Hi everyone, so I was just accepted off the waitlist at the Medical College of Georgia and now have to decide if I would attend that school over Florida International University....
I don't know anything about MCG, but wanted to address some of the things you mentioned for FIU.
+very high step score average (~240)
This is true, our class had the highest average Step 1 score thus far. I was told it was a 240 or in the low 240's. Of course that alone doesn't necessarily mean you are promised a great score. You will have to work hard.
+close to family vs
-further from SO if offered a full time position in NC
Only you will be able to weigh the pros and cons of this. It definitely sucks to have to make this decision. I would say this factor is probably going to be the most important in your decision. Having a support system is key, whether that be living close to your SO or your family.
+class size of 120
Personally I think 120 students is an ideal number. There are enough so that you can find people with similar interests, plus during third year you can always find someone who is on a more chill rotation.
? step is taken after M3, not sure if this is a pro or con
In my opinion this is largely a pro. I think it helps dramatically with being more confident in test day. Many notably schools are also changing to this format, so it must be for a good reason. The only downside in my experience is if you choose a specialty that requires away rotations because a lot of these are going to want to see your step score prior to accepting you for a rotation. Everyone I know of was able to work around this and secure aways in many different specialties, but it will require more legwork and persistence on your part. Of course if you don't pursue a specialty that requires aways then this won't apply to you. Even with this inconvenience I would say taking it after M3 is overall a pro.
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community hospitals around the county
This is a pro and a con in my opinion. I wrote about it in another post but in short it's a pro in that you don't have to compete with residents at a lot of sites for learning experiences. I was first assist in many surgeries, got to intubate, assist with central lines, etc. I know people who were able to do chest tubes, play a part in trauma activations (not simply observing), etc. The downside is (in my understanding) we don't really have a lot of high caliber academic docs in certain fields. For example, all of our Ortho docs are community. While I'm sure they have some research projects going on, I imagine it's not on the same level as a big academic center. Same goes with specialties such as Derm, ENT, Ophtho, etc. With that being said we have had people match in those specialties before, so it is doable but you will have to search out those people.
-have heard the step score is so high because people get held back if they aren't doing so well
I can't see this happening. It was mentioned by another poster but this sounds more like a conspiracy theory than anything else. The only people that don't move on to the next year are those who keep failing and having to remediate courses, or in some circumstances those who are consistently barely passing courses. I personably don't think this is unfair. Do you think medical schools should produce physicians who keep failing courses or are just barely skimming by? This isn't to say that they aren't working hard, I know they are, but being a physician demands certain qualifications. And many of those who had to repeat a year have figured out what they needed to do to succeed and have now graduated. So I wouldn't let this be an issue. It's not some scheme to artificially inflate our average step score. And another thing to consider, if someone is barely passing their classes, they are at risk of failing step 1 or at best getting a very low score. As you will find out, having either of these two will really hurt your chances at successfully matching (particularly a failure). So it is in the student's best interest to find out why they are struggling and fix the issue, and not just barreling towards the most important test of your medical career with the hopes that you will somehow be a unicorn and score well in spite of a track record of barely passing.
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not P/F
In my opinion this doesn't really matter. Preclinical grades themselves are low in the list of what program directors are looking for, and what they are usually looking for is to make sure you don't have any failures or are consistently scoring in the lowest category. Perhaps the extremely competitive specialties place more emphasis on this, but it's still pretty low on their list. What's more important is your third year grades and overall rank. So going to a P/F school will not change this. Unless it is a true P/F school with no internal rankings collected during the first or second year, but that just means everything is based off of your M3 grades so the pressure to succeed third year is even greater. Our class has an extremely friendly atmosphere, and it seems like the other classes below us have this as well. We always share study guides, tips, reminders, etc. I really like our culture of helping each other.
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relatively new medical school
This unfortunately is definitely not helpful in terms of having a recognizable name for residency, particularly outside of Florida, but we seem to be really developing a great reputation and I really hope it keeps growing. We had some very strong matches this year, and I hope all the programs are impressed with the work of our alumni.
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heard it isn't super easy to find research
Unfortunately there is truth to this. As stated above, you will have to network to find these individuals. In addition to this our research director is not easy to work with. This is a big weakness that we, the students, are working to address.
A few other points:
You mentioned looking at the match lists. Be cautious in this because it's going to be difficult to ascertain much from it. You will obviously notice trends in certain schools, such as Ivy League med schools match a lot of students into Ivy League residencies, but beyond that you simply don't know enough to be able to say "this match list is better." For example, I ranked some places that are extremely well known nationally and "prestigious" lower on my list because I felt like I would be happier at other places. And I know many others have done the same. Geography is one of the most important factors in ranking residencies, so it's no surprise that Florida medical school graduates usually end up in Florida, and I would expect similar results for other med schools including MCG.
In terms of tuition, it seems like MCG will he about $55.6K for OOS and FIU is about $38.8K. I don't think you necessarily will HAVE to spend over $20K more living in Miami, but you obviously could. The biggest expense is housing and this is going to vary depending on what you want. Living in brickell or at the beach is going to be more expensive, especially if you want to live by yourself. If you split a two or three bedroom with one or two other people respectively, then your costs are going to be much lower.
In the end of the day, I would suggest that you look for where you are going to be the happiest. A happy med student is going to be much for productive and be much more successful than an unhappy one.
