Pre Med-Med School dilema?

[anth]

I was on another forum and I am being told there that if I go out of state to school for undergraduate, It will be extremely difficult to get into med school. I am not understanding this. I would decide on med school after I got accepted, and had some choices. I think going after a specific med school at this point is a little redicules, I havent even gone to college yet, and all these know it all's are making it a little confusing

This is what they posted to my dad.

(People shouldn't be going to out-of-state schools for the prospect of getting into that out-of-state school's medical school. That would be a very, very bad idea. The reason to go out of state needs to be one so compelling that you absolutely cannot go to your state school, because you won't gain much of anything (except more debt/more of a financial burden). The overwhelming consensus is to stay in-state and save the money for medical school.

However, if you apply to a private school that's out of your state and get good financial aid, then that's another story, but from what I see you are just talking about state schools.

EDIT: An example of a compelling reason to leave one's state for another state school would be a student who leaves Road Island for UT Austin (or Texas A and M) to be a petroleum engineering major. This would make sense to me because UT and TAMU's petroleum engineering majors are unique and very heavily recruited out of.)

Can anyone in my boat please clarify this for me. I live in Illinois and plan on going to Kentucky, Ole Miss, maybe Grand Valley state in fall 2011.

Thanks

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[aSagacious]

A couple things:

1) Yes, attending an undergraduate school for the sake of its associated med school is a poor reason to attend that institution. Additionally, an applicant's chances at any given school are poor (hence why applicants apply to so many schools). Also, you may very well decide that medicine is not for you in a couple of years, so keeping your options open (by attending a school with quite a few strengths) would be ideal.

2) Agreed, if you were to receive a competitive financial aid package and the out-of-state institution appeals to you for one reason or another (aside from the associated med school), then by all means go out-of-state. Should you choose to take the necessary steps to become a permanent resident (ie, drivers license, voter registration, taxes, etc) then you might both receive in-state tuition later in your undergraduate years as well as be considered an in-state applicant when the time for med school application rolls around.

3) Finances should not be higher than 3 or 4 on your priority list of choosing where to go to school. Yes, saving money is great but the government has plenty of loan money available so you won't have to worry about loans until you've graduated med school (at which point you'll presumably have a steady and sufficient income to pay it back).

 

[Catalystik]

Should you choose to take the necessary steps to become a permanent resident (ie, drivers license, voter registration, taxes, etc) then you might both receive in-state tuition later in your undergraduate years as well as be considered an in-state applicant when the time for med school application rolls around.

As a generalization, to become the resident of another state where your parents don't reside usually requires living there for a year for noneducational purposes. There are exceptions (eg, it takes 5 years in one state).

In general, wherever you go to college (if you are of traditional age), your legal state of residence is where your parents reside. If you go straight from college to med school, this will also be how med schools decide your legal state of residence. It has nothing to do with where you went to college.

So, if you go to college in another state, you are still a resident of Illinois, (if your parents don't move, and you don't marry the resident of another state, or drop out of college and work for awhile) when the time comes to apply to med school.

 

[ShyRem]

Moving to HSDN as this is a high school student post.