Harvard/Hopkins/Stanford (which have need-only policies) by offering big merit-based scholarships to cross-admits. I will be very surprised if Penn refuses to match the other offers. Covering living expenses I don't know about, but covering tuition fully like Harvard/Stanford I think is likely.

 

[dark_knight]

I honestly have no clue. I'll be fine with anywhere along either coast .

I'll offer a slightly different perspective. First of all, I agree with everyone that these schools are all excellent institutions that will provide you with a great education. You'll come out an excellent physician no matter where you go. Be proud of you accomplishment and know that whatever decision you make, it'll be a good one.

My second point is I disagree with the notion of just follow the money. You're in the fortunate position of having the option of attending many of these schools with no tuition. I don't think cost of living is a significant enough difference that I would base it as the most important factor in my decision. Choose the place that will either make you happier and/or help you achieve you career goals better.

So how does one make this decision? Reflect on the factors that are most important to you.

In your original post you mentioned "A diverse patient population and student body is very important to me. Finances are somewhat of a large factor as I would like to graduate with little to no debt in order to help my family as soon as possible. I'm also interested in spearheading different diversity programs as a doctor (maybe as a Dean or head administrator) so school prestige could help with that"

As far as diverse patient population I definitely think that attending some of these schools offer a better opportunity for that. Baltimore and Philly are very diverse cities with real health disparities and underserved populations. If that's really important to you I couldn't recommend attending Stanford.

As far as a diverse student body, if we're being truly honest all of these schools do a terrible job of that. Perhaps Penn might be slightly better?

As far as financials, unless Penn offers a full cost of attendance scholarship I think this is a moot point. Some schools are in higher cost of living areas. You'll have to decide how important that is to you.

Finally, regarding the desire to become a Dean/head administrator. I definitely agree that prestige is really important here. Of all these schools, NYU offers the least prestige likely. I think the rest of these schools offer a lot of prestige in academic medicine. Some will be more recognizable to the lay person but I'm not convinced how important that will be in the real world. Perhaps you could look up people who are in your current position of interest and see their background/experiences.

I recommend attending as many second looks as you can. Sadly many of these schools will have overlapping second looks. You can try splitting second looks or make the best decision between which places you are considering more seriously.

Good luck!

 

[skk_]

As far as diverse patient population I definitely think that attending some of these schools offer a better opportunity for that. Baltimore and Philly are very diverse cities with real health disparities and underserved populations. If that's really important to you I couldn't recommend attending Stanford.

Telling someone not to consider Stanford because you feel that there's no opportunities to deal with diverse patient populations, "real health disparities" and underserved populations here is just straight up garbage, and you're either being willfully ignorant about what clinical training is like here, or are parroting talking points you've heard elsewhere that have had no basis in reality.

 

[efle]

Telling someone not to consider Stanford because you feel that there's no opportunities to deal with diverse patient populations, "real health disparities" and underserved populations here is just straight up garbage, and you're either being willfully ignorant about what clinical training is like here, or are parroting talking points you've heard elsewhere that have had no basis in reality.

I mean its relative. Surely you aren't about to claim the Palo Alto area is comparable to Baltimore when it comes to race or SES. I live in one of them and my SO lives in the other, things cant have changed that much since my last visit a few weeks ago.

 

[skk_]

I mean its relative. Surely you aren't about to claim the Palo Alto area is comparable to Baltimore when it comes to race or SES. I live in one of them and my SO lives in the other, things cant have changed that much since my last visit a few weeks ago.

i'm for sure not claiming palo alto is baltimore. i'm disputing writing off the school completely as an option for anyone who views factors such as diverse patient populations and health disparities as important, particularly given:

- there are still extremely large health disparities in palo alto as a consequence of what the influx of tech money did to the existing communities in the area (see: most of east palo alto), and one of the main focuses of our pre-clerkship clinical education here is centered on the pre-clin medical students being completely responsible for running a pair of fairly high volume free clinics that specifically serves these populations (which goes far beyond volunteering, with roughly a third of the MS1 and MS2 class involved in handling all the clinical management, logistic issues, community outreach etc. of these clinics)

- our clinical training is not limited to palo alto, and we rotate through SUMC, the VA, kaiser, and santa clara valley. Valley in particular is one of the largest safety nets in CA, and flexibility in scheduling our clerkships means that you're able to schedule almost all your clerkships there (or at one of the other training sites) if it aligns best with your personal goals and motivations.

I'm honestly unsure how much actual useful feedback OP is going to be able to get from this thread vs. talking to students at each of the schools directly, since almost nothing is as black and white as often gets portrayed on here.

 

[efle]

i'm for sure not claiming palo alto is baltimore. i'm disputing writing off the school completely as an option for anyone who views factors such as diverse patient populations and health disparities as important, particularly given:

- there are still extremely large health disparities in palo alto as a consequence of what the influx of tech money did to the existing communities in the area (see: most of east palo alto), and one of the main focuses of our pre-clerkship clinical education here is centered on the pre-clin medical students being completely responsible for running a pair of fairly high volume free clinics that specifically serves these populations (which goes far beyond volunteering, with roughly a third of the MS1 and MS2 class involved in handling all the clinical management, logistic issues, community outreach etc. of these clinics)

- our clinical training is not limited to palo alto, and we rotate through SUMC, the VA, kaiser, and santa clara valley. Valley in particular is one of the largest safety nets in CA, and flexibility in scheduling our clerkships means that you're able to schedule almost all your clerkships there (or at one of the other training sites) if it aligns best with your personal goals and motivations.

