MD Looking to eliminate some Chicago/NYC schools!

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Have a total of 6 Chicago and 7 NYC schools. I need to limit this as I am applying to many other areas. Please review and give me your thoughts (Michigan resident... see MDapps).

EDIT: Posting my entire list as of right now. Any schools that seem entirely out of place would be great to point out, as I want to get down to around ~30. **Michigan resident


A Einstein College of Med
Baylor College of Med
Boston U
Case Western
Florida Atlantic
Columbia
Duke
Florida International
George Wash
Georgetown
Harvard
Johns Hopkins
LSU NO
Loyola University Chicago
Mayo
Mt Sinai
NYMC
NYU
NWU
OUWB
Rush
UPenn
Tufts
Tulane
U of South Florida
U of Arizona
U of Chicago
U of Cincinnati
U of Miami
U of Michigan
UNC
Pitt
Vanderbilt
Wash U St Louis
Wayne State
Cornell
Yale
U of Colorado

Originally Posted by DCSB6

Have a total of 6 Chicago and 7 NYC schools. I need to limit this as I am applying to many other areas. Please review and give me your thoughts (Michigan resident... see MDapps).

Chicago: Rush, Loyola, NW, U of Chicago, UIC, Rosalind Franklin

New York: Mt Sinai, NYU, Cornell, Columbia, NYMC, A. Einstein, SUNY Brooklyn

UIC is very expensive for an OOSer.

All Chicago schools come with crazy living costs. Just putting that out there.

A dinky one bedroom in the bad part of town (which can be pretty bad) still goes for 700-900/month.

I am going to give you a different take; I looked at your MDApps, and it influences the following opinion:

The objective of the first phase of apps is to get interviews. Do NOT start cutting down on your primary app list - you may be shocked at how few of those 13 schools you will get an interview invite from - I say this from my own experience, with very similar stats to yours.

If you get covered up with interview invites, great. Once you get an acceptance somewhere, you can start cutting down your list. This is not the time to be cutting down; you have no idea how truly competitive you will be at any school, much less these extremely high demand "big city" schools.

I'd eliminate Columbia = MCAT not 36 (their average). I'd eliminate Downstate because you are simply not a reisedent of NY. No point in applying to SUNY's. And I would eliminate Sinai. I think you should totwally go for Cornell, NYU (especially), and Einstein. Spend your money on those three.

Thanks for the input! For those suggesting not cut down right now, this isn't my final list. I'm applying to many other schools, but have too many on my list right now for these two cities alone!

Depending on what the rest of your list looks like, it might be that you're better off keeping most or all of the Chicago/NYC schools and cutting off some of the others.

Originally Posted by DCSB6

Thanks for the input! For those suggesting not cut down right now, this isn't my final list. I'm applying to many other schools, but have too many on my list right now for these two cities alone!

Then you haven't provided enough info for someone to properly advise you.

Define having "too many" schools on your list. The objective is interviews, not cutting down your primary app list to some low number - the question you should ask yourself is how many interviews can you expect to receive from the schools on your list? You might not get any from the NYC schools, and only one or two from the Chicago schools - will you then think that applying to all 13 schools was "too many?" The problem with playing the numbers game being that you can't always predict which ones will send the invitation(s) and which ones won't.

Learn from people who have gone through this process before you: IMO, you can never apply to too many medical schools. I had similar stats to you 2 years ago, IIRC I applied to 28 schools; at that time, I estimated that I would get approximately 12 to 15 interview invitations, but I ended up with only 7, and that included 3 instate schools that were slam dunk invites (so do the math: only 4 interviews from 25 out of state schools). I was shocked by some of the ones that passed me over (not reaches, right in the ballpark or even "beneath" my stats), and thus was also shocked by one that invited me (it was a definite 'reach'), and I attend that reach school today. If I had done what you are considering, I might have arbitrarily cut that school from my primary app list. Je ne regrette rien, but if I had it to do all over again, I would have applied to even more reach schools, but not fewer total schools.

Like I said, I have a large list an these two cities have the most, so I'm trying to bring it down. I have 45 right now, don't want to apply to more than thirty. Just thought I'd see opinions from these 13 but thank you for your input.

Originally Posted by DCSB6

Like I said, I have a large list an these two cities have the most, so I'm trying to bring it down. I have 45 right now, don't want to apply to more than thirty. Just thought I'd see opinions from these 13 but thank you for your input.

