- Joined
- Apr 6, 2008
- Messages
- 1,667
- Reaction score
- 12
.As we all know, CA residents are told be at a great disadvantage when applying for med school. Here are some numbers that I calculated from the AAMC data (I converted the percentages into numbers specific to CA):.
.2007 AAMC CA Residents; By State.
(Couldn't paste my table. See the attached Word file instead.)
.In State Matriculation: 17.21%.
.In State Matriculation for West: 17.1%.
.In State Matriculation for Northeast: 23.8% (Central and South are about 31%).
.Out of State Matriculation: 23.8%.
.Total Rate of CA Resident Matriculation: 40.2%.
.National Average of Matriculation: 42%.
.First, notice the uselessness of the maticulant data. The average of 2.97% of CA matriculants into CA med schools doesnt say anything about the competitiveness of the school. The number of acceptances would be helpful, but it still would be skewed because the data clearly shows that most CA applicants apply to all CA med schools simultaneously, so that an acceptance at one school, especially a UC, easily means that the rest of the CA schools will not accept the same student. So the most important thing here to see is that 17.21% of CA residents get into CA med school and that all of the West and Northeast states on average are very close to that rate. CA is tough only if you compare to South and Central states. Now if we look at the national data, CA residents are just as likely to get into med school as any other residents: 40.2% compared to the national average of 42%. So CA may not be as bad as it seems..
.The second point here is the choice of undergrad vs med school. I am sure many people in here have heard about the Thomas Haider program at UC Riverside with UCLA medical school. I dont know if there are any students from UC Riverside who can comment, but according to my data above, the Haider program is nothing special. There are about 250 applicants to that program out of whom 24 get in (reference). Thats a 9.6% acceptance rate. If you read their website, they say that UCLA actually has 121/5000 which is the ~2.5% I calculated in my table. So what is the problem here? Well, it is what I described in my first paragraph: they are using MATRICULANT data to show the advantage of the program, but this is a fallacy because the matriculant data does not say anything about the acceptances. Anyway, the truth is that the Haider program has 43% less chance of getting you into a CA med school than a regular application. The state average is 16.75% (excludes Haider) compared to 9.6% of Haider. Therefore, this program is as not valuable as it is believed. The only argument for it is that you might have a higher chance of getting into UCLA alone, but the absence of true acceptance data without the automatic UCLA rejections of students who were accepted to other UCs makes that an ambiguous argument. It is also questionable what kind of medical school experience a student may have if he spends the first two years at the undergraduate campus (UCR) before moving to Geffen..
.So this brings me to the third point: when deciding which UC to attend, it is far more beneficial to choose a UC that has a medical school attached (more research, networking, and opportunities) and it considered to be more competitive. So in this case, UC Irvine would be a much better choice than UC Riverside. I know that many of you say that rankings dont matter, but I have had at least one adviser tell me that some adcoms look up your school in a book like Barrons Guide to Most Competitive Colleges before forming their opinions. If they look at book, I am sure they easily look at the more famous US News Rankings. As an example, if an adcom looks at somewhat similar stats and sees Irvine (or Davis) vs Riverside (or Santa Cruz), she will see this:.
Public: UCI 12; UCR 40
National: UCI 44; UCR 89
.Now neither UCI or UCR are considered to be high ranking schools, but based on these 50% higher rankings for school One (up to 70% higher), who would YOU, if you were an adcom, choose if you had similar stats and needed some more information to go ahead? I think that this is why many at SDN say that you should go to the best undergrad you can. True indeed..
.2007 AAMC CA Residents; By State.
(Couldn't paste my table. See the attached Word file instead.)
.In State Matriculation: 17.21%.
.In State Matriculation for West: 17.1%.
.In State Matriculation for Northeast: 23.8% (Central and South are about 31%).
.Out of State Matriculation: 23.8%.
.Total Rate of CA Resident Matriculation: 40.2%.
.National Average of Matriculation: 42%.
.First, notice the uselessness of the maticulant data. The average of 2.97% of CA matriculants into CA med schools doesnt say anything about the competitiveness of the school. The number of acceptances would be helpful, but it still would be skewed because the data clearly shows that most CA applicants apply to all CA med schools simultaneously, so that an acceptance at one school, especially a UC, easily means that the rest of the CA schools will not accept the same student. So the most important thing here to see is that 17.21% of CA residents get into CA med school and that all of the West and Northeast states on average are very close to that rate. CA is tough only if you compare to South and Central states. Now if we look at the national data, CA residents are just as likely to get into med school as any other residents: 40.2% compared to the national average of 42%. So CA may not be as bad as it seems..
.The second point here is the choice of undergrad vs med school. I am sure many people in here have heard about the Thomas Haider program at UC Riverside with UCLA medical school. I dont know if there are any students from UC Riverside who can comment, but according to my data above, the Haider program is nothing special. There are about 250 applicants to that program out of whom 24 get in (reference). Thats a 9.6% acceptance rate. If you read their website, they say that UCLA actually has 121/5000 which is the ~2.5% I calculated in my table. So what is the problem here? Well, it is what I described in my first paragraph: they are using MATRICULANT data to show the advantage of the program, but this is a fallacy because the matriculant data does not say anything about the acceptances. Anyway, the truth is that the Haider program has 43% less chance of getting you into a CA med school than a regular application. The state average is 16.75% (excludes Haider) compared to 9.6% of Haider. Therefore, this program is as not valuable as it is believed. The only argument for it is that you might have a higher chance of getting into UCLA alone, but the absence of true acceptance data without the automatic UCLA rejections of students who were accepted to other UCs makes that an ambiguous argument. It is also questionable what kind of medical school experience a student may have if he spends the first two years at the undergraduate campus (UCR) before moving to Geffen..
.So this brings me to the third point: when deciding which UC to attend, it is far more beneficial to choose a UC that has a medical school attached (more research, networking, and opportunities) and it considered to be more competitive. So in this case, UC Irvine would be a much better choice than UC Riverside. I know that many of you say that rankings dont matter, but I have had at least one adviser tell me that some adcoms look up your school in a book like Barrons Guide to Most Competitive Colleges before forming their opinions. If they look at book, I am sure they easily look at the more famous US News Rankings. As an example, if an adcom looks at somewhat similar stats and sees Irvine (or Davis) vs Riverside (or Santa Cruz), she will see this:.
Public: UCI 12; UCR 40
National: UCI 44; UCR 89
.Now neither UCI or UCR are considered to be high ranking schools, but based on these 50% higher rankings for school One (up to 70% higher), who would YOU, if you were an adcom, choose if you had similar stats and needed some more information to go ahead? I think that this is why many at SDN say that you should go to the best undergrad you can. True indeed..
Last edited:
