SLU vs. Drexel

[snideiodide]

Hi all! I was lucky enough to be recently accepted to Drexel, but now have to make a decision between Drexel and SLU. I would greatly appreciate any help in making this decision!

DREXEL
PROS
-new curriculum focused on problem-based and case-based learning
-many opportunities for rotations
-more matches on the east coast
-closer to family (I am from New England) and have friends in the area
CONS
-new curriculum lectures are all recorded
-large class size
-rotations can be far, may have to travel/ get housing closer to rotation location

SLU
PROS
-curriculum still has in-class lectures
-rotations are near the medical school
-smaller class size
-seems to have newer facilities
CONS
-farther from family
-on probation (although many are saying this is not a big issue)
-more matches in the midwest

I have been going back and forth between these two, so any information or help would be amazing. Thank you!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[ciestar]

Rising MS2 at Drexel and I'll just say the big class size really isn't a huge deal at all! There are now six societies which will make it feel even smaller!

The lack of live lectures is in part because of the lack of attendance for a long, long time.

Housing for away rotations is provided if it's more than an hour away.

But having family close will be nice

 

[Kingsmen2018]

.

 

[Kingsmen2018]

I wonder what your take was on the concerns that I had about Drexel:

• Location: the location is super isolated not only from the rest of the campus, but also from the rest of Philadelphia and from the places where you'd be doing your clinical rotations.
• Instruction: Drexel now has video-only instruction (in addition to mandatory group work). I asked what I thought was a super easy question, "What do you do if you have a question?" The person who was available to talk to us had no idea. $60k or whatever a year and not able to ask a question? Sorry, no.
• Hospital affiliations: Drexel has a hospital affiliation with a for-profit hospital. When I asked my faculty interviewer what Drexel's biggest weakness/challenge is, he said that this for-profit hospital works med students like crazy and doesn't treat them well. My student interviewer reiterated this idea. Clinical years sound like hell.
• Interview day: Nobody wanted to talk to us other than our interviewers. We had a video to watch the dean talk about the school, the lady who pressed play but didn't really seem eager to answer questions, we didn't have access to students other than our interviewer. They scheduled a class for us to view, but then the class was canceled, so they just left us sitting there for like 1.5 hours without explanation.
• Unenthusiastic students