<p>I got into a combined degree program at PSU/Jeff, but thought that I should ask here about opinions on Jeff's reputation. Also wondering if anyone has their match list.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>If your goal is to be a doctor, TJ will serve just fine for that.</p>
<p>It is a good school and you will get a good education. You do not need to look farther and this way you do not have to go through the pre-med competition horror.</p>
<p>I am interested in how they do with residency matches, especially if I decide (as I think I want to) to get into surgery which I hear is highly competitive. Any insight into this?</p>
<p>SDN may well have a match list, or USN might have a residency director score.</p>
<p>GenSurg isn't too bad, actually, I'm pretty sure. Other surgical specialties can be.</p>
<p>As a Pennsylvania resident, would PSU have been your first choice for med school anyway? If so, there is little reason to go to Penn and risk not getting into med school 4 years from now. If you have the will and desire to go to a "better" med school, go to Penn, do Vagelos, and get into Harvard, Hopkins, WashU, or (the best med school in the US) Penn.</p>
<p>I mean, they wouldn't be offering this to you unless they thought you were the kind of student who would gain admission in four years anyway. They're trying to lure you here precisely because they think you're going to be too good for them four years down the line.</p>
<p>I don't like combined programs for this reason. While the prestige of a medical school's not particularly important for private practice, I still find it annoying that programs like this are trying to lure better students in four years early by promising them that their undergraduate years won't matter.</p>
<p>Right now I sort of have a "shoot for the stars" mentality (/delusional, I don't know yet). Jeff would not be my first choice, nor would PSU for undergrad. Along the same lines I would love to get into plastic or potentially neurosurgery, and as a high school senior I honestly do not know enough about med school reputations and residency...stuff, to be able to make an informed decision about any of this.</p>
<p>Another factor would be money I suppose, but if everyone else can take out ridiculous loans, I'm sure that I can deal too.</p>
<p>If you're looking for those two, you could do those from anywhere, but your medical school starts to matter.</p>
<p>7 years at PSU may be less than 4 at Penn. That is something to strongly consider. If UMD did a 7 year thing, I'd probably go to that instead of Penn. The two 7 year programs that interested me were NU's and WashU's because I was applying there anyway for undergrad. Maybe Rice's would have been good too. Judging by what you're saying, go to Penn and be happier. It will be funny if you end up at PSU for med school 4 years from now, but that 1 year really makes no difference down the road. The debt does though.</p>
<p>I think that it would be about $200k less than funny! </p>
<p>Thank you both for the advice/insight, which I think has been very helpful.</p>