State residency questions

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
1

I have a question about state residency and med school. I live in NJ and D18 is starting college in NJ this year. During her senior year I will be moving out of NJ. I have the luxury in being able to live in about ~20 different states due to my job so my question is this:

How is her residency status affected if I move? Her mom will be in NJ, so she could stay in NJ or move with me. For undergrad I was considering moving to Florida before her senior year of HS. I checked with a lot of Florida colleges asked them “if she finishes HS in NJ (her mom’s was her permanent address in NJ)” and then moves down to FL with me right after graduation - will she be considered a FL resident for admission? They all said yes, because I would have lived in FL for at least a year, even though she’d be moving down and only be there a month.

That didn’t end up happening - but any idea if it’s similar for med school? If during her senior year of college (or a year before med school if she takes a gap year) I move to a different state - can she apply to the med school(s) in my new state as an in-state resident?

Main reason I’m asking is that I don’t really care where I move to, I honestly hate NJ that much i just want to get out… and if I can move to a state where there a much better chance of her getting accepting by being a resident than it would be in NJ, I will.

Obviously a lot of stars have to align, but I like to think ahead. So, to summarize

  • Is it harder for a NJ resident to get into med schools since we have such a high concentration of people fighting for in-state positions? If so-
  • If I move to a state and am living there for at least a year+, she moves in with me, will med schools in that state consider her a resident? and lastly
  • If yes, any recommendations on what state(s) would be the most beneficial to move to?

Thanks!

2

There’s a AAMC table that show the number of applicants and matriculants for each medical school by in-state and OOS status

https://www.aamc.org/download/321442/data/factstablea1.pdf

There’s also an AAMC table showing the matriculation rate by state and whether they matriculated in state or OOS

https://www.aamc.org/download/321466/data/factstablea5.pdf

NJ: 20% of applicants matriculated in-state; 24% matriculated OOS. 55% received no acceptances and did not matriculate anywhere.

Now before you start thinking this is terrible-- the only states with high rates (defined as 35% or higher) are states that a) produce few in-state applicants AND b) have highly protected in-state admissions. (i.e. accept few or no OOS applicants) New Jersey is worse than some states, but better than others.

Every state and every medical school within each state has its own residency rules. It’s impossible to make any kind of general statement. You’d need to research this for each school. If you do contact schools, be sure to tell them your D will have never physically resided in the state although you are her custodial parent. This may change their answer.

One thing to remember is that although your D may be considered as an applicant in the in-state pool, state med schools have as their primary missions to provide doctors for the state. Adcomms will look at your D’s record of service to the state and its population and some may consider the length of your D physical presence in the state and take that all the information into consideration when they make decisions about to who to invite or not invite for interviews.

Med school admission is not just numbers and stats. It much more nuanced. The applicant has to “fit” the school–and that includes fitting the mission of the school.

Based on percentage of in-state applicants matriculating in-state:

West Virginia, Arkansas, Alabama, South Carolina, Puerto Rico, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Kentucky, Louisiana

3

I think if your D stayed with her mom in NJ, she will still qualify for NJ residency. OTOH, if she moved and live with you, after you established state residency, she will be eligible for that state residency and IS treatment.
NJ is not a bad state for med school applicants, but Texas, Mississippi, The Dakotas, Louisiana, Arkansas, New Mexico and S. Carolina have more protection to IS applicants. I was told, if you move to certain county in Arkansas, you have a protected number of seats in their state med school. These counties are remote and with little employment opportunities.

I may missed a few, so some one can add to it.

https://thompsonadvising.com/blog/top-10-medical-schools-with-the-fewest-applicants/#.Wy53DqdKiaE

4

Forgot to add— if your D takes a gap year, then your state of legal residence becomes more or less irrelevant.

Her legal residence will be wherever she ends up living post-graduation. (Driver’s license, lease, utility bills in her name.)

5

For amusement sake–here’s a list of states with worst in-state matriculation rates: (#in-state applicants/#in-state matriculants)

Places NOT to move to–

Maine (0.0)
Delaware (0.0)
Idaho (0.0)
Alaska (0.0)
Montana (0.0)
Wyoming (0.0)

^^no in-state med schools

New Hampshire (3.3)
District of Columbia (10.3)
Maryland (12.7)
Rhode Island (13.7)
Colorado (14.0)
Utah (15.7)
Arizona (15.9)

California (16.2)----considered the benchmark for poor odds for an instate matriculation

As for NM being highly favorable to in-state admission-- meh, you’re better off living in TX. (higher in-state admission percentages, lower in-state tuition) Or Mississippi. Or Oklahoma, Or Indiana, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, Ohio, Wisconsin, Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Nevada, New York , Michigan or West Virginia. <—All of those states have higher in-state matriculation rates than New Mexico.

