A little late to the party, but I have the ultimate experience with review courses. I was always a lecture person, not a self studier. I attended both the Wills and SAOC in residency, and the Illinois Eye review and Osler Oral review last year. The Wills and SAOC were comparable in my opinion for written preparation. SAOC was a far better value. The course is cheaper and the hotel is cheaper.
Illinois was not as good of a course, but last year was the first year. Dr. Azar, the Chairman, was very enthusiastic about the course and I'm sure it will improve dramatically based on the feedback they received from the first course. It also had the benefit of having a clinical meeting at the same time, which I like. I was always weak in Peds, so I went to every Peds lecture I could and it helped on my Writtens. The best part about the Illinois course was that it ended a few days before written boards. Nothing like cramming. I didn't study much more than I did for OKAPs, and improved 30 percentile over my average OKAP score.
I don't know if they still have the Penn course, but I bought the handouts on Ebay and it looked pretty comparable content wise to Wills and SAOC.
I would also concur with Osler being great for oral boards. The whole process is a little foreign and it just gets you into the mode of thinking you need to quickly go through the courses.
