Ottawa BioMed or Waterloo Biomed?

[SolozG]

Hello all.

 

Fortunatley, I recieved offers from both of these universities. On the unfortunate side, I don't know which one to pick. Both universities seem to have advantages/disadvantages, which I want to go into to help inform your/my decision. Just to let you know, my goal is med school and med school only, I don't want to look at alternatives right now.

 

Ottawa

Adv: great program which prepares you for med school (esp. Ottawa's own), offers a 12K scholarship, beautiful city, med school to help navigate your course, ont/quebec border

Ddv: hard program (pure sciences), 4-5hr drive

 

Waterloo

Adv: 45 min drive, like the people there, great program which prepares you for med school, easier than Ottawa (I've heard, prove me wrong if you wish)

Ddv: flat-lining campus, 3K (I think) scholarship, no med school/recognition with med school profs/no aid to navigate course, not as focused on med school as Ottawa (engineering/comp programming is very popular)

 

So folks, help me out. Are my adv/ddv any good, should I be considering other things, and the biggest question, which one?

[Buddah]

you wont be making the wrong choice if you pick either. Go to where you think will do the best

[misskris]

I admittedly don't know much about Waterloo. But uOttawa is hoping to bring in a co-op program for biomed in the very near future. You'd also have the option to specialize in areas such as cellular and molecular medicine, neuroscience, etc. Ottawa has great biology/biochemistry/biomed researchers and research opportunities, most of them actually being at the hospital. The school spirit overall isn't great these days, but the spirit at the faculty of science is second to none. Plus I can guarantee you a fantastic 101 (orientation) week.

 

The scholarship is hard to keep, not too many people do, and once you lose it it's hard to get it back. But if you're not at the 8.5, but between 8.0 and 8.49, they'll give you half of it, which they didn't do back in my day.

 

Just my two cents, like I said, I don't know much about Waterloo but I enjoyed every second of my undergrad at uOttawa.