I found this post a little while ago that I think is really helpful for people considering CCLCM:
"I am a Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine alumnus.
Getting Google alerts about the school occasionally sends me to this forum (which was very helpful for me during my medical school application process many years ago) and I'll skim the threads that pertain to CCLCM. What I'm always surprised by is the emphasis that applicants place on the full merit scholarship that accompanies acceptance.
Hopefully I don’t come off as patronizing when I offer some unrequited advice on choosing a medical school, particularly as it pertains to CCLCM.
First, there is way too much focus on money. As a resident, I completely understand the crunch of finances and also am wholly familiar with loan interest capitalization. But, the idea that you should choose a medical school based on financial incentives is foolish. If you are equally torn between schools, it can be very helpful. Or, if your goals are very distinct and directed toward quick completion with minimal turbulence. In that case, the lower the tuition the better. But otherwise? Choose where you will be happiest. Life is too short, residency is too hard, and your happiness is too important.
Medical school occurs during a formative period in your life and where you go to medical school sets off a cascade of life events that will determine (for many people) the specialty you choose, the career you desire, and your lifelong friends. Do NOT make a decision based on a few hundred thousand dollars if it means you will be any measure less happy once you make that more frugal or “safe” decision. Also, an extra year in earning potential does not matter. Not an iota, as it compares to the rest of your life- or at least that’s what it feels like now. The concept of weighing a hypothetical year of income against a year of experiential unknowns is both as unromantic and unappealing as it sounds when you consider the length of the average physician career. You’re never going to look back and think “I wish I had netted another year of salary”- life just does not work that way. You should be interested in an extra academic year because it affords you the chance for the first time in a long time (and what will be a long time thereafter) to intellectually explore an academic or personal pursuit without other pressing obligations or the relentless regiment of a ticking clock. As I tell incoming residency applicants, you need to find the place you will be happiest every day, not the most prestigious or where your faculty advisor thinks is the most flattering. Very few people can function at a high level when they are unhappy.
There are a lot of components of medical schools that applicants focus on that again, from my perspective are inconsequential when taken out of context. Learning styles, lecture vs. PBL, parking, etc. These are only important in aggregate, when you debate whether or not the general educational focus of the school fits your personality and goals.
To that end, do not attend the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine because it is less expensive. Furthermore, do not attend the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine unless you truly have a sense that academic medicine is somehow in your future. It is otherwise a waste of your time, the school’s time, and your classmate’s time. There is no way that you’re going to be happy when you’re just trying to learn the cardiac cycle and instead of answering questions that prepare you for boards (like at other schools) you are being asked to prepare a mock three-armed randomized trial that builds on the results from a Cell 2008 paper on cardiac myosin, or whatever. Going through these academic exercises without the desire to be a functioning physician-investigator in the future will not endear you to research, it will drive you away.
Many of my classmates had to make the decision between places like CCLCM and JHH, HMS, etc and I don’t know exactly how each of them felt at the end of the 5 years. What I do know is that people who started out interested in academics were on the whole happier during their time than those who were on the fence about it.
As someone who is now glimpsing the end of a long residency, I’m going to continue being a researcher and a surgeon. And in that regard I am exceptionally happy with the education I received at Cleveland Clinic. I look back incredibly fondly and I have no doubt that I received world-class training. But I don’t know what my path would have been at a different school, and no really has that capability. What I do know is that I attended the school I thought would make me the happiest, and luckily I was right. I encourage you to do the same.
I wish you the best of luck."
It's from this thread if anyone is curious:
Which would you choose and why: CCLCM vs HMS?
