Giving up residency for postbac?

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Serenitysweety

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Hello! I am looking into postbac options. I am a florida resident and still reside in gainesville. BA from UF. I am struggling with wanting to attend an out of state postbac program for their structure and reputation. I figure, with a questionable past and gpa, one of the better programs will give me a leg up when it comes time to apply for med school. At the best, I can link. Of course, all under the assumption I can even become admitted.

But florida has so many med schools, and I am not opposed to DO at all so that just helps even more. I feel its a gamble to leave the state for postbac when I may be giving up my residency advantage. If I stay in florida, I am considering FIU or UNF. Not exactly top tier, but they are very affordable. If I do any other programs, I have little option but to take out private loans. This includes UF. Still, would taking my classes at these universities be seen as suspicious coming from UF?

And then, there's the spouse. He is in the film industry, really struggling to find meaningful work in gainesville, and wanting to move to New York. If he were to work up there, at least our financial situation would be more stable and I may not need to take out so much in loans. We do have kids to support.

I'm considering a few of the better known postbacs(goucher, harvard extension, ect) but I don't know if I should just keep myself planted in florida for the long haul.

I'm so unsure of what would be the best move for me right now. Any advice please would be appreciated!

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School attendance does not change state residency, in general. In general, you have to establish a domicile to change your state residency. That usually means getting a job and paying taxes and changing over your drivers license, car registration, voter reg etc. Whether a state agency considers you a resident for voting etc, vs. whether a school considers you a resident for tuition or admissions preference, tend to be completely separate concerns with completely different documentation requirements.

In reality what determines your residency for med school is:
1. the state you claim on your med school app, which may be the determination of your status for admissions
2. the address you list on your med school app, which is usually a different box from #1, and may carry the same weight as #1
3. your documented proof of your state residence, which may be required after you get accepted. proof is defined by each state and sometimes also by each school.

Generally you can attend school full time outside your home state without changing your state of residence, if you maintain a residence (such as your parents') in your home state.

Generally if you are married to somebody who establishes a domicile outside your home state, that changes your state of residence. So if your husband gets a job in NY, then you'd generally need to think of yourself as a NY resident.

Generally if you're recovering from GPA damage, you shouldn't move to a state that's as-or-more competitive in med school admissions than your current state, because you don't want to lower your chances. NY is quite a bit more competitive than FL (I'll leave proof as an exercise to the reader, start at aamc.org). California would be completely out of the question for you. Study GPA redemption on SDN by searching for "low GPA" and spending many dozens of hours learning from the mistakes of others. This forum (nontrad) as well as reapp and postbac are instructive.

(Note: All those "generally"s above mean that I'm not a lawyer and this is free advice and I once did a boatload of research on state residency requirements in a bunch of states but you really need to do your own exhaustive research and be the boss.)

Best of luck to you.
 
Why would you consider attending FIU; that's on the other end of the state from you! At least UNF is in the area, and it's still a four year school. Given your situation, I'd go there, although I don't understand why it should be so much cheaper than UF.

I also wouldn't be in a huge hurry to move OOS if I were you. As you already realize, being a FL resident gives you a large home state advantage, and not one you should casually squander without some guarantees of being in a good position on the other end. Like, just how much of a sure thing is this film job in New York? If there ain't no signed contract, I wouldn't be starting to pack.

I recommend you contact the admissions office at UF and ask for some preapp counseling on how you can improve your app. I did that ten years ago when I applied, and got help both from them and from USF. FSU was brand new at the time and the other state schools didn't exist yet, but I bet some of them would be willing to speak to you also.
 
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Why would you consider attending FIU; that's on the other end of the state from you! At least UNF is in the area, and it's still a four year school. Given your situation, I'd go there, although I don't understand why it should be so much cheaper than UF.

I also wouldn't be in a huge hurry to move OOS if I were you. As you already realize, being a FL resident gives you a large home state advantage, and not one you should casually squander without some guarantees of being in a good position on the other end. Like, just how much of a sure thing is this film job in New York? If there ain't no signed contract, I wouldn't be starting to pack.

