<p>I was born in Cuba and lived in poverty until the age of 5 when most of my entire family received an opportunity to come to the United States. My father died when i was 2 years old so i never really knew him. I spent most of my child hood and most of my teenage years without a father figure. The whole story is long and complicated so ill spare you the details. I never did exceptionally well in high school, graduating with a 3.09 gpa. The only high point to my high school years were 4 years of varsity baseball. I lived in what i did not know to be poverty since my mother was the only one working a full time job (i helped out by working construction with my best friends dad). Currently, i am the first person in my entire family to go to college and will be the first to graduate beating my older sister (younger cousin isn't too far behind me). </p>
<p>My sGPA is 3.44, cGPA is 3.61, and my MCAT is 33. Business finance major at my university (5 years required to obtain degree, or some 150+ credits).</p>
<p>GPA for all 5 years of college</p>
<p>Freshman: 2.94 (didn't think i could go to medical school)
Sophomore: 3.14 (shadowed hispanic family physician after first semester which really inspired me)
Junior: 4.0 (Motivated)
Senior: 4.0 (Motivated)
5th year: 4.0 (Motivated)</p>
<p>My EC's are as follows over the corse of 3 years:</p>
<ul>
<li>Worked 3 years as a finance and accounting intern working 15 - 20 hours a week (Was told interview skills are fantastic)</li>
<li>450+ hours of hospice care</li>
<li>200+ hours of shadowing</li>
<li>450+ hours of elementary and middle school tutoring at a local shelter</li>
<li>3 summers of research at UNMC in Omaha, Nebraska working in pediatrics studying genetic
disorders</li>
<li>3 exceptional LOR's total: 1 from family physician, 1 from research physician, and the other from my finance internship manager</li>
</ul>
<p>I would only like to attend MD schools, i just want to know which are within good reach as i don't want to waste the money I've saved. Id like to go to a medical school in Miami or relatively close by as i have family that lives there (go figure, Cubans). Any positive advice on which schools are a bit of a reach, good stance, and safety net. Thanks in advance to those who contribute.</p>
<p>You will also qualify as a socio-economically disadvantaged applicant. (Have you checked to see if you qualify for AMCAS’s fee assistance program?)</p>
<p>Apply to all of Florida’s 7 public and private MD schools. (Florida’s public med schools have a strong in-state preference. U Miami also seems to have a pretty strong in-state bias.)</p>
<p>Then you can pick another 7 or 8 wild card schools using whatever criteria you’d like.</p>
<p>it sounds like if you will be living in florida working for 12 months prior to the start of medical school that you could get florida resident tuition at Miami.</p>
<p>^ I read the link you provided and apparently Florida is no longer subsidized by the state so instate applicants are not given preference. I think the only thing that would keep me from going to a med school in Florida is if i were accepted to Harvard or Johns Hopkins regardless, i thank those who took the time to reply back! thanks</p>
<p>Although Miller is no longer subsidized by the state of Florida, it still has a demonstrated bias toward Florida residents. FL residents are interviewed and accepted at much higher rates than OOSers. (15% interviewed, 10% accepted instate vs. 5% interviewed, 2% accepted OOS.)</p>
<p>What’s your current state of legal residence then?</p>
<p>Where does your mother live? </p>
<p>If at the time you submit your AMCAS application, you have already relocated to FL with demonstrated intent of becoming a state resident (registered to vote, signed a leased, opened FL bank account, etc), then you can legimately list FL as your legal residence. You won’t have to prove residency until it’s time to matriculate in May-June the following year–which may give enough time to have your 1 year instate completed.</p>
<p>^right, but if the 1 year were done BEFORE school starts, it would seem to me that from a tax point of view you came to Florida to work and a year later decided to enroll in school thus making you a florida resident.</p>
<p>I don’t plan on simply going there for school, i plan on staying there and working either at a hospital or private practice. I plan on getting a job and an apartment as well as a new car along with my fianc</p>
<p>Doesn’t matter that you’re planning to stay. What matters is what you’ve done each year that you are there and filing taxes. The 4 years you are in school, you are in florida for school. I think having a wife who is a legal resident will nullify these issues, but whatever state you are currently a resident of probably won’t want to lose your tax dollars and Miami certainly doesn’t want to lose the tuition dollars so they can all make the case during medical school that you are there for no purpose other than medical school.</p>
