Hi, so I'm going to be a senior this coming year and I recently discovered that Psychiatry interests me immensely. I've been looking for the right colleges and originally I thought that going to my local technological school would be the best option so I could utilize our 'Lottery Scholarship' that every 2nd semester student receives and pays 100% of tuition for eight consecutive semesters. Recently though, I was looking at other schools that have sent me emails and the New York Institute of Technology stood out a lot and they offer a lot of the same things that my local school does, but they also have a medical program for after undergrad. My question is would it be better for me to just go to my local school and save money, or should I just go all out and go to a more expensive/better known school with the offer of medical school as well? (even though I'll still have to apply to NYIT for medical after the MCATs I just wonder if it would be a better opportunity)
I don't get any sense that New York Institute of Technology is a particularly strong college. Based on US News rankings, it was #68 for local colleges in the North, which doesn't seem anything special.
The program you are referring to at New York Institute of Technology seems to be a combined BA/DO program with the New York College of Osteopathic medicine. I found information about the program on this site.
There are a few threads on this site on BA/MD programs, but I'm far less familiar with the BA/DO programs. DO schools are typically much less selective than MD programs. Typically, if you are a strong enough candidate to get into the combined programs, you would be a very strong applicant when you are ready to graduate from your undergraduate program anyway. The requirements to apply for the combined BA/DO program don't seem overly competitive, compared to what I would expect at most combined programs. Given the high cost of their undergraduate program, I think you are much better off going to a decent school for a lot less money. If your local college is a decent school, your choice is pretty easy. If the local school is not strong and doesn't offer an adequate pre-med program, then I would suggest you look at other decent colleges that would be far cheaper than New York Institute of Technology.
I'm personally not familiar with these schools, so perhaps they are much better than I think. If there are other people who have opinions on this, they can feel free to add their comments in this thread.