Are NY state medical schools resonable to get into for in-staters?

raltima07 said:

Hey,

I know states like Texas give you a really high chance of acceptance if you are in state and have average stats. Is NY similar to that?

I know upstate takes mostly NY'ers, but does that make it easier for an average (3.7, 30 MCAT) student to get into compared to the rest of the medical schools? Like would a NY'er with those stats stand a good chance of acceptance there?

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Not at all. While there are four SUNYs, they typically all accept 1/3+ OOS (upstate may be an exception). It's not like some of the other states where 50+% of residents are granted interviews. Certainly not nearly as bad as the UCs in California, but it's also significantly tougher for a NYS student to get into SUNY than a TX resident to get into a texas state. NY residents are also a competitive applicant pool...a 3.7/30 may get you some love, but it also may not.

I'm a NYS resident and got a few private school interviews, but I didn't get one SUNY interview with a 3.5/33. My hunch is that they tend to care more about GPAs than MCAT scores, but that's just my experience.

patel2 said:

...My hunch is that they tend to care more about GPAs than MCAT scores, but that's just my experience.

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I think you're right about that. One of my SUNY interviewers told me flat out that the interview was a formality meant to exclude the real freaks and they decide pretty much by the numbers.

raltima07 said:

So they care about GPA more? In that case, a 3.9 29MCAT might get more love than a 3.7 30MCAT?

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I never said that. The guy said "numbers" or "stats" or some permutation of that, but to me that includes both MCAT and GPA. See: LizzyM score.

Edit: misread the original quote I was agreeing with. No, I have no reason to believe they care more about GPA than MCAT. To answer your original question applicants with average numbers might have some trouble if what my interviewer said is true.

skinMD said:

NY state schools STRONGLY favor in-state students...just look at the numbers from the 2011/2012 MSAR....

% of interviewed students who are in state:
Downstate: 64%
Upstate: 75%
Stony Brook: 78%
Buffalo: 60%

they dont grant interviews to 50%+ of residents because there r just too many applicants but as you can see from the above numbers there is a huge bias for in-state applicants.

to contrast patel2's experience ...i had pretty similar numbers (3.6, 33) and interviewed at all four SUNYs...i also disagree with the assertion that they care more about GPA, the numbers simply don't support it...in fact if you look at the MSAR you'll see that the medians are all 3.6-3.7 which is no more than any other school with comparable MCAT medians. On top of that Upstate's 10th percentile is a 3.0! the others aren't too far off at 3.2, 3.3 and 3.4.

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Right, and compare that to TX and many other state schools (may be slightly off as I'm using 10-11 MSAR)

% interviewed who are in-state
Texas A & M : 93%
Texas Tech: 94%
UT Galveston: 92%
UT Houston: 91%

Or Lousiana
LSU NO: 97%
LSU Shreveport: 99%

Or UMass: 96%


I'm not contending that SUNY doesn't favor in-state residents (they have to and should!) But even so, SUNY schools give a far greater percentage of it's interviews to OOS applicants than a majority of other state schools...downstate and buffalo are barely giving preference to NYers (60 and 64% is nothing for a state school that uses my taxpayer money!)

As for my personal anectode, fair point. That gpa/mcat statement was probably off base.

raltima07 said:

Even with these percentages, does it make it easier for a more mediocre applicant to get in? Because everyone says apply to your state school (as kind of a safety), but I don't really see how that works.

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Pick up an MSAR and see how you fare stacked up against the averages. There is no such thing as a safety, and some privates have lower averages than SUNYs. Things like "mediocre applicant" are subjective and mean different things to different people.

Your example of a 3.7/30 has a solid chance of getting in somewhere, state or private, but in med school you really can't bank on things like your state being something to fallback on (especially in NY with huge # of applications).

No one said that SUNYs don't favor NYS residents. They do, but maybe only a little bit, if at all.
Other high pop. states with multiple MD schools, like California and Texas (~Florida) give in-state students MAJOR preference, because those students and their families pay to support those schools.

But anything regulated by the State of New York ends up being a total charlie foxtrot, so of course SUNY schools would welcome out-of-staters with open arms, while milking residents' money away with taxes on everything. Then, they give OOS students residency after one year, so it's not even a cash cow!??!?
Makes no sense...

/rant /but no, that was srs

skinMD said:

did you just say that cali schools give more preference to in-staters than the SUNYs?

i can see from your MDapps why you would feel slighted by the SUNYs but your post does not mesh with reality. personally i'm glad that they care more about attracting good students than filling 95% of their class with NYS residents. Their goal is to train doctors who will practice in the state. Your tax money isn't some sort of bribe for them to accept you. SUNYs can accept more people from out of state and even give them residency after 1 year because they are more likely to stay in NY because it's NY! If OOSers weren't staying in NY they would have gotten rid of that policy a long time ago.

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No doubt, the California schools are harder to get into than the SUNYs (more competitive applicant pool)... but actually they DO give more preference to in-staters than the SUNYs on average (with the exception of UCLA).