I'm honestly unsure how much actual useful feedback OP is going to be able to get from this thread vs. talking to students at each of the schools directly, since almost nothing is as black and white as often gets portrayed on here.

Doesnt that kind of make his point though, if the best way to see high need minority patients is via extracurriculars or scheduling most of your rotations at one of the much less academic satellite sites? Compared to something like JHU, where you can spend all your time at the main JHH getting that famed quality of mentoring/training, and see a huge proportion of minority and/or extremely high need patients because that's the local population.

At the end of the day all the top schools can offer access to this stuff to students who make it a priority. But, at some places more than others that kind of exposure seems to be much more organically built into everyone's education by default. Stanford has a lot of strengths but it seems weird to say this is one of them, it's like telling someone interested in an MBA to consider Hopkins when they have Wharton, HBS and Stanford on the table.

 

[skk_]

Doesnt that kind of make his point though, if the best way to see high need minority patients is via extracurriculars or scheduling most of your rotations at one of the much less academic satellite sites? Compared to something like JHU, where you can spend all your time at the main JHH getting that famed quality of mentoring/training, and see a huge proportion of minority and/or extremely high need patients because that's the local population.

At the end of the day all the top schools can offer access to this stuff to students who make it a priority. But, at some places more than others that kind of exposure seems to be much more organically built into everyone's education by default. Stanford has a lot of strengths but it seems weird to say this is one of them, it's like telling someone interested in an MBA to consider Hopkins when they have Wharton, HBS and Stanford on the table.

I'm not trying to try to portray this as one of the school's strengths - i'm saying its unfair to dismiss the entire school as a black and white inferior option for people that are interested in getting exposure to a diverse patient population, and who want to deal directly with health disparities and underserved populations, which is what I felt that the person I was responding to did. We're still currently finishing up exams here so I unfortunately can't write out as long of a reply to this as I ideally want to (although to OP: if you find me during second look, i'll be more than happy to talk to you more about it then), but I mean, one of the reasons I specifically choose Stanford was because I felt that I would get the opportunity and support to build something with the underserved communities here to a much greater extent than what I would be able to do at the other schools I was choosing between, since based on my personal goals, things like being able to get a high level of autonomy and complete faculty support/funding to pursue and lead new projects from the ground up with these communities was just as important to me as the specific demographics of the local population, which is why one of the things I was trying to stress is that even something like this isn't as black and white as it can get portrayed on here.

For what its worth too (unrelated to the above, but just hoping to clarify): i wouldn't consider Valley as a satellite site (and the school definitely doesn't) - student distribution among almost all clerkships here is extremely evenly split across the four sites we have (25%~ each), with Valley actually having a slight edge over SUMC for many rotations in terms where people choose to go (the residents/attendings you interact with all have cross-appointments at SUMC too, as training there is also a central part of most (all?) Stanford residency programs). Involvement in the cardinal clinics is a direct part of our pre-clinical training too (i.e. "mandatory" to some degree) and not really an extra-curricular, with extended involvement "optional" mainly in the sense that almost the entirety of the medical school curriculum here can be personalized based on what you want to do.

 

[dark_knight]

I'm not trying to try to portray this as one of the school's strengths - i'm saying its unfair to dismiss the entire school as a black and white inferior option for people that are interested in getting exposure to a diverse patient population, and who want to deal directly with health disparities and underserved populations, which is what I felt that the person I was responding to did. We're still currently finishing up exams here so I unfortunately can't write out as long of a reply to this as I ideally want to (although to OP: if you find me during second look, i'll be more than happy to talk to you more about it then), but I mean, one of the reasons I specifically choose Stanford was because I felt that I would get the opportunity and support to build something with the underserved communities here to a much greater extent than what I would be able to do at the other schools I was choosing between, since based on my personal goals, things like being able to get a high level of autonomy and complete faculty support/funding to pursue and lead new projects from the ground up with these communities was just as important to me as the specific demographics of the local population, which is why one of the things I was trying to stress is that even something like this isn't as black and white as it can get portrayed on here.

For what its worth too (unrelated to the above, but just hoping to clarify): i wouldn't consider Valley as a satellite site (and the school definitely doesn't) - student distribution among almost all clerkships here is extremely evenly split across the four sites we have (25%~ each), with Valley actually having a slight edge over SUMC for many rotations in terms where people choose to go (the residents/attendings you interact with all have cross-appointments at SUMC too, as training there is also a central part of most (all?) Stanford residency programs). Involvement in the cardinal clinics is a direct part of our pre-clinical training too (i.e. "mandatory" to some degree) and not really an extra-curricular, with extended involvement "optional" mainly in the sense that almost the entirety of the medical school curriculum here can be personalized based on what you want to do.

Apologies if I said anything incorrect. My intention was only to highlight that certain places offer a better opportunity for that. My understanding is that Stanford, CA is wealthier and has less diversity than some of these other locations. Obviously there are health disparities everywhere. Unfortunately disparities are more severe in certain places. I certainly commend you for your work and dedication to the underserved communities in your area.