<p>If you go to a university with a medical school, are you in a better position to get in versus someone who goes to a different school? For example I go to PSU, do I have an advantage when I apply to their med school ? Also I guess when I apply to med school I'll apply to a great range of M.D/D.O schools. What's a good number to apply to ? How many state medical schools are in NY (I'm a NY resident) ? How many D.O schools are in NY ? Oh and its seems that most medical schools are just as competitive as Ivies at the undergraduate level. Is this true ? Is applying to med school like applying to an Ivy League ? This goes for all the med schools not just the Ivies.</p>
<p>I will try to answer your first question and your last question: No, and yes, IMO.</p>
<p>For the first question, the situation is like choosing a stock to buy. If you learn of any reason to buy the stock of a company, the information you get is known to everybody else, especially the pros. For a school that may be “good” for applying to med school 3-4 years down the road, those super competitive students (like pros) would all know about it. So you will see a higher concentration of those super competitive students. If you are very sure that you compete well (even with one of your hands bounded in your back – as you have to allocate some time to do the all-important medicine-related ECs) no matter how competitive the top third of the premeds at such a school will be (the bottom two thirds, or even a higher proportion at some school, will likely “find other career interest” in the end) , it may be beneficial for you to go there. If not, you need to know the pros and cons of attending such a school.</p>
<p>For the last question, the reason is obvious. Otherwise why would so many med school applicants apply to so many med schools? Many apply to 20+ schools! Another difference here is that many (out-of-state, public) med schools are completely or mostly inaccessible to you, unless you are from that state. This is because some of these public med schools, as required by the law passed by their state’s congressmen who are protective of their voters, only take the students (or the majority of their students) from those in-state families who have paid state taxes into their state/local government.</p>
<p>It is just like that some med schools do not welcome international applicants, some med schools do not welcome OOS students. It is nothing personal. It is about who controls the purse string. (the state government.)</p>
<p>Okay I’m afraid now because I got rejected from 3 Ivy league schools. Also I’m going to apply to both M.D and D.O schools in the same cycle. Is this a good idea ? I don’t want the D.O schools to think I’m applying to them as a safety. Do they even know what or how many schools you applied to ?</p>
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<p>No. The only advantage is that the adcom at PSU’s med school* may be more familiar with your LOR writers and PSU’s grading system, and may place slightly more faith in their evaluations.</p>
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<li>PSU=Penn State? Please be aware that Penn State’s med school (in Hershey) is a private school, not public and not particularly closely associated with PSU’s main campus. </li>
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<p>That will depend on your stats and other factors. Fewer than 12 is too few. More than 40 is exhausting. 15-25 is pretty typical if you have typical stats. If you have any unusual factors, you will need to apply more widely.</p>
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<p>Look this up in the MSAR, in US News or on any med school info site.</p>
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<p>Pretty much. Getting accepted into any one particular med school is a crap shoot. Acceptance percentages run anywhere from 30% to 3%.</p>
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<p>Applying to both happens all the time. You will have to be able to answer the “Why DO?” question in a convincing way. Something other than DO is my back-up plan…</p>
<p>DS only applied to MD schools. So our family has no knowledge about DO schools.</p>
<p>Plenty of high school students were rejected by ivies or other top colleges but are successful med school applicants in the med school application cycle. My subjective opinion is that although there is some overlap of the sought-after quality of admitted students between a top college and a med school, there seems to be some differences also. This is just my gut feeling, but I really could not explain it.</p>
<p>DS happens to know a family from NY who have two siblings. One went to an ivy for college and the other to a SUNY college. In the end, the one went to the ivy is now in a public med school in NY, but the one who went to SUNY is now in a private med school (one of the most expensive ones). For this particular family, financial-wise speaking, it may be the former who has an advantage because the FA package at the UG level is better than that (essentially all loans) at the med school level. It is very likely that the percentile (in academic rank and “EC’s rank”) of the one who went to a SUNY college is much higher than that of the one who went to an ivy college, relative to the pool of applicants from their respective colleges. Maybe the equalizer is their MCAT scores. But this is only one data point.</p>
<p>Penn State’s med school is private ? So I don’t have a disadvantage of being an OOS student when applying right ?</p>
<p>^ Half a decade ago, I think an applicant from NY got into that med school. Again, this is just one data point and should be treated as such. (I had an impression that this med school is very much into research.)</p>
<p>In Texas, BCM as of today has nothing to do with Baylor University. The big research center next to BCM is affiliated to UT, not BCM. I heard one living arrangement for BCM students is to live in a UT dormitory (for UT-Houston med school students as well) because these two med schools are adjacent to each other.</p>
<p>Baylor College of Dentistry is said to be a part of either UT or A&M (likely the latter) and it has nothing to do with either Baylor University or Baylor College of Medicine.</p>
<p>This will make your head spin.</p>
<p>Depends on the university. </p>
<p>I have seen a LOT of friends at Ivy-league schools matriculate to their school’s medical program. I’m sure being able to be on the campus, and doing research with faculty there, gives you some shoe in the door. From what I hear from my friends at such schools, it seems like their professors and departments “take care” of their students well. However, mcat’s explanation could also be right - there could just be a higher concentration of highly competitive and successful students at the Ivy-leagues.</p>
<p>For many of the public universities, I have heard that med.schools do NOT favor their own undergraduate students and it’s actually harder to get in as a student on that campus. Something about diversity/wanting students from other campuses, etc. This is just what I’ve heard. Nothing formal announced through the schools</p>
<p>I wouldn’t trust anything a med school “formally announces,” nor will they ever make a formal announcement about this. Even if you look at the number of students in the class, you won’t be able to draw any conclusions unless you know the number who applied since I would bet that students often apply to their undergrad’s med school. My intuition says that it must be a bit of a boost but it’s certainly not enough to justify doing something like picking where you’ll spend your 4 undergrad years. I do think it could be a factor if you were picking a gap year/two job though.</p>
<p>All PA med schools are private-- although Penn State, Pitt and Temple do receive some state monies. </p>
<p>Penn State does classify student by residence and charges OOS students OOS tuition rates. You will be at a disadvantage, but not as a large of a disadvantage as you would be at some other state schools. </p>
<p>According to the 2010 matriculant data, approx 52% of MS1s at Penn State (Hershey) were OOS.</p>