<p>If I were to go to S.F. State and take the premed track, do extra curriculars, do good on the MCAT, and hopefully manage a good interview, can I still get into UCSF with a "not so great" high school transcript? By "not so great" I mean 3 C's from AP. I've read on another thread that UCs require you to send a high school transcript if you are not from a UC to see if you are UC eligible. I just wanted to clarify this in the case if I actually manage to do all those things for my application. Does being a California resident affect the application process also?</p>
<p>Being a Calif resident helps for admission for Calif public med schools.</p>
<p>I don’t think med schools see high school records…but I could be totally wrong about that. I’ve just never heard that they do.</p>
<p>* I’ve read on another thread that UCs require you to send a high school transcript if you are not from a UC to see if you are UC eligible.*</p>
<p>??? What does that mean? If they are checking for residency, then they don’t need a high school transcript for that.</p>
<p>Vincent- Do you attend a California hs?
If so, then you should be familiar with the a-g requirements for UC eligibility.
Is that what you are questioning?</p>
<p>^^^^</p>
<p>I don’t think the A-G req’ts are req’d for admission to a UC medical school. UC medical schools accept Calif residents who’ve gone to other universities that don’t have the A-G req’ts. Besides, nearly every high school graduate who’s taken a college prep curriculum has fulfilled the A-G req’ts anyway…they aren’t unique or odd.</p>
<p>mom2-
Sorry I misread his posting.
I thought he was inquiring about ug.</p>
<p>mom2ck–actually to prove residency in our state, D1 had to give the name of her in-state high school and her date of graduation–which the adcom then verified with the school. (Along with a boatload of other stuff like rental contracts, car registrations and VIN, driver’s license, etc. I swear they even wanted a copy of her birth certificate to see that she was actually born in the state! Some places take residency very serious, I guess.)</p>
<p>Unless you are applying for a joint BA/MD program medical schools do not look at your high school grades. When you apply to medical schools through AMCAS you will be required to submit your transcript from SFSU plus any other institutions you may have taken courses at subsequent to graduation from high school such as courses taken at community colleges, university extensions, correspondence courses offered by other colleges and universities and online college courses. Based on all these transcripts, AMCAS will compile their own transcript for you, compute your overall and science GPAs and forward them to the medical schools you apply to. My recollection is that they might ask for the name of the high school you graduated from and the year you graduated but I am certain they do not ask for a transcript of your high school grades.</p>
<p>If medical schools considered high school grades I would never have been accepted at any medical schools and certainly would not be a doctor today. I was a high school slacker at a very tough Jesuit high school and while I do not remember exactly how many Ds and Fs I received, it was a substantial number.</p>
<p>WOWM…Yeah, I guess the border states go to lots of ends to establish residency.</p>
<p>But, I still don’t think the UC med schools look at high school transcripts to determine admission.</p>
<p>I don’t think the UC med school require high school transcripts either…</p>
<p>But 2 of the med schools D applied to did ask for copies of her birth certificate (and only one of those was in border state). Given where we live and that fact that all birth certificates issued in our state are bilingual, in printed in both Spanish and English with Spanish first, I’ve wondered if someone somewhere might mistakenly assume D1 wasn’t an American citizen. (It’s happen to nearly everyone I know who lives here at least once. Kinda of standard joke in the state. [One</a> of Our 50 is Missing New Mexico Magazine Humor Column](<a href=“http://www.nmmagazine.com/50missing_oct09.php]One”>http://www.nmmagazine.com/50missing_oct09.php) Once while traveling in the Midwest, a car rental agency repeatedly refused to honor my reservation because I didn’t “have a US driver’s license.” Took 30 minutes and two supervisors to convince them I really did live in the United States.)</p>
<p>
I heard you can be a Texas resident (as far as the tuition is concerned) but not a US citizen or permanent resident.</p>
<p>I remember reading somewhere a few years ago that as long as a person has been a high school student here for 3 years or so, you are considered as a Texas resident. He or she can be here legally or illegally from the federal government’s point of view. (It is likely that the state/city government is not allowed to ask the legal status of a person.) I wonder whether this loophole (created by some Congressmen) has been closed.</p>
