UCSF>>Stanford. Both are amazing, but faculty and research felt a little more amzing and the culture was exceedingly welcoming. However, they are both awesome but if I had to choose based on rotations I had at both.
Also rotated at both and agree UCSF > Stanford. I think UCSF has the best clinical training in the entire country with the diversity of patient population, subspecialties you get to see. <<I am surprised people tiered Stanford in top 5 programs on here. It is great, but a little below the other 4, and I will likley rank other west coast programs above it (but city is a big factor for me...and my SO)
I have no idea what gauge you're using to say Stanford is "a little below the other 4". In what way(s), and does that criterion/criteria really define the strength of a program?
<beware many people will tell you the opposite of what they think (ie ranking program lower) so that you may rank it lower, and they can rank it higher and have more chances to match. Take everything on here with a grain of salt and trust your gut
this x10000. Stanford is an incredibly, incredibly popular program, and people will pull some shit like this
< was just about to post that! Stanford >> UCSF. Less demanding, better name recognition to your patients, and the community/alumni network are incredible. << I think you have to take everything with a grain of salt here, but these are both literally great, so it comes down more to city/fit/your personal opinion. Don't rely too much on other people for top program comparison. People interviewing at both of these will be sucessful regardless of where we go. It is about where you will be happy.
I think Stanford and UCSF are vastly different programs with different institutional cultures. UCSF is a public, urban, medical focused university with excellent dermpath and derm surgery programs. Stanford is a wealthy, private university with lots of money in a very suburban area with great basic science research. I would say UCSF has more leaders in academic dermatology than Stanford and better clinical training. Stanford has better basic science research, lots more money, potential networking connections given the law/business/grad programs/etc., and overall a little more "cush" / hand-holding culture. Even though they are geographically close, these are vastly different programs.
I think UCSF is better than Stanford in pretty much all regards. Stronger dermpath, peds derm, derm surgery, and med derm. They're both great obviously, but UCSF is definitly the stronger program.
LOCATION. SF and Redwood City/Palo Alto are vastly different from each other. Also, Redwood City is still ~20-30 minute away from the main Stanford Campus, depending on traffic