Hello all!
Are there hard and fast rules for determining residency, or does status determination vary widely from school to school / state to state?
For example:
- Virginia born and raised, but moved away at 25 - extensive family and community connections all throughout the state
then 2) lived in NYC for just shy of a decade.
Now 3), I’m at Temple in Philadelphia for pre-med, and know that I will qualify for in-state status in one of the best states for medical education in the country – but I simply don’t like living in Pennsylvania and would prefer to go elsewhere for medical school. Other than reaching out to all 25 schools I plan to apply to in different states, are there any general guidelines? Thanks!
It’s specific to the state in how they determine residency, and it’s really for tuition purposes for the most part. There’s always the idea that you may want to work in that state after graduation, but the reality is you’re going to go to whatever residency program takes you and then work wherever they’ll hire you. The general guidelines are living in that state for at least a year prior to matriculation.
Being an out of state resident hurts you at state schools but is NOT necessarily a show-stopper to apply to them, although most state schools have very small acceptance rates for out of staters. The work around is to apply heavily to private schools… If I remember correctly, a lot of secondary applications included a spot to discuss your “tie to the area” or whatever, so you can maybe have that strengthen your application to some places.
I lived out of state due to the military and had to basically file legal paperwork with the state proving my residency (driver license, address, voter registration, etc). You can always claim you were out of state for school and continue to claim your previous place as your residence, but you’ll have to back it up with legal paperwork. I go to school on the opposite coast of my state of residence and still maintain my license, voter reg, car plates, etc for my state of residence.
Terrific, thanks!
You’re definitely right about out-of-state odds versus in-state. I’m three times more likely to get accepted to Penn–an Ivy League school–than I am to many out of state schools. Granted, I’m looking at places like UCLA and UCSD which are certainly top tier themselves. UDub in Seattle and OHSU in Portland seem to accept less than two dozen out of staters per year
As Kennymac said - it varies by state, but also, some schools have a different determination. For instance, for tuition purposes, a lot of schools are now stating, once OOS always OOS, even though the state will likely give you residency after one year. Also, UK was recently contacted and they would consider someone IS if their parents still lived in the state and they did not (as a nontrad not going to school anymore). Do some digging!