<p>I thought Texas is a border state – or it is more than a border state, it is a separate country:)</p>
<p>At least its governor tend to talk tough (bluff?) against the federal government (related to fiscal responsibilities and economic stimulus money) in order to win an election – He talked tough not because he needs to beat Democrats (they have been beaten a long time ago. He needed to beat another Republican who has more ties with the Republicans at the federal level. One of my child’s elementary school teachers once made a comment (not in classroom or in public, of course) this state really belongs to Mexico, and THEY came here and robbed it from US. Oh, boy, this really confused a 7-year-old. The same teacher and her friends/relatives would go to the annual neighborhood-wide garage sale and happily took many goodies, for free, from student’s families who are eager to “please” her.</p>
<p>^^^ Very similar here. Currently if you graduate from a NM high school, you’re considered a resident for college (and I assume med & law school) regardless of your immigration status. INS agents are not allowed to question anyone’s immigration status at public school & university campuses, hospital ERs, churches and other “safe havens.”</p>
<p>We even issue driver’s licenses to state residents without regard to immigration status.</p>
<p>Although both are likely to change under our new governor, who ran on campaign of ending both practices.</p>
<p>The Treaty of Guadalupe Hildalgo (<a href=“Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo - Wikipedia)%5B/url%5D–”>Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo - Wikipedia)–</a> ceded NM and the rest of the southwest to US in 1847, but around here the terms are still being contested in court. Seriously.</p>
<p>And whenever the Hispanics start talk about being robbed of their land, the Native American jump in to remind them that they’re the interlopers and were kicked out in 1608 by the Pueblo Revolt. (And hey, they have a point. Acoma is the oldest continuously inhabited community in the US and was founded around 1000 AD.)</p>
<p>Calif works in a similar way…</p>
<p>If you graduate from a Calif high school (and go for 3 years), you get in-state rates for Calif publics.</p>
<p>however, I would imagine that non-citizenship/no green card status will still hurt you during the med school app process. </p>
<p>I don’t know what the OP is talking about though, in regards to med schools looking at high school transcripts.</p>
<p>I would not go to a CSU if I wanted to go into medicine. If you were not a good student in high school I would go to a community college and excel, transfer to a UC such as UCB, excel, etc. Very few non URM CSU grads at medical schools like UCSF, Stanford, and UCLA. You of course do not have to go to a top tier medical school but getting into medical school from California is difficult and you should aim at ending up at at least a solid undergraduate college if you wish to pursue medicine. What you did in high school is not very important except that your high school performance gets you into more selective colleges. Once you are in college high school is irrelevant.</p>
<p>UCSF will not ask you for your high school grades. Medical school is graduate level studies and they will want your undergraduate grades as part of the admission process. </p>
<p>Also, the undergraduate institution’s name and prestige matter MUCH less than the results of your undergraduate achievements. If you attend a UC and graduate with okay grades, as opposed to graduating from a CSU with spectacular GPA, you are much more competitive for medical school admission with the latter case.</p>
<p>Moreover, UCSF is an internationally known medical school, they strive hard to balance their entering medical class with scholars from all over the US, and the world, and from all spectrum of reputable undergraduate universities. With that said, they obviously will have a decent number of HYPSM graduates, in addition to a number of accomplished scholars from state universities (UCs and CSUs as an example). But bear in mind each entering class is very small, and hence, the class is truly consist of the cream of the crop from all over the US/globe. And I think their acceptance rate is around 2-3%. So spectacular GPA, near flawless MCAT, great community services/achievements, awesome recommendations, and perfect admission interview will all be key to you successfully getting into UCSF.</p>
<p>I would not go to a CSU if I wanted to go into medicine. If you were not a good student in high school I would go to a community college and excel, transfer to a UC such as UCB, excel, etc.</p>
