<p>Well, after sifting through tons of chaff trying to get to the wheat I stumbled on something very useful to me at SDN (and it's NOT on the Pre-Allopathic forums either). </p>
<p>Under "medical students" they have individual threads for many/most schools by class year. It really gives a flavor to what is going on at a school day to day. Inside and out of class. </p>
<p>As an example I was really pleased with UTMB at Galveston after reading a few hundred posts. I made a couple notes on things that will be interesting to D about lifestyle, costs, just the whole attending medical school thing. And the ratio of chaff to wheat is reduced considerably. </p>
<p>I'd suggest anybody in their junior year trying to get an idea of what you want in a medical school, those threads aren't a bad place to start.</p>
<p>Agreed. That's what I was saying about the "chaff". The specific "class threads" OTOH........there is some good stuff there about what it is like to live one of their days. Class schedules, time in class, class attendance, access to lectures online, access to "outlines" and "notes" (scribes), tutoring, fraternities, living arrangements , apartment rents, traffic, ....just a whole bunch of stuff you'd have to be there to know. Check all that against MSAR , USNews, and AAMC data and you start to get a feel of a school. Enough to attend? Certainly not. Enough to get on a preliminary list? Maybe so.</p>
<p>I worry about the future of UTMB Galveston; I had heard that an attempt to move the school to Austin was in the offing even before the hurricane.</p>
<p>I even saw something about a possible a new med school in Austin affiliated with UTSW messing up an M3-4 and residencies arrangement UTMB has currently with Austin hospitals.</p>