<p>D will be coming home from spring break soon and wants advice on what med schools should be on her list. </p>
<p>4.0 GPA (overall and science)
38 MCAT
4 years of medically related animal research
(Will have) 1.5 years of clinical volunteering in a hospital w/shadowing
Teaching assistant for two science courses, so far</p>
<p>So which schools?</p>
<p>I'm thinking:</p>
<p>All the California state schools, UCLA, UCSF, UCSD, UCI, UCD
USC
Stanford</p>
<p>(That takes care of California)</p>
<p>Then where?</p>
<p>These state schools seem to take a lot of OOS students: UVa, University of Arizona, Tucson, U. Mich, Oregon, UColorado</p>
<p>Then we move to the privates:</p>
<p>WUSTL
Vanderbilt
Duke
Dartmouth
Northwestern</p>
<p>Other than the GPA and MCAT parameters I feel like we are just shooting in the dark.</p>
<p>Leave off the OOS publics unless there is a very specific reason you are dying to go there. Remember it’s not simply about the number of OOS students but about the admissions percentages. You can have a class of 100 people with 40 OOS students and that seems like a friendly OOS school, no? But if you look at the MSAR and see that those 40 OOS students came from 2,000 applications while the 60 IS students came from 200, it becomes a very different story.</p>
<p>My starting rules:
<a href=“1”>quote</a> Apply to every medical school in your state.
(2) Do not apply to any OOS publics, with possibly 1 or 2 exceptions if their OOS admissions percentages are reasonable.
(3) Aim for 15-20 total applications.
(4) Pick schools where your scores are a little bit above the mean of their eventual student body.
(5) Pay attention to admissions percentages. Some schools have extremely low percentages despite normal MCAT scores and GPA; these are very hard to get into.
<p>UArizona-Tuscon – OOS acceptance rate is less than 3%
UColorado – OOS acceptance rate is less than 3% (Requires a minimum of 200 hours of clinical experience to apply, OOS students interested in rural medicine get preference)
OHSU – less than 2%
UVA’s is ~9%
UMich’s is ~10%</p>
<p>(We just did these computations for D2’s list last week.)</p>
<p>If you think she’ll be diligent about doing secondaries, I’d go ahead and apply to 20 schools. I’d think she’d be fine with that, even if it was somewhat top heavy.</p>
<p>All the California state schools, UCLA, UCSF, UCSD, UCI, UCD
USC
Stanford</p>
<p>(That takes care of California)</p>
<p>Then where?</p>
<p>These state schools seem to take a lot of OOS students: UVa, University of Arizona, Tucson, U. Mich, Oregon, UColorado</p>
<p>Then we move to the privates:</p>
<p>WUSTL
Vanderbilt
Duke
Dartmouth
Northwestern</p>
<p>Other than the GPA and MCAT parameters I feel like we are just shooting in the dark.*</p>
<p>Take off most of the OOS publics and replace with MORE privates…maybe more NE SOMs</p>
<p>With her stats, she needs to include the privates that would give large merit for her stats.<br>
Others here might know which ones those are. Maybe Emory, Tulane (likes high MCATs), G’town. Vandy gives merit, but it’s already on your list…so is NU. </p>
<p>JMO, but I think those with super stats need to be very careful with their lists. It seems (to me) that if you apply to middle/lower tier schools, they won’t accept you because they’re protecting their yield and assume you’ll go elsewhere (at least that’s been my conclusion after looking over acceptance results on SDN).</p>
<p>Pretty much every school sends out an auto secondary, it’s just free money for them. Of the 23 schools I applied to, UCSF was the only school I got rejected pre-secondary and UTSW is the only school I applied to that didn’t have one. As an MD only applicant, if you’re not from Texas, UTSW should never be on your list because the class is 95% IS students and the OOS acceptance rate is abysmal. They combine the MD and MD/PhD interview days and I didn’t meet a single non MD/PhD applicant from OOS (only one of the MD/PhDs in my group was IS). In fact, I don’t know if their IS/OOS percentages include the MD/PhDs, but if they do, then I bet basically no MDs are OOS and only the MD/PhDs are. UCSF is ok for you since you’re CA.</p>