I think what NYCMS2 was saying was that you might get more helpful advice if you posted your whole list. There's no quota on applications in a particular city and it's possible that you would be better off cutting some of the other schools. Maybe at least 6 or 8 of your 45 are OOS-unfriendly or are inappropriate for some other reason and can be tossed immediately without touching the Chicago/NYC schools.

Originally Posted by Mazdave

I think what NYCMS2 was saying was that you might get more helpful advice if you posted your whole list. There's no quota on applications in a particular city and it's possible that you would be better off cutting some of the other schools. Maybe at least 6 or 8 of your 45 are OOS-unfriendly or are inappropriate for some other reason and can be tossed immediately without touching the Chicago/NYC schools.

Correct - it is impossible to comment on an incomplete list and recommend cuts without knowing what else is on the list.

Especially agree on the idea of no quota for med school apps in a particular city - if you are interested in med school in Chicago and NYC, you should apply to every single school in those cities. Asking people to help you whittle down the list is a dumb exercise.

Finally, your instate situation is critical to know before anyone can suggest lopping your apps - if you live in California, 45 schools may not be enough. If you live in, say, Louisiana, you could get by with as few as 2 apps.

Michigan resident, my apologies for not understanding. I just posted my entire list in the first post. Thoughts really appreciated, and sorry if my post came off irritated!!

Your stats are pretty similar to mine so based on my experience applying last cycle, I would focus my attention on Cornell, NYU, and Einstein within NY. Generally, Columbia and Sinai are a bit more MCAT driven (especially Columbia) - at least with respect to people applying from my undergraduate college - and I wouldn't apply to SUNYs as an OOS'er. However, definitely keep in mind that you will probably get invites at schools that you weren't expecting to and you will almost definitely get rejected at schools that you thought were guaranteed invites.

Considering you are a Michigan resident, look into why you are applying to these schools since they prefer in state applicants. You obviously have the stats to be one of the few out-of-state applicants they would accept, but is it really worth it when you could apply to more private schools that will give you a shot? Generally speaking, if it is a public school and not your home state, the school more than likely has in-state preference (UMich is an exception though). Also, why are you not applying to Michigan State (MD and DO)? I am not 100% sure about all of them but some of these definitely have in-state preference (get the MSAR to check):

Baylor
Florida Atlantic
Florida International
LSU NO
U of South Florida
U of Arizona
U Miami
UNC
U of Colorado
U of Wisconsin

dartmouth - thanks for the advice, really liked Columbia but maybe not worth the hail mary.

weezynation - can't apply to MSU due to too much pride as a UMich sports fan . Some of those public schools are based on locations that I am really interested in (e.g. Ft Lauderdale/Miami area). I will definitely keep that in mind though.

Originally Posted by DCSB6

dartmouth - thanks for the advice, really liked Columbia but maybe not worth the hail mary.

weezynation - can't apply to MSU due to too much pride as a UMich sports fan . Some of those public schools are based on locations that I am really interested in (e.g. Ft Lauderdale/Miami area). I will definitely keep that in mind though.

As a fellow Michigan resident and die-hard UMich fan, I understand how you feel, but with med school I (not that you should) would make an exception. Then again, I do not have your stats so you can be a little more choosy than I can afford to be. One of my boys is from Michigan, went to UMich for undergrad, applied to med school, only got accepted to Ohio State, and is now a 3rd year there. He hated that he had to that, but at the end of the day, it's med school.

One that jumps off the page: LSU-NO should be dropped. Unless something has changed there in the last 2 years, they don't accept any OOS except for some very rare and limited situations. And you have a bunch of schools that similarly have limited OOS acceptances: Florida International, Florida Atlantic, USF, Arizona, UNC, Colorado - frankly you should drop all of these.

Howard is a very odd choice unless you are black?

So there are 8 easy cuts.

So it seems that FL in general is a difficult state for OOS applicants right?

Originally Posted by NYCMS2

One that jumps off the page: LSU-NO should be dropped. Unless something has changed there in the last 2 years, they don't accept any OOS except for some very rare and limited situations. And you have a bunch of schools that similarly have limited OOS acceptances: Florida International, Florida Atlantic, USF, Arizona, UNC, Colorado - frankly you should drop all of these.

Howard is a very odd choice unless you are black?

So there are 8 easy cuts.

