<p>If I were to get into both Penn State/Jefferson and Rice/Baylor, which one should I choose? Supposedly Rice/Baylor is the best bs/md combo as far as undergrad and med school prestige go. But, it's 8 years, while penn/jeff is only 6. I want to go into pathology, which isn't a very competitive residency, but I want to land a spot at one of the top programs. Which one's better for pathology or just in general?</p>
<p>umm pathology is actually fairly compeititve. I would go for Rice/Baylor because 1) prestige 2) Baylor is really cheap.</p>
<p>Admittedly, I don't know very much about either program, although from what I have heard, Rice/Baylor is very highly regarded. Personally, purely from a "total number of years" standpoint, I would go with the 6 year program because that's 2 years of tuition I don't have to pay, and I can finish training 2 years earlier in comparison to the traditional 8 year path.</p>
<p>Although the data is from 2000, according to this article (<a href="http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/163/8/1032-a%5B/url%5D">http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/163/8/1032-a</a>) in the CMAJ, pathology is not a very popular choice among (Canadian) med school graduates. I have read on other websites though that the interest in pathology is starting to increase, so who knows what it will be like by the time we are trying to get a residency.</p>
<p>PSU/Jefferson is also a very very well respected program. It depends really whats close to home, what kind of college life you want. At PSU, you'll be studying 2 years straight, even summers I think you'll have classes and you'll start right after high school graduation. Whereas at Rice, you'll have a normal college life. 2 years is alot of money saved, but you miss out on somewhat of a college experience. But I know people from PSU/Jefferson who are very succesfull doing top residencies in extremely competitive fields. So in terms of prestige, they both are very prestigious. Its about how long you want to go to college for.</p>
<p>If you are graduating from a US medical school, path is not that competitive. Most path residency spots are filled with IMGs. Fewer US seniors rank-order path than there are available spots most years.</p>