I recommend you contact the admissions office at UF and ask for some preapp counseling on how you can improve your app. I did that ten years ago when I applied, and got help both from them and from USF. FSU was brand new at the time and the other state schools didn't exist yet, but I bet some of them would be willing to speak to you also.


UF does not allow second bachelor degree enrollment in the way that the other two universities do. They have a new, fairly unstructured postbac program that would cost approximately 500/per credit hour. UNF and FIU cost half that and my stafford loan would cover the whole expense in those cases.

Also, I have consulted with UF premed advisors much to my detriment. They were unhelpful, inconsiderate, and long story short, I left the office in tears. Twice! Bad memories linger there for me. That aside, I was not aware that an non-enrolled student could seek counsel. I will have to look into that. Thank you!
 
OP, the site says $585 per credit hour (this included fees) (http://www.clas.ufl.edu/prehealthpostbac/admission.html). Taking the max credits amount they listed on the sample schedule (73), you're talking about $42,705 in tuition alone. Combining that with other ancillary costs (especially in a college town), & its a pretty penny for two years (granted its proverbially understood that post-baccs will be expensive). The less you have to borrow, the better.

UNF, UCF & USF are all only a couple of hours away. IMO, make UF one of your back-burner options.
 
Just throwing this out there, but it may be completely unhelpful. Why not Texas? If you were to move here and establish residency, since moving is on the table, you would have a similar, if not better, home state advantage. There are three postbacs that are all fairly affordable: A&M, Tech and UNT. Then, you would have the option of applying to schools all across the spectrum, from Baylor and UTSW to TCOM.
Jobs here are plentiful for your husband, as Texas is growing very rapidly. The biggest growth areas are in the larger cities. Austin is growing exponentially and about to open a new medical school. Houston is one of the largest cities in the country. DFW is growing too, and it has UNT for a 1 year postbac and both UTSW and TCOM for after.

I know that wasn't a thought in your mind, but it might be something to consider. I LOVE my Spurs and Longhorns!
 
Just throwing this out there, but it may be completely unhelpful. Why not Texas? If you were to move here and establish residency, since moving is on the table, you would have a similar, if not better, home state advantage. There are three postbacs that are all fairly affordable: A&M, Tech and UNT. Then, you would have the option of applying to schools all across the spectrum, from Baylor and UTSW to TCOM.
Jobs here are plentiful for your husband, as Texas is growing very rapidly. The biggest growth areas are in the larger cities. Austin is growing exponentially and about to open a new medical school. Houston is one of the largest cities in the country. DFW is growing too, and it has UNT for a 1 year postbac and both UTSW and TCOM for after.

I know that wasn't a thought in your mind, but it might be something to consider. I LOVE my Spurs and Longhorns!

I'm not sure that Texas would be my cup of tea... I'm probably prejudiced. :unsure:

But I'm URM and somehow, I feel like the Midwest isn't as comforting as my home state. Florida, well...southern florida is pretty diverse. Lol, I don't know. Listening to too much fear mongering perhaps.

But I have thought about Texas and I would only go there as one of my last resorts. Like if I fail all my postbac classes and want a fresh start someday. :D

Though, I may have to look into those jobs. I'm not sure how the film industry is moving along there...

Thank you for the info though!
 
I'm not sure that Texas would be my cup of tea... I'm probably prejudiced. :unsure:

But I'm URM and somehow, I feel like the Midwest isn't as comforting as my home state. Florida, well...southern florida is pretty diverse. Lol, I don't know. Listening to too much fear mongering perhaps.

But I have thought about Texas and I would only go there as one of my last resorts. Like if I fail all my postbac classes and want a fresh start someday. :D

Though, I may have to look into those jobs. I'm not sure how the film industry is moving along there...

Thank you for the info though!
Bigger cities in Texas have our fair share of liberal, intelligent, reasonable people (obviously that describes me!), particularly in Austin. The stereotypes definitely fit the small towns more. Also, I know for a while there was a big increase in the film industry here, with major incentives to film in Austin, but I don't know if that's still going on. My sister did some professional theater and a few movies in the area before going back to school, so it's been a while, but I heard of it then.
 