The tax dollars to fund the school should absolutely play a factor in who they interview, in the same way that the state tax dollars of a community should not be used to build a public high school for children in another state. Become a private institution if you want to be able to select however you want from a larger applicant pool...but the nys taxpayer shouldn't be required to subsidize an institution, if they're barely going to show preference to their own (see Buffalo: 60/40 IS:OOS) Also, OOS students at SUNY Buffalo and Upstate are absolutely not likely to stay and practice in NY.

But really, this is all a disagreement between us and the role of taxpayer money and education. The answer to the OPs question is simple: no, SUNYs do not show anywhere near the in-state preference that Texas and most other states do.

Anecdotally, I was rejected pre-interview at all four SUNYs and was otherwise pretty successful in this process.

rg35 said:

Anecdotally, I was rejected pre-interview at all four SUNYs and was otherwise pretty successful in this process.

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This was my experience, as well. I was placed on pre-interview hold at SUNY Upstate, only to be rejected later in the process....

So confused

skinMD said:

did you just say that cali schools give more preference to in-staters than the SUNYs?

i can see from your MDapps why you would feel slighted by the SUNYs but your post does not mesh with reality. personally i'm glad that they care more about attracting good students than filling 95% of their class with NYS residents. Their goal is to train doctors who will practice in the state. Your tax money isn't some sort of bribe for them to accept you. SUNYs can accept more people from out of state and even give them residency after 1 year because they are more likely to stay in NY because it's NY! If OOSers weren't staying in NY they would have gotten rid of that policy a long time ago.

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Taking a look at MSAR confirms that UC schools in fact give more preference to in-staters (i.e., more percentage of in-state applicants offered interviews) than SUNY schools do. I would say that there are a good deal of SUNY students who have no intention of staying in NY, such as the aforementioned CA applicants. I don't really see how we can debate this however, seeing as we don't have the retention data for SUNY students staying in NY.

I don't have an MSAR anymore, but your have to compare those numbers to the percentage of OOS interviewees to actually prove a point, chief. A point I don't think you can make.

skinMD said:

was that not intended to be a factual statement??*

% of in-state applicants interviewed:
UC Davis: 16%
UC Irvine: 13%
UCLA: 12%
UCSD: 17%
UCSF: 10%


*if you don't get this watch: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/m...own---jon-kyl-s-planned-parenthood-statistics or http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/381282/april-11-2011/pap-smears-at-walgreens (you can skip to 1:58)

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that's an irrelevant statistic when determining which state shows more preference to it's own. Those low numbers are merely a testament to the fact that they have a more competitive pool in california, and that a UC is harder to get into than a SUNY (which is true)

The only meaningful statistic (in the context of determining which system shows more in-state preference) is what percentage of interview invitations are in-state versus out of state...UCs are higher than the SUNYs.

skinMD said:

was that not intended to be a factual statement??*

% of in-state applicants interviewed:
UC Davis: 16%
UC Irvine: 13%
UCLA: 12%
UCSD: 17%
UCSF: 10%


*if you don't get this watch: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/m...own---jon-kyl-s-planned-parenthood-statistics or http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/381282/april-11-2011/pap-smears-at-walgreens (you can skip to 1:58)

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Saw that episode, but I have the "special" excel document that gives me this data:
UCLA: OOS: 28.7% In State: 71.3%
UC Irvine: OOS: 2.61% In State 97.39%
UCSF: OOS: 34.39% In State: 65.61%
UCSD: OOS: 17.11% In State: 82.89%

Was your statement intended to be douchey?

Perhaps your numbers are percentage of total applicants who garnered an interview who also happened to be in-state.

They must have been.
Relevant ratio here of IS/OOS interviewees
Davis 3.6
Irvine 5
UCLA 1.2
UCSD 3
UCSF ND
Avg. 3.2

NY
UB 2
Downstate 3
Upstate 1.2
SBU 3.5
Avg. 2.4

Therefore, California schools prefer Cali residents more than NY schools prefer NY residents when selecting candidates for interview spots. As mentioned above, they are even more selective in accepting OOS students, compared to IS ones, if one assumes that marriculants is an appropriate proxy for acceptances.
QED

patel2 said:

that's an irrelevant statistic when determining which state shows more preference to it's own. Those low numbers are merely a testament to the fact that they have a more competitive pool in california, and that a UC is harder to get into than a SUNY (which is true)

The only meaningful statistic (in the context of determining which system shows more in-state preference) is what percentage of interview invitations are in-state versus out of state...UCs are higher than the SUNYs.

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I'm so sad that someone even had to point this out... we're all doomed.

skinMD said:

yes it was

the percentage i gave is (# of in state interviewed/# of in state applied) from the MSAR 11-12 excel sheet

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I've got a Jon Stewart clip for you that sums of the usefulness of your posts:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmj6JADOZ-8