Med school admission as a transfer student

Here is my specific situation:

1-I am a junior in high school.

2-My parents informed me that they are unable to contribute anything to my education, and we earn too much for any substantial fafsa.

3-Therefore, I decided to graduate early, go to community college instead of senior year, complete ALL my neuroscience prereqs there, and then transfer to UCLA, take the MCAT (I already started studying), complete my neuroscience bachelor’s, and then apply to UCLA David Geffen med school when I am 20 years old.

4-Given that I would have a 4.0 GPA, a good MCAT score, and solid extracurriculars, would me being a transfer student hurt my chances of med school admission? Would me being younger improve my chances? Would this not affect me?

Thanks y’all!

I am a faculty member at a med school. I do not think that the CC to UCLA will hurt at all. If anything it will help you because it will show your determination and initiative.

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If you end up with the 4.0, a terrific MCAT score, and all the ECs one expects of a med school applicant, I don’t think a start at cc would hurt your chances because:

  1. From what I understand from other posts on CC, cc’s in CA are quite good - equivalent to 4 year schools so should prepare you well for UCLA (compared to where I live in PA where the courses can be inferior to others giving you a poorer foundation).

  2. You did this for financial reasons, not to take “the easy route,” the latter being looked down upon for motivation, but the former being understood.

One thing that might hurt you for admissions would be your young age. Med schools tend to be trending toward older acceptees, not younger (except those with direct admit), but you could fill an extra year or two getting more ECs while earning a living via another job or similar at that time as many applicants do. You’ll know then better than now how competitive your application should be.

You also shouldn’t set your mind on X med school. If you get in there, great, but you might get in elsewhere instead. They’re all good.

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UCLA is a top 10 medical school with about 120 seats for instate and roughly 6000 instate applicants, all highly qualified. Having one medical school as the goal does not work at all for any applicant.

There is also no reason to apply at age 20. If you do well in CC, college (UCLA or any other) you can get a job and work to show you are mature to be considered as an applicant by any medical school. If you really meet all the objectives needed for an application at age 20, then it is a viable goal to apply.

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Some medical schools look down on community college courses, particularly those used to fulfill pre-med courses. However, if you are a biology, chemistry, physics, or math (BCPM, see https://students-residents.aamc.org/applying-medical-school/article/course-classification-guide/ ) major, then doing well in your upper level BCPM course work for your major after transfer a four year school should help validate your academic strength.

A non-BCPM major pre-med taking this route probably should reserve a significant portion of the pre-med courses (e.g. organic chemistry, biology, biochemistry) to take after transfer to the four year school alongside upper level courses in the major.

Being a CC transfer won’t hurt your chances for a med school admission, esp if you take most or all of your pre-reqs at a 4 year college. Most med schools strongly recommend that applicants take higher level academic coursework to supplement any CC courses. (IOW if you take 2 semester of bio at a CC, the you should take at least 2 more semesters of upper level bio electives at a 4 year to demonstrate your CC grades aren’t a fluke and you’re a competitive student at your 4 year. Ditto for chem, physics.)

Being younger than typical may actually damage your med school application. There may be an unspoken assumption among adcomms that you’re too immature for med school and/or lack sufficient life experience to be able to relate to your mostly older]patients. The onus is on you to prove otherwise to the adcomms.

Per the MSQ, only 0.1% of all entering med students are under 20 years of age. The median age at matriculation is currently around 25, with ~30% of incoming med students between ages 20 and 22. The median age at matriculation has been steadily increasing for the past 15 years. Many students take 1 or more gap years to strengthen their ECs before applying.

Some other things to be aware of:

California is THE most competitive state for med school admission. CA produces more pre-med than any other state and there just aren’t enough in-state med school seat to accommodate them all. Add to this the fact that several of CA’s med schools are top 10 schools, and the fact that with the exception of UC-Riverside (and maybe UC-Davis), CA public med schools do not have an in-state bias in admission.

This means you should not get your mind set on choosing a particular med school like UCLA. CA applicants need to apply widely and to many, many OOS and private schools to have the best chance for an acceptance. Only about 1/3 of CA residents who matriculate into med school attend in-state schools.
https://www.aamc.org/media/6011/download

ECs are very important for med school admission. Strong academics (High GPA plus a excellent MCAT score) only prevent your application from getting discarded. It’s your ECs that get one invited to an interview. Pre-med ECs include: physician shadowing, clinical experience through volunteering or employment, community service with disadvantaged population groups, leadership positions in your activities, laboratory or clinical research experience–with the first 4 being more important that the last (unless you’re applying to research intensive med schools like UCLA).

Good ;luck with your journey!

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