Hofstra 4+4 BSMD vs Sophie Davis BSMD
I’m deciding between these two BSMD programs. I am torn! Hofstra bsmd has a great medical school but they have a MCAT requirement of 511 first try and the undergrad will cost me 40k/yr. Sophie Davis is 7-yr, no MCAT, and no need to dorm as well as 6k/yr. But Sophie Davis doesn’t have the best match rate especially for something outside of primary care. Sophie Davis medical school is also not that well known and very new.
Congrats on two fine acceptances!
It is WAY too early to worry about matching. And Sophie Davis’ mission is more community medicine/primary care focused than some of the other NY med schools… so is it that their students don’t become dermatologists and orthopedic surgeons at the same rate as Mt. Sinai, or that the kind of student at Sophie Davis is more interested in underserved communities, i.e. primary care?
Terrific results.
Sophie Davis is fabulous. Congratulations!
It’s hard to say. They released the residencies their students matched to and a lot matched to specialities like ortho and anesthesiology. You can see their 2024 match results on their site. I can’t place a link on this page for some reason.
Sophie Davis sounds like a good choice though it may be more intense. I assume you would be commuting -is that a plus or a minus (do you have a quiet room to yourself where you can focus& study?)
@medicalenjoyer123 if this is your real name, I would urge you to change it asap. Here is how:
changed it. Thank you for catching that
Most likely I will be dorming. But even with dorm it’s half the price of Hofstra. However, its looks like SD doesn’t have a home program for my speciality of choice (at the moment surgery), their match list isn’t as good as Hofstra, and the Hofstra has much more networking, research, and other opportunities compared to SD. Which is obvious because Hofstra has access to the entire northwell network while SD is affiliated with primarily Health+Hospitals (HHC). So to me it seems like short-term win long term loss with SD. And vice versa with Zucker
Please do not enter medical school with the idea that only one specialty is what you want. You will be required to do a variety of required rotations. In addition, many medical schools allow elective rotations (if surgery interests you, this could be one), and those might not be “in house”. You need to check Sophie Davis policies on these elective rotations.
By elective rotations you are referring to the speciality rotations that are done during MS3 and MS4? So your suggesting to ask SD faculty if the rotations I want are in their medical school rotations and if they’re not see if I can do elective rotations? Sorry for these questions that may seem obvious. It’s just I honestly wasn’t familiar with any of the details.
Yes, that is what I’m suggesting.
Perhaps @WayOutWestMom has additional ideas related to your potential career goals in medicine.
Thank you. Ill send this person a message
You can post your question here. Then others can benefit from the responses you receive.
Surgery is not that competitive of a specialty. It’s mid-competitive at best, unless you are aiming for the highly competitive subs–plastics, cardiac, thoracic, vascular. Or absolutely, positively MUST match in a very limited geographic area, or want only a brand name academic research track residency. Surgery is on par with OB/GYN, anesthesia and radiology in terms of competitiveness. And frankly right now OB/GYN and radiology are tougher matches than surgery.
There are tons of community hospital residency programs where you will get excellent surgical training.
I would also suggest you ignore Match lists. The specialties people choose will vary year-to-year depending on the interests, talents and personal choices of the graduating student class. Some years there will be a bunch of surgery (or radiology or PMR or urology) matches and other years there will none or very few.
Surgery is one of required 3rd year rotations at every med school. You will get exposure to it at either med school. If you think you want to pursue surgery, you have the option of doing additional elective (meaning not required by the school) rotations both at your home hospital and at other sites. Doing rotation at other sites are called “aways” or “audition rotations”. You apply for aways at the end of your 3rd year after you have already done your required surgery rotation. This is also when you can request to do a more intensive surgery rotation (called a “sub-I” meaning just below an intern level)) at your home hospital.
You have two wonderful choices. Pick the one that fits you best.
Also. Sophie Davis, you report, is $6000 a year. Is that the cost for all 8 years? Even if it’s just for your undergrad years, that is quite a good cost.
Save your money for medical school…which will be very costly at Hofstra, I believe.
I can’t imagine SD would prevent you from becoming a surgeon as it’s known as a solid program and it’ll mostly be on you anyway.
That fear for sth that may never materialize 6 years from now shouldn’t keep you from accepting an offer of BSMD at a solid program for 6k a year.
I would however recommend dorming at least your 1st year if you can find a way to do it with a few other SD or Macaulay students (I know the program will mostly be commuters but that 1st year of independence matters as well as having a solid support network among your peers- and it’s harder for commuters.)
I asked Hey, I have a dilemma right now deciding between Sophie Davis and Hofstra BSMD and wanted to ask what is your opinion on it. btw @thumper1 recommended me to you. SD is obvi more appealing bc its 7yr and no MCAT but looking deeper I realized that CUNY SOM doesn’t give same opportunities, networking, and research as Zucker SOM. This year the match list for Sophie Davis was pretty good with a lot in specialties but I feel like I will be at a disadvantage in the long-run with Sophie Davis, especially bc rn I am leaning more towards surgery (it could change in the future but I’m prepping for the worst and surgery is very competitive)
Yes the 6k is only for undergrad. And 40k for med school
From a financial point of view, that’s an awesome deal.
All 7 years for under 180k total 
Almost too good to be true, check and verify!
…Most med schools cost near 100k a year…
That is excellent overall cost!