Re: Profile - good point. The deductions aren’t huge, though. A couple thou.
BTW, @mom2coIIegekids - you have been so amazingly helpful on this board. Your posts, even those from 2-4 years ago, have taught me so much that I can’t even list it all. THANK YOU!!
While Stanford is certainly a great option, it is probably the most pursued school in the world, at the moment. Even the most qualified students have a sliver chance of admission. As such, I think, as a strategy, it’s just not the most pragmatic school, to have on a list, even as an aspiration. CAL is not very far behind in terms of its selectivity.
Agreed - Stanford is just as much of a longshot as the Ivies - for pretty much any kid, ours included. Blue & Gold at the local UC is much more likely.
Cal isn’t affordable even if he got in. B&G would cover tuition, but they’d stick us for all of R&B, and that’s too much.
A school that is a sleeper, but is one of the top ranked in terms of primary care is the University of New Mexico School of Medicine. Very affordable costs of living, and even without any aid, a ridiculous 16k in-state tuition. Also a very high percentage of Hispanic students.
There’s good NMF/auto stats money at UNM, too, so it’s on the list.
(When I mention NMF even though S isn’t there yet, I’m not trying to say he’s a shoo-in or anything. NMF is our Hail Mary for full rides is all. If he doesn’t make it, we’re looking at Blue & Gold, and that’s perfectly fine, too.)
If your kid is lucky, he may get UCLA Med school merit scholarship. 20% of UCLA med students receive this scholarship yearly.
Btw, say you move this next year to New Mexico in the next year, and he graduates: top 5%, 31 ACT and 3.86+ GPA, he would qualify for a regents scholarship, covers tuition, room and board, and a stipend.
If making NMSF is important and jobs are portable, then why not move to a very low cut-off state?
Alabama 209
Alaska 206
Arizona 215
Arkansas 204
California 223
Colorado 215
Connecticut 220
Delaware 216
District of Columbia 225
Florida 214
Georgia 218
Hawaii 214
Idaho 208
Illinois 215
Indiana 213
Iowa 208
Kansas 213
Kentucky 210
Louisiana 211
Maine 211
Maryland 222
Massachusetts 223
Michigan 210
Minnesota 214
Mississippi 209
Missouri 209
Montana 204
Nebraska 209
Nevada 211
New Hampshire 213
New Jersey 225
New Mexico 208
New York 219
North Carolina 215
North Dakota 202
Ohio 215
Oklahoma 208
Oregon 215
Pennsylvania 217
Rhode Island 212
South Carolina 211
South Dakota 202
Tennessee 212
Texas 220
Utah 206
Vermont 214
Virginia 222
Washington 219
West Virginia 202
Wisconsin 208
Wyoming 202
Commended 202
International 225
U.S. Territories 202
RE: UNM
You mentioned possibly moving for instate tuition. One thing I might mention is that NM has an automatic full tuition guaranteed scholarship for any student who graduates from a NM high school. It’s called the Lottery Success Scholarship.
http://www.hed.state.nm.us/students/lotteryscholarship.aspx
This scholarship is good at any public college in the state, including UNM and NM Tech (which is hidden gem of a tech school).
UNM SOM is a leader & innovator in medical education. The med school is a very supportive of its students and is made up a very tight-knit community.
UNM SOM is also the among the least expensive med schools in the country.
If you want more info about UNM or UNM SOM, just ask.
If you want data about in-state matriculation rates for med school--try here:
<a href="https://www.aamc.org/download/321466/data/factstable5.pdf">https://www.aamc.org/download/321466/data/factstable5.pdf</a><<< 20% of UCLA med students receive this scholarship yearly.>>>
UCLA SOM has become a lottery school with 11,000 apps for 175 seats (1.5%). I can see why they give large merit to almost their top 20%…those students must be HYS quality.
Thanks, everyone! This is all very helpful. 
Re: move before the PSAT - we’re considering it. S is quite happy at his current HS, though, so that’s a big consideration, too. It’s hard to pull off good letters of rec and deep ECs with leadership when you move to a new school halfway through HS.
Re: New Mexico SOM - great info - thank you!
Ditto that on UNM SOM. Both my brother-in-law and best friend graduated from medical school there. An incredible value and quality of education.
I just looked at the PDF for applicants to med school and whether they matriculated IS, OOS or nowhere, and that nowhere number is running 50% to 60%. Ouch!
