Baylor College of Medicine v.s Icahn Mount Sinai v.s UT Southwestern v.s UVA

[susie9511]

Hey guys! I'm an international student. Right now I'm trying to choose a program among BCM (Developmental Biology ), Icahn Mount SInai (Biomedical Science), UTSW (Biomedical), and UVA (Biology). NEED some advice here! Please!

 

[yaybrains]

Congrats on so many great offers!

Something I think is important is whether or not you can really imagine yourself living there. Of course, research will be a big part of your life, but you have to have some way of relaxing and relieving stress every now and then. That's where the location can be important. If you aren't much of a big city person, then NYC might not be the best place. It might be even more stressful to you! Or if that's the type of environment you'd think you would really enjoy since there's so much to do, then go for it! Another big thing is the research. Do any of the schools seem to have more faculty you'd be interested in working with? The more the better, so if one of those schools stands out in that way, that would be something to consider.

Did you go to the schools to interview or were they Skype interviews? I am asking because if you were able to go physically, you could think about the people you met and where you felt the most comfortable.

Not sure about your particular situation, but hopefully this was a little helpful.

[susie9511]

2 hours ago, yaybrains said:

Congrats on so many great offers!

Something I think is important is whether or not you can really imagine yourself living there. Of course, research will be a big part of your life, but you have to have some way of relaxing and relieving stress every now and then. That's where the location can be important. If you aren't much of a big city person, then NYC might not be the best place. It might be even more stressful to you! Or if that's the type of environment you'd think you would really enjoy since there's so much to do, then go for it! Another big thing is the research. Do any of the schools seem to have more faculty you'd be interested in working with? The more the better, so if one of those schools stands out in that way, that would be something to consider.

Did you go to the schools to interview or were they Skype interviews? I am asking because if you were able to go physically, you could think about the people you met and where you felt the most comfortable.

Not sure about your particular situation, but hopefully this was a little helpful.

Thanks so much for the comment!! the interviews for Baylor, Sinai, and UVA were on-site interviews. but the UTSW was a Skype one, so I have no idea what that city and campus looks like. I lived in 3 different cities for now, and they are all really big cities. 

Sinai is located at the heart of Manhattan, which is really attractive to me. However, at the same time, it means that have to share the house with other 3-5 students in the future 4-7 years. the biomedical program in Sinai allows us to choose any research area we want, but to be honest, I don't have a 'specific one' in my mind now.

Baylor is in Houston, and DB program has really good reputation there. I have several labs that I'm interested in joining into. The thing I don't like Baylor is the weather in Houston. I also heard people say that Houston is a boring city? Beside of all these, I have two-bodies problem at the same time... Baylor is the only one that my bf and I overlapped. But, he also got the offers from Caltech and UCSD. If he choose Baylor, then there is no doubt that I'll go to Baylor.

Anyway...still trying to compare all these programs..