<p>I’m no tax lawyer/accountant, but for example I purposefully claim a different state residency than where I go to school because my parents state of residence has a better tax rate than my school’s.</p>
<p>So even if my wife and I will be leasing an apartment, registering two cars, and having a job each through the span of a year in Florida won’t make me a resident?</p>
<p>I said if you were there for a year before starting school it looks like you’d be fine. My point in post 13 is that if you aren’t there for a year before starting school, the fact that you want to live in miami long term after medical school has no bearing on the situation.</p>
<p>Also, take everything here from me or anyone else with a grain of salt because none of us (to my knowledge) are accountants/tax lawyers (at least I’m certainly not).</p>
<p>Residency rules are complex and vary by state, if you have any questions, contact the school. </p>
<p>If for some reason you can’t gain residency during your glide year, check to see if FL permits you to become a resident during med school; for some schools you retain your resident/non-resident status throughout all four years (eg. UDub), while others let you attain residency for the second year if you meet certain criteria (eg. UCSF).</p>
<p>Thanks for the advice guys. I don’t believe i should have any problems getting into a medical school, but i just really want it to be U Miami since I’m already bilingual and a good bit of my family lives there. Thanks again!</p>
<p>some med schools use holistic admissions - paying attention to “distance travelled” including first gen to college, obstacles overcome, SES etc. Also, considerable attention is paid to “upwards trajectory” and a poor freshman year can be offset by improved performance.</p>
<p>So I would encourage your application and wish you the best of luck.</p>
<p>When my D matriculated into a state med school, she declared a state of residence on her AMCAS. No proof of residency was required at the time of application</p>
<p>However, your permanent address had better match your declared state of residence or it will raise many uncomfortable questions. Your mailing address doesn’t need to be the same as permanent address since many students go OOS for college.</p>
<p>You will only need to present proof of state residency at the time of matriculation where you will be asked to produce proof you have lived in the state for the required amount of time. Documents may include some or all of the following: driver’s license, voter registration ID, car registration & proof of insurance, a dated lease with your name on it, utility bills in your name for an in-state address, a in-state high school diploma, bank statement from a local bank or a local in-state branch of multistate bank with your in-state address on it, a health insurance card from a local provider group and the most important-- a Florida state tax return from the previous year. (For students beginning med school in summer 2015, you’d need to supply a 2014 state tax return.) </p>
<p>If you are taking a glide year & moving to FL either before or immediately after graduation, you will need to file a Florida state resident tax return for the partial year you live there and pay any taxes owed. Your parent cannot list you as a dependent on her tax reurn for that year, even though you may have been her dependent up until graduation. She will lose her dependent tax deduction and any credits she may derive from listing you as her dependent.</p>
<p>(If the loss of the deduction will be an issue for her, you can offer to “buy her out” by paying her the amount of her loss.)</p>
<p>Residency doesn’t care what your future intentions are–they’re not enforceable. The school will only want proof that you have lived in FL for previous 365 days.</p>
<p>If you are clever, you will look up the approx start dates for classes at all of the FL public med school and make sure that you sign a lease at least a week or more before that date so you will have one significant proof of your residency.</p>
<p>~~~~</p>
<p>U Miami does NOT allow students to change residency status after they have enrolled. If you matriculate as an OOS student, you will remain an OOS student until graduation.</p>
<p>There is being a resident for tuition and being a resident for admissions. You should contact the schools in FL directly to find out their rules.</p>
<p>I changed states when DD was in undergrad and had we not be wise in addressing the issue, DD could have ended up not a resident for admissions in either state. She did have to submit resident paperwork, so it is likely state and school dependent.</p>
regardless, i thank those who took the time to reply back! 
thanks</p>