Okay, so I have taken this advice to heart. And I see that it would really be beneficial to stay in state. But now, my husband is more adamant than ever on leaving. So again, to clarify and erase all doubts on the subject... The benefits of a structured postbac will not outweigh the benefits of staying in florida?
 
Okay, so I have taken this advice to heart. And I see that it would really be beneficial to stay in state. But now, my husband is more adamant than ever on leaving. So again, to clarify and erase all doubts on the subject... The benefits of a structured postbac will not outweigh the benefits of staying in florida?

So I looked at your other posts and found that you are in need of completing your pre-reqs. In this case, going to a structured program vs doing it yourself is not going to be of any major difference. The program that claire mentioned would be considered a special masters program on these forums (ie a program for those who have already completed the pre-reqs or a science degree with a low gpa involving taking medical school classes and proving that you can handle them).

So that you arrive at YOUR OWN decision completely informed, I ask that you do the following:

Invest in an MSAR

Find out how many medical schools are in each state. Decide which ones you will not end up applying to (I'm assuming your husband will want to stay in NYC, hence mainland NY schools like Albany Medical College, Buffalo, SUNY Upstate and Rochester may be out of consideration for you).

Find out how many medical school spots there are in each of the rest of the schools.

Find out how many people apply to these spots.

Find out how many in-state residents each of these schools tend to take (I believe FL tends to be more in-state favoring).

Find out the average stats of applicants to each of these schools (bear in mind that top NY schools like Mt. Sinai, Columbia and Cornell will have applicants/matriculants with high stats).

Find the average stats of matriculating classes of students of the medical schools in FL vs NY through the medical schools' websites.

I'll help you out with an example here: According to FSUCOM's website, their 2014 entering class had an average gpa of 3.6 and MCAT of 27. According to NYMC's website, their entering classes typically have an average gpa of 3.6 and median MCAT of 32.
 
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Florida schools are very much "in-state favoring," including our one private school (Miami). In general, most Southern states heavily protect their seats for in-state residents, but they only have one or two state schools. That's why applying as a resident of FL or TX in particular is so advantageous: both have lots of state schools, all with heavily protected seats. So it's not just an issue of FL having a lot of schools; it's that we have a lot of schools, *and* they all heavily protect their seats for in-state residents.
 
So I looked at your other posts and found that you are in need of completing your pre-reqs. In this case, going to a structured program vs doing it yourself is not going to be of any major difference. The program that claire mentioned would be considered a special masters program on these forums (ie a program for those who have already completed the pre-reqs or a science degree with a low gpa involving taking medical school classes and proving that you can handle them).

So that you arrive at YOUR OWN decision completely informed, I ask that you do the following:

Invest in an MSAR

Find out how many medical schools are in each state. Decide which ones you will not end up applying to (I'm assuming your husband will want to stay in NYC, hence mainland NY schools like Albany Medical College, Buffalo, SUNY Upstate and Rochester may be out of consideration for you).

Find out how many medical school spots there are in each of the rest of the schools.

Find out how many people apply to these spots.

Find out how many in-state residents each of these schools tend to take (I believe FL tends to be more in-state favoring).

Find out the average stats of applicants to each of these schools (bear in mind that top NY schools like Mt. Sinai, Columbia and Cornell will have applicants/matriculants with high stats).

Find the average stats of matriculating classes of students of the medical schools in FL vs NY through the medical schools' websites.

I'll help you out with an example here: According to FSUCOM's website, their 2014 entering class had an average gpa of 3.6 and MCAT of 27. According to NYMC's website, their entering classes typically have an average gpa of 3.6 and median MCAT of 32.

Ordered my MSAR which I suppose I should have done long ago. I suppose I'm trying to find a way to make the spouse happy while making sure I do what's best for my career. I'm already pretty much convinced that the schools here are much less competitive than those up north. Not that I won't be putting in those apps of course!

But I suppose if all push came to shove, I could leave the state and eventually return to then do research or other ec's for a year to regain residency. The long route to an already drawn out route...:arghh:
 
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