6

Speaking from experience this is not a given. It is certainly easy to claim residence in that state but there are ways to maintain legal residence in the state of the parents. I maintained my parents’ state of residence (for tax purposes since state residence is moot for MSTP) during my gap year despite being in another state.

7

But that data doesn’t take into account the WWAMI agreement, right? Those kids are getting “in state” admission treatment to an “out of state” school.

Similarly, these data also include students matriculating to private schools (e.g. Brown, Georgetown, USC) where they aren’t really receiving any advantage.

8

Non-Washington WWAMI states (Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and idado) are allotted a maximum of 20 seat each at UWash. Pretty long odds. Rural track applicants receive priority in admissions.

Alaska, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming can also apply through WICHE to med schools in NM, UT and NV. These schools consider them as WICHE applicants–which get them special admission consideration often equivalent to in-state admission status. But WICHE med school s may place special application requirements on these students–like requiring them to apply thru binding Early Decision.

Any way you slice it–applicants from those states are highly disadvantaged in the med school admission process. .

D2 did too, but our state looks an applicant’s high school of record. Graduation from an in-state high school automatically throws one into the in-state pool for admission consideration. (Not true for most states, but it works that way here.)

Plus she maintained her in-state driver’s license, car registration & car insurance for the 20 months she lived/worked OOS. (Which was illegal, btw, since the state where she lived & worked full time immediately after graduation requires everyone to obtain a new driver’s license/car registration within 60 days of relocating to the state.) She also paid state income taxes in her home state and filed taxes as an OOS temporary worker in the state where she worked. ( LOL ! Her employer would probably have disagreed about the “temporary” part…) She kept her bank account in her home state and listed her parent’s address as her legal domicile for everything. She even voted in all the local & state elections.

It can be done, but it’s often not practical.

9

Wowm
I thought nm residents have a good chance for unm med school

“University of New Mexico = 1198 applicants. The stats are similar to those of the University of South Dakota: Only 24.5% of the applicant pool was from New Mexico but 90.3% of the matriculants were state residents.
“

10

Among NM residents applying to all of NM’s medical schools (all 1 of them), only 30% gain an acceptance.

314 state residents applied, 94 matriculated.

UNM SOM gets over 1100 OOS applications each year, but UNM’s admission policy is pretty clear: NM state residency is the primary non-perfomance criteria for admission.
https://som.unm.edu/education/md/admissions/som-admissions-policy-statement.pdf

OOS applicants really have only a negligible chance for admission unless they fall into one of 4 categories:

  1. enrolled members of Native American or Native Alaskan tribes
  2. applicants from WICHE states without a med school
  3. TX residents who live within 35 miles of the TX-NM border
  4. NM high school grads who have maintained an affiliation with the state (i.e. have close family members living in NM)

So why does UNM get 4x as many OOS applications as in-state applications. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

I assume either they’re using UNM as a throwaway school for AMCAS verification without a MCAT score, or they see UNM’s relatively low MCAT/GPA metrics and apply without ever reading the admission policy.

OOS applicants who do not fall into the one of categories listed above don’t even get secondaries.

So when looking at UNM acceptance rates, it’s wrong and misleading to look at the success of NM applicants vs. the entire applicant pool. They’re not competing against the entire national pool; just against other in-state applicants.

11

AAMC Fact Table #5 fives looks at what percentage of instate applicants are accepted by their instate schools.

Some states have no in state med schools (Maine, Delaware, Alaska, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana) so their in-state attendance rate is 0.

Non-Washington WWAMI states do get reserved seats at UWash and are eligible to apply under WICHE med schools in UT, NM and NV.
Delaware has contractual agreement with Jefferson in Philadelphia to reserve seats for DE residents.
Maine residents are SOL, unless they do the Maine Rural Track at Tufts.

Some states have only private med schools (New Hampshire, Rhode Island, DC)–which don’t offer an in-state advantage to applicants. Instate admission rates for those states are low.

Some states have one or more public med schools that offer varying degrees of admission advantage to in-state applicants. For states that do have public med schools, it’s instructive to look at the percentage of instate applicants accepted to the instate schools. It tells you a lot about how big of an advantage that state residency is.

But admission protectiveness isn’t the only factor to consider when looking at the admission advantage of state residency You also have to consider the total number of available public med school seats available against the number of eligible instate applicants.

Arizona, Colorado and Maryland are all examples of states where there is a severe mismatch between the # of available med school seats and # of eligible instate applicants. All those states give a relatively high preference to instate applicants, but those states are all high population growth states where the # of med school seats has not kept up with the population growth.

