Western vs Midwestern

[loquat]

Hello Everyone, 

 

I have recently been accepted to WesternU and Midwestern University in Glendale, and I am torn. If anyone has advice on which school would provide a better education, please let me know! I've heard one of Western's teachers is pretty bad but I haven't heard anything about Midwestern. I know that US World News and Report has ranked Midwestern substantially higher, but I would appreciate more insight if anyone can help. Thanks!

[molang]

Sorry that I don't have any input on your question, but if you haven't already, I think this is definitely a question worth posting on the Pre-PA subreddit :) 

 

I'd also love to know what people have to say about your options or any other information you've discovered. Congratulations on being accepted to both programs, that's AWESOME !! 

[NimbleMind]

I'm a student at Western and I can say that whatever Western is missing in terms of it's quality of teaching (which is probably average, but not bad), it makes up for in the strength of it's student community. We really bond together to help each other out (share notes, study guides, etc), and I think that is much more vital to success in PA school than having all amazing teachers, whatever that means anyway (I doubt any program has all great teachers).  My understanding is that Midwestern does not have a very strong collaborative community, and I know for sure that USC doesn't.  Unlike in undergrad, in grad school the learning is done in a much more independent fashion, so I wouldn't worry as much about the teachers as I would about the amount of student collaboration.

[PRheePA]

On 7/12/2017 at 2:46 PM, NimbleMind said:

I'm a student at Western and I can say that whatever Western is missing in terms of it's quality of teaching (which is probably average, but not bad), it makes up for in the strength of it's student community. We really bond together to help each other out (share notes, study guides, etc), and I think that is much more vital to success in PA school than having all amazing teachers, whatever that means anyway (I doubt any program has all great teachers).  My understanding is that Midwestern does not have a very strong collaborative community, and I know for sure that USC doesn't.  Unlike in undergrad, in grad school the learning is done in a much more independent fashion, so I wouldn't worry as much about the teachers as I would about the amount of student collaboration.

NimbleMind summed it up well. I'm a second-year PA student at WesternU officially about to be done in....5 days! I cannot speak of Midwestern because I don't know of anybody directly from that program who can give me accurate information, but I can speak plenty about WesternU. It has one of the biggest PA classes in California, if not the nation. With 97 other classmates, the professors don't have the capacity or time to be present for each student as they would in programs with smaller class sizes. If you are fine with self-studying to really get the information down for some of the classes, then you will be just fine at WesternU. I've seen that US World News and Report ranking, but I'm not sure exactly how they rate schools. And like NimbleMind said, there was a lot of class collaboration and support that helped tremendously. I'd say the class bond is one of WesternU PA program's strongest aspects. Knowledge-wise, about 15-20 of us recently went to the 5-day CME Resources review course for the PANCE. We all did well on the mock questions, and there wasn't really any information from the review course that we were not taught at WesternU. Overall, I'd say if you are local to SoCal and you want a solid school to learn at close to home, WesternU is a strong pick; it was actually the only school that I applied to. If you are out of state or not really local to the area and you have been accepted to multiple schools, do some more research, and see in which program you fit best.

[NimbleMind]

Western had a 100% PANCE pass rate this year. Can't top that :-)