CWRU vs Temple vs UF

[aubonpbmc]

Non-trad student, interested in competitive surgical specialties and medical specialties dealing with musculoskeletal conditions, replants/transplants, athletics/QoL kind of stuff (ortho/PRS/PM&R/sports med come to mind). Possibly interested in trauma/EM based on previous exposures to those fields.

I live in PA. I don’t want to live in the northeast/midwest my whole life. Don't really care about the prestige of residency programs, but also don't want to be hobbled in terms of matching in a competitive specialty.

Prior advice obtained:
-Friends at top 10 schools (who are matching into PRS/ortho/etc.) say go for prestige
-Friends in my area say don't leave
-Attending surgeon says go for prestige
-Surg residents from top med schools say prestige
-Surg residents from lower ranked med schools say enough hard work can trump prestige (whatever I want)

CWRU
+ Residency programs in surgical specialties of interest
+ Crazy good track record matching in some competitive surgical specialties
+ Great set of hospitals for clinical experience
+ Research opportunities
+ "Prestige"

- Would cost a lot (in time and money) for me to keep practicing my extracurricular sport in the area
- Mandatory PBL 3 days / week
- Insane cost of attendance
- Dislike Cleveland, would dislike staying anywhere in OH throughout residency
- Some students mentioned that there are older students pursuing competitive specialties who act overly competitive/obstructive to younger students with the same interests

Temple
+ Less of a hassle to move
+ Cheap! Large scholarship makes it even cheaper
+ Don't have to adjust my extracurricular activities -- Temple has organizations already set up for my sport etc.
+ Students seemed super chill
+ Philadelphia is pretty cool and I wouldn’t mind staying in PA for a while

- Less "Prestige"
- Not as great a track record at matching into competitive surgical specialties (but not terrible either)
- No residency program in one of my fields of interest
- Grades/ranking in pre-clinical years
- Not sure about how easy it is to do research here

UF
+ Location is beautiful
+ Seems like a lot of research opportunities available
+ Cheaper than CWRU
+ Felt like a great environment to learn in
+ Apparently it’s easy to leave Florida if you don’t want to stay

- Would still have to move
- Would have to go out of my way to participate in my sport
- Nobody I know in the area
- More expensive than Temple
- Least “prestige” (I think)

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[ace_inhibitor111]

Hard to say without knowing what exactly the price difference is between Case and UF. Did you receive any financial aid from Case? I think UF beats Temple from what you've listed. From Temple's match lists, I don't see them having a great track record of Ortho matches.

 

[aubonpbmc]

Hard to say without knowing what exactly the price difference is between Case and Temple. Did you receive any financial aid from Case? I think Temple beats UF based on what you listed. From UF's match lists, I don't see them having a great track record of Ortho matches.

No other financial aid from Case, and it's unlikely that they'll match (no idea why they are so expensive). Case's tuition this year is ~$61k, with a total cost of attendance at ~$87k/year. Temple's tuition would be ~$30k/year with the scholarship and in-state reduced rate. I don't have a good total cost of attendance estimate for Temple (can't find one online). If anyone knows, I'd appreciate that info!

Also, if anyone can has access to Temple's 2012-2014 match lists I'd love to take a look. I have CWRU data from 2012-2017, but only 2015-2017 for Temple.

 

[Shirafune]

Since you want to match a competitive specialty, regardless of the rank of the residency program, I don't think prestige matters nearly as much. I don't think you can tell from a match list how well a school matches students into a particular specialty anyways.

Since ortho and PRS are the only competitive specialties you've listed, I think if you do well in your clinical years and have a good Step 1 for the specialty, then a couple of away rotations at programs like Pitt, Jefferson, Drexel, UPenn, etc can cover your bases. Also check out Temple's home programs for these specialties. Does Temple have a large ortho/PRS program that regularly takes its own graduates?

Doing well academically which is inherently tied to happiness is most important. By the sounds of it, you might not enjoy spending 4 years in Cleveland while trying to prepare a stellar enough app for Ortho/PRS; it will be much more difficult IMO.

 

[deev04]

Prestige is absolutely a factor for residency, but I'm not sure the disparity between Case and UF/Temple warrants $228k more in debt. Yes, Case is undoubtedly the more well-known school of the three and will probably give you the largest "prestige" bump, but outside of the very top academic residencies, I'm not sure how large this prestige bump is when you're talking about schools in the 20-50 range. Once you get outside the Top 5/10/15 med schools, I think the differences in prestige between schools becomes much smaller. In other words, the difference between Harvard/Stanford/Penn vs Top 15/20 schools seems to be larger than the difference between a Top 20/25 school and a Top 40/45 school. There's probably still a difference there, but when you look at matches, it seems to be only the schools at the tippity top that can almost guarantee an elite residency (look at the Top 5/10 Match lists vs Top20/Top25). I'd still guess that Case may make matching in certain fields, for certain residencies slightly more likely, but you would not be closing any doors by going Temple/UF. They are both solidly mid-tier schools with excellent research opportunities that turn out matches in all specialties. $228k more is just a huge difference for what may not be all that much gain (Case-24, UF-40, Temple-55).