<p>I think it depends on the CSU. I think if you go to Long Beach, Fullerton, or San Diego then you’ll be fine. If you go to a low-tier CSU, you might have a harder time getting into a med school. I don’t think med schools like SF, LA, or Stanford should have to be “the goal”. Calif and elsewhere has plenty of good med schools. </p>
<p>Not everyone can just go to a CC and then transfer to Berkeley. Not only that, it’s hard to get thru a UC in 2 years when you have to also include lower division pre-med pre-reqs.</p>
<p>Vincent…did you apply to any low-level UCs like UC Riverside? If so and that’s the only UC you get into, go there.</p>
<p>You might consider e-mailing Dr. Rothman, premed counselor, at SFSU and inquire how many grads are accpeted to UCSF each year. (I would guess the answer would be zero most years.) And ask, of those accepted, how many were URMs?</p>
<p>I concur with mj in that a juco and transfer to a UC is probably a better route. With the possible exception of Cal Polu-SLO, all Cal States are pretty much the same, reputation-wise. No med school will care if you attend SFSU or Cal State East Bay. (Yes, LB and SDSU have strong biz programs…)</p>
<p>Note that SFSU even states on their website that pre-health is gonna be a 5-year deal if you go there. Might as well spend 3 years at a UC, or even USC which is transfer-friendly and offers good finaid.</p>
<p>Note that SFSU even states on their website that pre-health is gonna be a 5-year deal if you go there.</p>
<p>Really? Why is that? Can you provide the link? </p>
<p>I realize that UCSF is a top med school, but I think “aiming” for that med school (or similar) when you’re starting from a position of not being a strong high school student is a bit too much.</p>
<p>And, if you’re going to ask any med school how many CSU students they accept, then it’s only fair to ask how many JUCO-to-UC students they accept. </p>
<p>I’m not sure that all Calif med schools would view all the Cal States as “equal”. I agree that non-Calif med schools may not know the distinctions. However, no Calif med school is going to equate CSULB with CSULA…or CSUFullerton with CSUMBay…no way, no how.</p>
<p>I would agree that graduating from a off the shelf CSU is definitely not going to be a point of distinction when applying to a top medical school like UCSF. But is it a death nail in one’s application effort? I am not sure about that. </p>
<p>One could also easily argue that graduating from UCR, UCM and even UCI and UCSB are also neither here nor there when stacked against the likes of HYPMS, UPenn, Cornell, Columbia, Cambridge/Oxford. If a med school were going by GPA and MCAT alone (not that they do this), a 3.9 graduate from HYPMS of the world will pretty much crush (on paper) most (if not all) UCs, this includes Cal and UCLA. The recent budget cuts in CA have pretty much obliterated the research and academic rankings of Cal. Luckily, most top med schools do employ a holistic view to applicants, so there is a chance for state universities’ applicants. </p>
<p>So yes, if you have a choice between applying to UCSF with a 3.9 from Cal vs. a 3.9 from SFSU, I would strongly prefer graduating from Cal. BUT, there are countless talented scholars with limited financial resources that hail from CSUs of the world and successfully gain admittance to top medical schools. In fact, being poor and Brilliant might actually help you in this case for med school admissions, versus being “bred” to follow the Ivy path since birth. </p>
<p>My alma mater is Harvard and I did my undergraduate at a CA public university, and the admission committee made it clear to me that they could have filled the entire entering class with 4.0 GPA HYPMS graduates alone (no need to fuss with imperfect humans, :). But they didn’t, because they value balance and diversity in their entering class.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The following post is nothing but guesswork.</p>
<p>But, I suspect that UCSF recognizes top-ten schools, understand something about the top-twenty-five, and maybe give a little extra consideration to UCB and UCLA.</p>
<p>After that, it’s “everybody else.”</p>
<p>My preceding post may be guesswork…but as a native Californian, I can say that most natives know the “tiers” that exist within the UC and Cal States…and we know them by heart. That’s why I think that Calif med schools are going to have a different “gut reaction” when they see an app from CSULB vs one from CSULA with the same GPA. There’s a reason why CSU Dominguez Hills’ nickname is CSU Dingie Hills. </p>
<p>That said, I pretty much agree with that after the Top 25, it’s everyone else until you get to about #150 or so. Once you get to the unknown privates and regional/directional schools, you’re going to be dealing with schools that probably don’t have decent science/math programs.</p>