I am currently entering my second semester of my sophomore year at the University of New Mexico. I am double majoring in biochem. and psychology. Due to my academic performance in high school, my university is actually paying me a sum every semester to attend due to scholarships.
I have plans of attending med. school, where is undecided, although I have a few in mind (U of Washington, U of New Mexico, U of Minneapolis, UC Davis or San Diego, Baylor U). I have heard multiple times where you get your undergrad often does not matter a whole lot when applying to grad. Is this true? If it is does obtaining an undergrad from a specific school boost the chances of being accepted to that specific med. school?
If it is, is it worth leaving my scholarship and financial comfort for a new school (where I would likely have to pay much more)? There is also the personal aspect of this decision, I would like to move out of NM; however, I have a little more than 2 years left of school. Is it smart to transfer as a junior? sophomore?
Don’t transfer. Stay where you’re at and save debt for grad school.
If you are happy, doing well, and have a great financial situation at a college I don’t see why you would transfer. The grass is not always greener on the other side.
Gut out the two last years and move after you’ve graduated. It’s not worth the extra cost.
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have plans of attending med. school, where is undecided, although I have a few in mind (U of Washington, U of New Mexico, U of Minneapolis, UC Davis or San Diego, Baylor U). I have heard multiple times where you get your undergrad often does not matter a whole lot when applying to grad. Is this true?
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Where you get your undergrad doesn’t matter as long as it’s not some really podunk school. UNM isn’t a podunk school. My cousin’s DD is premed there and will be applying to med schools next year. She has a 4.0 and will likely get accepted to a number of schools as long as her MCAT is med-school-worthy.
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If it is does obtaining an undergrad from a specific school boost the chances of being accepted to that specific med. school?
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Absolutely not. In fact, it’s kind of shocking to see how few of a school’s own undergrads a med school accepts. For instance, Vanderbilt had 200 of their premeds apply to Vandy Med. Only 13 were accepted. No advantage. This is true for many med schools except a few (like UMich).
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have plans of attending med. school, where is undecided, although I have a few in mind (U of Washington, U of New Mexico, U of Minneapolis, UC Davis or San Diego, Baylor U).
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If you are a resident of NM, then you need a better list. UWash SOM doesnt’ accept OOS students unless they’re from 5-6 states that pay the SOM to accept their students because those states don’t have a SOM (Alaska is one, there are about 4 other NW states that pay).
Calif public SOMs are heavily biased towards instate. UCDavis accepted ONE OOS applicant (probably a special case), and San Diego accepted very few out of a huge number of OOS applicants.
Calif SOMs can be a waste of apps. The state has too many instate applicants.
Baylor is paid by the state of Texas to heavily bias towards Texas residents.
Uminn had roughly 4000 OOS applicants and matriculated only about 35 OOS students.
The good news, if you’re IS for NM, is the UNM SOM strongly biases towards NM residents. NM SOM only matriculated about 6 OOS students…maybe they were MD/PhD or some other hook
The OOS numbers can be a bit deceiving since they include the MD/PhD students who can be from any state. Their tuition is paid by NSF and their programs are 7-9 years in length.
public SOMs are supported by their states for the mission to educate future docs for their state.
They will sometimes accept OOS if there is a justifiable reason…student has a tie to the state or some other hook.
Private SOMs don’t care where you’re from, with the exception of Baylor and maybe a few others who’ve been paid to bias towards instate.
When it comes time for you to apply to med school, you’ll need an appropriate list… UNM, for sure if you’re instate. Some appropriate privates in the MidWest and elsewhere. And maybe some OOS publics that accept a better number of OOS and would like your stats.
Keep in mind that all US MD med schools are excellent.
BTW…it’s rarely a good idea to transfer as a premed. you’ll have a harder time getting LORs. And you’d likely have to take a gap year to apply to med school.
Just to give you an idea of how hard it is for an OOS student to get into a UC SOM (it’s super hard to get in as an instate, but worse as OOS)
California ~
Some numbers are rounded
SOM applicants IS app % Matriculants IS Matriculants %
UCD 7200 62% 110 99% (maybe the 1 OOS is MD/PhD)
UCI 6300 73% 104 94% (maybe the 2 OOS are MD/PhD)
UCR 5700 76% 50 100%
UCSD 7500 59% 125 75%
UCLA-G 8600 60% 151 83%
UCSF 7500 48% 165 75%
USC 8200 51% 185 77%
Stanford 7200 35% 90 35%
Med schools interview roughly 5-10% of their applicants.
MD/PhD students included in above numbers....and can be from any state since NSF pays their tuition.
UCLA Drew not included...only 24 matriculants....mission driven.
The new private SOM CA Northstate is also not included.
As you can see....Calif med schools have a problem of too many applicants,
not nearly enough seats,....and most have a strong instate preference.
UW accepts students from outside of the Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho region, but not many.
http://www.uwmedicine.org/education/md-program/admissions/stats
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Yes, but those out-of-region matriculant numbers include the 12 MD/PhD matriculants. As mentioned, MD/PhD students can be from anywhere.
I would bet that the tiny number of out-of-region non-MD/PhD acceptees had some amazing hook or tie.
The point is that med school applicants should make their app list based on reasonable chances and a few reaches. The process is expensive and time-consuming. Why waste apps on virtually impossible schools?
^ :-t Agreed. I was just correcting your statement in #5.
True…In the future I’ll write something like:
UWash SOM doesn’t accept OOS students unless they’re from a few states that pay the SOM to accept their students because those states don’t have a SOM (WWAMI- Wash, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, Idaho), or they’re MD/PhD, or they have some amazing hook and fill some need that UWash has.
Of the 245 MS1 seats at UWash SOM
228 were from WWAMI.
17 were from out of region, and those 17 include the MD/PhD students, of which there were 12.
So, it appears that about 5 to 7 out of region non-MD/PhD students matriculated. …out of 7209 OOS applications (8100 total).
with odds like that, can’t imagine having UWash SOM on one’s app list unless he/she has an irresistable hook.
Yes, please do that in the future.