Something has changed:

out-of-state applicants are welcome to apply since up to 40 applicants (of the 200 accepted) will be selected from outside the State of Louisiana.

http://www.medschool.lsuhsc.edu/admi...tructions.aspx

But still 40/200, only 20% of their class, will be OOS so not a fantastic choice to apply to. Arizona accepts up to 50% OOS(as of recently I think: http://medicine.arizona.edu/admissions/tucson/policies) so that is not a terrible choice.

Good to know!!

Anyone know if Florida Atlantics second class is overwhelmingly in state? Maybe I could nix FIU and USF from Florida and just go with FAU and Miami?

Originally Posted by DCSB6

Good to know!!

Anyone know if Florida Atlantics second class is overwhelmingly in state? Maybe I could nix FIU and USF from Florida and just go with FAU and Miami?

The only Florida school it makes sense to apply to is Miami, which is also the only one that's private.

Also, you probably shouldn't just write off Ohio State and Michigan State right away. Both are more appropriate for your list than half of the schools that are on there now and you can always show up at the football games and root against the home team.

The MSU location isn't something I'm very interested in... been there several times. OSU I am not as familiar with nor against applying to despite rivalry. I will look more into that one.

Originally Posted by DCSB6

Good to know!!

Anyone know if Florida Atlantics second class is overwhelmingly in state? Maybe I could nix FIU and USF from Florida and just go with FAU and Miami?

This is from the florida atlantic website about their in-state preference:

The College of Medicine is a public institution and is supported by the State of Florida. As a consequence, Florida residents are given preference throughout the admissions process and will constitute the great majority of students in each entering class. Approximately 10 students, however, may be admitted from states other than Florida if they have outstanding academic records, life experiences, and accomplishments that the admissions committee might find highly desirable in meeting our educational goal. To receive initial consideration as a Florida resident, applicants must declare Florida as their state of residence on their AMCAS application. There can be no exceptions to this rule. Accepted Florida applicants will be required to submit a complete set of residency documents prior to enrollment. Applicants who apply as Florida residents and who subsequently cannot provide the necessary documentation to support their claim to residency will be charged the out-of-state tuition.

This is their 2011 class profile (12/64 are out of state):

New entrants: 64; 32 women, 32 men; Numerical credentials: cumulative GPA, 3.70, science GPA, 3.61; MCAT composite average, 31.3 (VR, 9.8; PS, 10.4; BS, 10.9); States represented: FL, 52; CA, 4; UT, 2; one each from NH, MN, MA, NC, TN and NY; Age range, 19-34, Race/ethnicity: 12.5% Hispanic, 12.5% Asian, 64% Non-Hispanic White, 11% declined to identify; Undergraduate institutions attended: In Florida; UF 26, UM 5; USF 4; FAU 3; FSU 2; UCF 1: Non-Florida schools: BYU 2; Yeshiva 2; and one each from USAFA, Wellesley, UCLA, Boston College, Vanderbilt, Duke, Princeton, Notre Dame, Cornell, Colgate, University of Virginia, Stonehill College, College of New Jersey, University of Pittsburgh, U Massachusetts-Amherst, East Tennessee State, UC-Davis, UC- Riverside, and UC-Irvine; Majors: Biochemistry 11; Biology 8; Microbiology 6; Psychology 6; Cell and Molecular biology 6; Biomedical Science 6; Chemistry 5; Economics 4; Neuroscience 3; Food Science 3; and one each in Physiology, Physics, History, English, Art History, Finance, Asian Studies, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Spanish, and French.


So if you feel that you could be one of the 12, by all means apply. I looked up U Miami and they take many more out of state applicants than I thought even though they do still have in-state preference. You would have a shot there. 63/205 were from out of state so you have a 30% shot.

Sorry to bump an old thread, but I have similar stats as the OP and I was wondering why people are suggesting not applying to the SUNYs. I thought SUNYs were generally considered OOS friendly and good "safety" schools. I am confused

Originally Posted by dreamer67

Sorry to bump an old thread, but I have similar stats as the OP and I was wondering why people are suggesting not applying to the SUNYs. I thought SUNYs were generally considered OOS friendly and good "safety" schools. I am confused

I wouldn't say that the SUNYs are OOS friendly. I consider a threshold of 25% or more of the class as OOS to be considered OOS friendly. A couple hover around 20% and the rest are below that. But, that is just my standard, while others might have lower standards.