My son is waiting on RD for Rice undergrad. He has high stats (35 ACT, 4.0 UW gpa, 12 APs,…) and hopefully has a good chance of being accepted. However he has no hooks and is OOS. We have visited campus twice and he really likes the school. He speaks very seriously about becoming a physician and intends to pursue a premed track with some sort of science related major. Although the attendance costs will be higher than several of the schools he’s applied to (some of which he’s received EA acceptance – e.g., UNC, Tulane, OU), I am fortunate that I can swing it. But, paying the extra costs will be easier to swallow if I know he has a better shot at being accepted at some of the lower cost TX med schools as a result of graduating from Rice. Do TX med schools give some measure of preferential admission treatment to high performing Rice undergrads even if they are from OOS?
I can’t speak to the issue of Texas med schools giving “preferential admission treatment” to Rice grads who hail from out of state, but I can cite an example of a student who successfully traversed that career trajectory:
My wife, a community college professor in Southern California, had a very bright student who was accepted as a transfer student–obviously, an OOS transfer–at Rice. After completing her undergraduate degree (in English, I believe, but with lots of Bio courses), she applied to a number of medical schools. She was accepted both to the McGovern Medical School (part of the UT Health Science Center located right across the street from Rice in the huge Texas Medical Center complex) and to UT-Southwestern in Dallas. She is currently at student at the latter institution.
In short, the “OOS --> Rice --> Texas public medical school” path is certainly doable, whether or not it is made easier by admissions preferences on the part of the med schools. Good luck to your son!
Thank you for the input. I have two friends with son and daughter from my same state (OK) who attended Rice as undergrads and then attended Baylor SOM and UT Southwestern. Don’t know if Rice gave them an advantage, but it seems to help.