12

I would think it also matters when you start your application. I know of someone who maintained residency in NJ, while studying OOS, applied when system opened after graduation as a resident but spent most of the gap year working elsewhere. Was admitted in March in state in NJ while living elsewhere for about 7-8 months.

13

IRS determines “dependency” based on support, if you support more than 50% of the living cost of ANYONE, any age, you can claim he/she on your tax returns. If OP wants to, he can move into another state, file a “married file separately” return to establish his residency and claim his D as a dependent on the return. I think that is enough to establish IS status for med school(application and tuition).

One of the criteria to establish state residency is owning real estate. Not sure if LAND will qualify for that, because you can buy land in TX, CO, NM or most of the midwest/western states for less than $1000. You can buy land in CA for very little money also, of course, you don’t want to live in CA for med school purposes. You can debate that you are going to build a home on the land you own at the time of application.

Some state wants to see your prior year fed and state tax returns. So, the best time to move is around end of March, before tax is due.

14

Residency for admission purposes and residency for in-state tuition purposes are not the same thing. And, for the most part, both have nothing to do with dependent or independent status on a parent’s tax returns.

In-state status for tuition purposes isn’t determined until after a med school applicant has been admitted and their FA application has been processed. (This typically happens in April or later.) Verifying in-state eligibility typically requires documentation–driver’s license, a lease and/or utility bills in the applicant’s name, car registration, state tax returns. Or in TX, property ownership.

(Property ownership doesn’t automatically give instate status in NM or CO, btw. You have to actually permanently live on the property. So vacation homes, time shares , rental properties or unimproved real estate don’t qualify you for in-state tuition rates. )

Whatever an applicant lists as their permanent address on AMCAS is what determines their home state for admission purposes. AMCAS does not verify whether not an applicant qualifies as a legal resident of that state. That’s left up the individual school to determine. Med schools use indicators such as where an applicant graduated from high school or the location of an applicant’s most recent employer to decide if an applicant really belongs in the in-state or OOS candidate pool. (Information readily available on the AMCAS primary.) Some secondaries have specific questions that are used to determine in-state or OOS status for admission purposes.

In theory, an applicant can claim in-state status just about anywhere by listing an permanent address there. But that doesn’t mean the state med school has to accept the claim as valid.

15

In Texas they ask for paper work when you apply since 90% are reserved for instate. D studied out of state, never had a license (just an ID), never paid any bills. So residency was pretty much determined by parental residency and a questionnaire about dependency. Baylor being private but still filling 75% in state had more forms to fill out to prove residency.

16

Ah, I thought the WWAMI agreement was much more beneficial than that.

Oh, I know first hand how impractical it was. It was certainly not my decision to do it.

17

@WayOutWestMom

I was referring to OP’s situation. It was given that OP is intended to move to an state other than NJ to work and become a resident of that state. He wants to know which state has the best advantage for his D regarding med school acceptance and IS tuition status. But his wife wants to stay back in NJ.

My recommendation has to do with OP’s specific situation. As such, he can establish his residency and put his D as a dependent on his “married file separately” state and fed return. His D’s physical presence has nothing to do with med school IS application and tuition status.

18

Great info everyone, as usual.

Just to clarify - I’m not looking to “game the system” - such as continuing to live in NJ but have a house elsewhere and try to use that address. I WILL be moving when she’s a senior, and since I have 20+ states to choose from due to work I figured I’d see if there’s any advantage I can give her by moving to a certain state.

Thanks!

19

@Schadret NC has 4 medical schools (MD). 2 are public and 2 are private. ECU is the smallest, public and in eastern NC. The school admits no OOS so in-state is the ONLY preference. Tuition is the one of the lowest in the US. UNC gives preference to NC residents, preferential and early interviews along with early notification of admission. Also low tuition compared to other schools. No NC state school can have over 18% OOS, enrollment is capped.

Duke and Wake Forest “state” there is no preferential treatment for in-state as they are private, however, if granted an interview other info is given during the interview itself. At least it was given during son’s interviews.

Many in son’s med school class moved here and applied after they would be considered residents. Some had applied at least 3 times and finally got in. And I do mean alot! UNC has a large med school and OOS is brutal so many move here and then apply. Same is true for NCSU’s vet school.

I moved my family here from northern CA while my oldest children were senior and juniors in high school for the undergrad and grad school opportunities. And they all in one way or another have taken those opportunities and ran with them. I am so very happy we made the long trek and are so very appreciative of the educational opportunities NC has to offer.

Kiddos (5) have attended the community college system, the 17 campus UNC system for undergrad and for professional schools and graduate programs. Even residency programs for completing medical training!

One of my best decisions which at the time seemed nuts!

Good luck with your decision.

Kat