So what happens to the nowheres?
And if more than half of US applicants don’t get admitted to any SOM at all, how are there so many schools saying that 70%, 80%, 90% or more of their applicants get into med school? I mean, I know they can manipulate the numbers by not giving letters / not letting unlikely candidates apply, but the data in the PDF say that more than half of all US SOM applicants don’t get in anywhere.
Where did those applicants come from? This means that for every school with a 75% or higher admit rate, there has to be one of a similar size with a 25% or less admit rate. Double ouch!
Definitely take stats boasted by a school with a grain of salt. For example, at D’s school, they state that for students with >30 MCAT (old one) and >3.5 GPA they have an 85% acceptance rate. That doesn’t stop those with lower stats from trying, so that is where some of the nowheres come from.
I’m no expert on med school admission, just have gone through one cycle, and D is now an M1. But those stats you see for acceptance show that it may be hard to predict where you should live for your son to get into med school. He will have to apply to many med schools (some apply to dozens) and hope for any acceptance. But some states are definitely a better shot than others.
Indeed, my oldest graduated from UCSF and I think their acceptance rate is around 2%. I think her year they has 8500-9000 applicants for around 160 or so, first year slots.
re 85% acceptance rates— some schools include DO and foreign med school acceptances in their rates as well. These numbers are so manipulated by schools that they are pretty worthless.
It’s a truth that only ~40% of all students who apply to med school in a given year get an acceptance. There are simply too many well qualified applicants and too few seats. Not applicants who don’t receive any acceptances have low stats. There are as many reasons why an applicants doesn’t receive an acceptance as there are applicants. (Poor interviewing skills, poorly chosen list of schools to apply to, weak or inadequate ECs, poor match to the school’s mission, perfunctory LORs, poor writing skills, poor oral communication skills, poor interpersonal skills, mismatch between GPA and MCAT score, misdemeanor or felony record, IAs, any arrest for any reason, dishonest behavior of any sort, Hx of drug or alcohol usage, mental health issues, physical health issues, academic issues, plagiarism, poor decision-making, immaturity, inability to clearly articulate reasons for choosing medicine….the list goes on. Med schools get so many applications, adcomms look for reasons to reject an applicant.)
And if you look at the number of freshmen pre-meds who will eventually gain an acceptance, the numbers are even more discouraging.
At many schools up to 40% of entering freshmen state they have an intention of eventually applying to med school. (Was certainly true for D2’s university.) Over the next 2-4 years, approx 75% of those freshmen pre-meds give up on this goal. This is due to many reasons: academics, unwillingness to jump thru all the various hoops and ECs expected of pre-med, exposure to the field shows them they’re not suited for a medical career, discovery of other careers more compatible with their interests/skills, the cost and length of training, physician lifestyle a bad match for personal goals, etc.
Among those who persist until junior/senior year, about 95,000-100,000 unique individuals take the MCAT annually. About 60,000 unique individuals apply to allopathic medical schools. There are about 21,000 seats available. There are another 6000 seats available at osteopathic medical schools and AACOMAS reports there are about 18,000 unique applicants for those.
You also need to realize that acceptance rates at any undergrad institution, beside being highly manipulated by the school itself, are also skewed by the state where the college is located. Some states are strongly protective of their in-state applicants (IOW, the school doesn’t consider OOS applicants. Some states like South Carolina --where dheldreth’s D is from–New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana accept virtually no OOS students to the public med schools.) OTOH, California’s public med schools state they give no preference to in-state applicants.
California is mass exporter of med school applicants. Just the pre-meds applying from UCLA and Berkeley alone could fill every single med school seat (public AND private) in California and still have applicants left over.
“So what happens to the nowheres?”
Premeds should always have a Plan B.
“how are there so many schools saying that 70%, 80%, 90% or more of their applicants get into med school?”
You can have a school with say 100 premeds on day one of freshman year but by time of actually applying there are only 20 premeds left who actually apply, 15 accepted and school proudly announces 75% acceptance rate.
As both my wife and eldest D (both MDs) say, organic chem is where med school dreams go to die…
I cannot emphasize this enough.
Your child is still in high school. His interests may change dramatically in the next 2-6 years. Medicine (like the law and few other careers) are things that sound good to many students who haven't had any actual exposure to the career itself.