I applied to both, rotated at neither, and got the interview at Loyola and no love from Northwestern. Loyola was nice. Really good group of residents. You need to talk to Colles FX about the Chicago Programs. Review his previous posts and drop him a direct topic.

I think he ranked Loyola No. 1

with no ties to Chicago or the midwest, i got an interview at Loyola but not at NW.

Applied to both, rotated at NW, got interview from NW, no love from Loyola.
I have heard nothing but good things about Loyola, though.
NW is a bit spread out at 5 different hospitals -- good and bad aspects to that. Very academic atmosphere with the residents pimping each other a lot. Makes you keep up on your reading. Very nice hospital, more like a country club! Great Peds and Sports experience and overall very well rounded with everything pretty much covered well. Pretty good lifestyle too with trauma not being too heavy.
:smokin:

Both are excellent programs. I am a student at one, but rotated at both. Loyola has a great chairman who is doing incredible things with the program. It is a tighter group of guys b/c it is only 4/year vs. NW's 9/year. At Loyola, you get a ton more trauma, less didactics, improving sports and spine. At NW, you get some of the best sports, spine and joint guys around training you. A lot more didactics (everyday incl saturday) at NW. Probably a better lifestyle, greater variety of hospitals (univ, childrens, va, county, community). Very different programs but both offer outstanding training.

Just something you might want to consider. I rotated at Loyola. I think that year they had something like 30-40 people rotate there for 4 spots. While I was there, so were eight other people highly qualified, highly motivated people, so needless to say it was difficult to really get to know any of the faculty. Also the residents will openly admit that they have little to no say on who gets in, they do however have a voice on who should not get in. Also, while rotating there the residents were having a rather large disagreement on the moonlighting opportunities (the ones not sponsored by the school). With the 80 hr work rule this may not be an issue anymore. It did not seem like they were a cohesive a group of residents as I saw at other programs. The training there, as with most other ortho programs, was excellent and non malignant.