who's interested in doing a research fellowship during med school?

[mentoz]

i just called UCSF to ask if i had to pay tuition during the year i take a leave of absence in order to pursue a fellowship unaffiliated with the school (Howard Hughes for example) .. because i'd be getting a salary within another state for a year, i'd be considered a non-CA resident again and so the year i return to UCSF, i'd be paying out-of-state tuition again .. OR i could not take a leave of absence and pay in-state tuition for a year that i'm not even going to school ..




has anyone ever gone through this? thought about this? i know it will only pertain to those going to public medical schools .. so yeah, this is not good.

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[Newquagmire]

you should do mstp! but i guess it's a bit late for that, eh? =)

 

[mentoz]

after i withdrew from UCLA mstp and UTSW mstp and from the PENN mstp waitlist .. yes i'd say it's a bit late ...

*sigh*


edit: you know, even if i don't do research and take a year off to go abroad and pursue international projects, it would be the same problem .. man.

 

[BaylorLion]

You're torn between the two? Go to UCSF!

 

[VCMM414]

I'm definitely interested in doing a research fellowship. Just finished M1 year though, so no definite plans yet. It's surprising that, if you do your fellowship outside of UCSF, your salary would be considered "out-of-state." From what I understand, I thought that the funding comes from HH-NIH and not from the institution at which you are doing research? This definitely stinks. I am fortunate to be going to a private med school where I won't have this problem.

Another plan of action: perhaps you can get the HH fellowship for somewhere in CA? Between the UCs, USC, and Stanford, you may be able to find something to your liking. Not an ideal situation, but it's still not as bad as it may seem at first.


Another (more farfetched) option is you can contact UCLA or UTSW and see if they'll give you back your MSTP spot. Someone on these forums has done that before from a school from which he/she has already withdrawn (and later regretted), and the school was gracious enough to return the spot. Note that this was with a MD spot, not MSTP, but it doesn't hurt to try considering how much you seem to enjoy research.

Good luck with whatever you choose to do.

 

[LoneCoyote]

What if you were to establish your residency and then maintain it the year you took off by paying income tax to both California and the state where you were researching, and keeping your car, voting, permanent address, etc. in California. I know people who have done this for other types of jobs in neighboring states who wanted to maintain residency for applying to school. Can you talk to someone in the residency office? Those are the people who usually know all of the details about ways to deal with this kind of stuff.

 

[mentoz]

What if you were to establish your residency and then maintain it the year you took off by paying income tax to both California and the state where you were researching, and keeping your car, voting, permanent address, etc. in California. I know people who have done this for other types of jobs in neighboring states who wanted to maintain residency for applying to school. Can you talk to someone in the residency office? Those are the people who usually know all of the details about ways to deal with this kind of stuff.

yeah i was on the phone all day between the Financial Aid office and the Registrar and not to my surprise, the two offices don't seem to contact each other much (which they SHOULD) ... with the Registrar, i asked about how i could maintain residency but she pretty much told me that i had to pay out of state tuition ... i asked her to help me resolve this problem as i was sure this had come up before in the past, but she was of NO ASSISTANCE! she said that being paid from the NIH in DC for a year disqualifies me from being a CA resident .. i want to look into what you're saying, but i don't think she'll help me much .. it was pretty much "how much do you want to be at UCSF and how much do you want to pay in order to do the things you want to do" ... this aggravated me so much that i almost said @#$! it, i'll just go to Yale ...

i'm so frustrated ...