<p>Some schools are so automatic, you get the secondary within 24 hours of submitting AMCAS, more schools are within 24 hours of AMCAS being processed.</p>
<p>I read somewhere that Harvard didn’t send out a secondary? </p>
<p>We are midwestern transplants to California. D is familiar with St. Louis, and WUSTL likes high stats, so that made the list. I also read they have merit scholarships, some for women.</p>
<p>Vanderbilt I knew had merits. And I think she’d really like Nashville. Huge country music fan.</p>
<p>Dartmouth - several students from her UG get accepted there every year. I think the two schools have some sort of relationship. I also thought she’d like small town Hanover, except for the winters.</p>
<p>Northwestern - we have a few relatives in Chicago. (I know I’m beiing protective, but it might help to know someone in the big city).</p>
<p>Duke - I read they had good merits also. Again, smaller city.</p>
<p>D might surprise me and say NYC schools are okay. She’s ever even been there, though.</p>
<p>Aside from USC and Stanford, there are no privates in the west. So if she doesn’t get into a CA school, she’s going to go a long way away which adds transportation costs to the already considerable costs. (I suppose percentage wise the transportation costs will be a drop in a bucket).</p>
<p>Then there’s the teaching methods to consider. How quickly they get you into clinical, how good the matches are for specialties, and on and on. </p>
<p>It’s overwheming the amount of information to digest. I’d better start a spreadsheet.</p>
<p>Son’s home on a quick visit via NYC back to school. We had a chat about lists, med school and residency matches. More theory than exact numbers and specifics. But regarding school lists “we” kind of came up with a theory that seemed to be applicable to him and maybe in some cases to others.</p>
<p>He too applied to 24 schools. 3 of the 4 in-state, some in NYC, Philly, Boston and some others. He had nice stats, great undergrad(s), was a D1 athlete and some nice ECs (research and volunteering). His PS strongly emphasized his interest in being a physician and not going into academia or research (NOT AT ALL). So it made sense when the schools that were strong in primary care came calling.</p>
<p>Still others wanting to beef up their primary care emphasis also offered IIs. His acceptances came along the same lines. And those that are strongly research were quiet.</p>
<p>So my advice, although not specific would be to keep this in mind. If she really wants academics, faculty, research then she might want to mention it somewhere. If it is the opposite then mention that as well. So schools that “require” or strongly suggest a year of research was a NO GO for son. Just did not want that. He does, however, want an MPH/MBA, which his GMAT reflected on his AMCAS app. It is listed next to his MCAT score.</p>
<p>So I do second the suggestion of replacing OOS publics with privates.</p>
<p>After some shadowing in high school, she thinks she’d like surgery, possibly neurosurgery. But until she has seen all the subspecialties during rotations in med school, it’s very difficult to say. </p>
<p>She’s been doing lab research and she says she knows she doesn’t want to do that for a career. Academics, maybe. She’s enjoying teaching. </p>
<p>Harvard sends out a secondary but when I applied there was no essay. There was a FEE, but the major reason students fail to do their secondaries promptly is being overwhelmed by essays. So essay-less secondaries are always a boon.</p>
<p>Son’s app to Harvard 2 years ago had several essays, just asked him. At his interview they did not ask about his essays nor his personal statement or transcript. More random stuff. Had to take a cab to 2 different locations not at the med school for the interviews. Found this out after he got there and then they sent him on his way. He had to come back to do the financial aid meeting later. </p>
<p>Kat
Wake screens for secondaries as does UNC for OOS.</p>
<p>Granted he did 24 apps that summer (2011), along with a god knows how many units during summer school and TAing but I did ask him again he said he wrote something. He did save the apps/essays on his undergrad lappy so he can check later (he only has his med school laptop with him now).</p>