I am about to submit my application to AMCAS in a day or so and I wonder if there are interesting or unique medical schools that I should consider applying to. I am from Florida so I will apply to all the Florida schools, plus East Carolina (which I couldn’t find on AMCAS for some reason), and USC in LA.
I just wonder if there are really unique schools that I should consider. My first gpa was a 3.29, my post-bach gpa is 3.86 (with about 60 credits) and I am expecting to get a 30-33 on the MCAT (based on my practice scores).
Whoa, there! What do you know about ECU? My recollection is that they take VERY few out of state candidates, and so you’d have to have a very compelling reason for applying there. Someone knowledgeable about California schools could comment on USC in the same light; California schools in general are notoriously tough even for Cali residents and even tougher for non-residents.
Honestly when you are choosing schools to which to apply - you need an MSAR (Medical Schools Admissions Requirements), available from AAMC and likely in your school library. An important thing to consider when looking at state schools is the number of out of state students they accept.
I suppose there are “unique” schools out there but truthfully the curriculum for med school is pretty conventional and they have far more in common than they have features that distinguish them.
Every school has a website. Do some serious browsing and that should help you put together a good list. Don’t forget lifestyle: weather, city/rural, geography – you are living there for four years and it’s good to be in a place where you’re happy.
Mary
You might want to look at the Ohio schools - there are five state MD schools (Ohio State, Cincinnati, Wright State, University of Toledo, NEOUCOM), 1 private MD school (Case Western), and one state DO school (Ohio University).
Here in Ohio, we have an abundance of medical schools compared to the population and so a decent amount of out-of-state students are accepted. I probably wouldn’t waste my time with NEOUCOM - they are mostly a BS/MD program and take relatively few people straight into the MD program and virtually none from out of state. Wright State, Cinci, and UToledo all accept around 25% from out of state, and Ohio State’s class has been approaching 40% from out of state. You’d have to look up Case and OU - I’m not sure how many out of state they accept. Also, the Ohio schools are generally pretty non-trad friendly.
As Mary said though, definitely go to your library and check out the MSAR before submitting. Most college libraries have a copy or two on reserve. There were a few schools I considered applying to, but after seeing that maybe 3 people out of a class of 170 were from out of state, I decided to save my money.
The MSAR is a great thing. It’ll show you out of state percentage rates, which are quite useful. Based on advice from this board, I didn’t look at schools with under ~20% OOS rates. It’s also good to know that some states - like Ohio and New York - allow you to obtain residency after a year, with the commensurate price cut.
Being in Orlando, make sure you don’t neglect the upcoming UCF med school as well.
If a state-supported school doesn’t take pretty close to 20% out of state applicants, it probably isn’t worth applying unless you are a Very Compelling applicant.
The MSAR stats are useful for this information, although you don’t know how many acceptances are made for the number of actual matriculants. I usually figure about a 40-50% yield for most medical schools.
Cheers,l
Judy