Is it really that competitive to apply as a California resident?

Started by shinbeats
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shinbeats

shinbeats

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I keep reading all these horror stories about California students not getting interviews, getting wait listed, rejected and going to the Caribbeans even with competitive stats. Is it honestly that bad to be a Cali resident!? I'm already some what aware of the answer but want to help California residents that aren't aware with the process understand how state residency plays a role in the application process. Thank you in advance!
 
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it seems so. there were several californians at the places i've visited. apparently new york medical college is jokingly called u.c. valhalla because so many californians end up there
 
They are at a slight-to-moderate disadvantage, but one that is VASTLY overhyped on SDN. The notion is that Californians can't rely on in-state favor from the UCs due to the large number of competitive applicants from within the state. Therefore, they essentially consider themselves 'homeless' during the application cycle (compared to the applicants who rely on their in-state school as a safety).

... to which I reply "quit whining." There are plenty of states with less-than-ideal circumstances for in-state applicants (Colorado, Iowa, Maine, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island all come to mind).
 
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I'll leave this old post of mine here
sector9 said:
California had 4,972 applicants out of 42,742 total MD applicants, including foreign applicants (meaning CA residents represented 11.6% of all applicants)

2,154 California residents matriculated into SOME US MD school. 18,665 people matriculated into US MD schools. That means 11.5% of the matriculants into US MD schools were CA residents. This number goes against the claim that California residents were discriminated against in the overall medical admissions process, since a 0.1% difference between national and CA resident matriculation percentage is not statistically significant.

Out of those 2,154 CA residents who matriculated somewhere, 856 of them were able to stay in CA.

There are a total of 1,100 MD seats in CA. Once again, there were a total of 18,665 available seats (assuming that the number of matriculants is the same as available seats). 5.9% of the available seats in the country are in CA. This number supports the claim that CA is vastly undersupported in terms of available seats when compared with the percent of applicants coming from the state (11.6%).

By way of comparison to the IS-friendly state of Texas, they have 1,448 available seats (7.8% of the nationwide seats) but they have 3,427 applicants (8.0% of the nationwide applicants). This shows that the numbers are skewed toward having a lower % of available seats than % of applicants in a state due to some states not having a medical school. Those states contribute a number of applicants to the pool without contributing any seats to the stats.

As far as CA being OOS-friendly or not, since there were 856 CA residents who stayed in CA for med school out of 1,100 seats, that means 77.8% of the CA medical schools spots went to CA residents. It's up to you to decide if that is OOS friendly or not. Of course, the UC schools are much less OOS friendly than the privates.

Here are the take-home messages:
1. CA applicants don't appear to be disadvantaged in the overall "admissions game", as long as they are willing to leave the state.
2. CA does not contribute enough seats to the overall US MD pool, forcing us 😎 Californians to apply and matriculate elsewhere.

All of these stats are the latest available from AMCAS (using 2010 year) from the AMCAS Facts page https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/
Click to expand...
I think Saggy's right: the California situation is overhyped on SDN
 
aSagacious said:
... to which I reply "quit whining." There are plenty of states with less-than-ideal circumstances for in-state applicants (Colorado, Iowa, Maine, Nevada, New Hampshire, Oregon, Rhode Island all come to mind).
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They whine too, there's just a lot less of them.
 
Rednawz said:
Why not just have more medical schools in california!?
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dollar-sign-necklace.jpg
 
Illinois seems to be another sweet place to apply. Good range of mid and top schools with a fairly low population compared to places like NY and CA.
 
notbobtrustme said:
Illinois seems to be another sweet place to apply. Good range of mid and top schools with a fairly low population compared to places like NY and CA.
Click to expand...

True, because even the private schools there accept a significant amount from the area.

However, you can't beat those low prices in Texas.
 
I am a CA resident with 7 interview invites. 0 of them are to CA schools. 6 of them are to other states' public schools.

:cry: :cry:

CA sucks.
 
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Yea,

I feel sorry for people from CA and DE etc. I heard that many of them apply to upwards of 40 schools... wow.. when I told them I applied to 9 and thought that was about average they were like whaa??

CA just has a LOT of problems. Great place to visit, terrible place to live (except Californians are certainly FUN FUN FUN). Oh and the weather is amazing..

Here in Virginia, we have about i dunno 500 spots?? We have about 8 million in VA.. Obviously a LOT better than CA.

So, yes I see many Californians at my interviews.....

GOOD LUCK and come to VA 🙂
 
fromnova said:
Yea,

I feel sorry for people from CA and DE etc. I heard that many of them apply to upwards of 40 schools... wow.. when I told them I applied to 9 and thought that was about average they were like whaa??

CA just has a LOT of problems. Great place to visit, terrible place to live (except Californians are certainly FUN FUN FUN). Oh and the weather is amazing..

Here in Virginia, we have about i dunno 500 spots?? We have about 8 million in VA.. Obviously a LOT better than CA.

So, yes I see many Californians at my interviews.....

GOOD LUCK and come to VA 🙂
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Ehhhh I don't know about VA. I lived in VA briefly (did my first 2 semesters there) and it seemed super competitive. I was actually in NOVA, and couldn't find a single a clinical volunteering opportunity. Not at any clinics, any hospitals, no shadowing either (well, I guess that's true for a lot of places). Also, VA's medical schools don't really give much instate preference (i.e.- VCU, EVMS), then UVA is already really tough to get in. Luckily, Vtech just opened a med school, so that's something.
Better than CA though.
-Love that I moved back to TX.
 
WA resident. We only have one school, but it is the University of Washington (#1 primary care), and it mainly takes in state students!
 
CA applicants don't appear to be disadvantaged in the overall "admissions game", as long as they are willing to leave the state.
Click to expand...

Three of California's med schools are in the top 15, with top 15 stats required. One MS has a special emphasis (Loma Linda). Only Davis and Irvine can be considered 'typical' med schools where typical in-state applicants could be competitive.

btw: according to the Table 21, California applicants (need to?) have a higher mean mcat score for acceptance than the national average (32.3 vs. 31.1). (A lotta test-happy applicants?) In contrast, the mean gpa is slightly lower than average (3.59 vs. 3.61, but statistically insignificant?).
 
Ghost117 said:
WA resident. We only have one school, but it is the University of Washington (#1 primary care), and it mainly takes in state students!
Click to expand...

Yeah, and let's not forget the allocated seats for the WWAMI region...that makes the available seats for Washingtonians that much lesser than what the numbers tell you...
 
UrshumMurshum said:
According to wikipedia there are 4 new Californian medical schools opening up in the next 2 years
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Its outdated.

University of California, Merced School of Medicine
- Probably not happening at the moment. Established new PRIME program with Davis for the meantime. Says on their website they are still working towards a medical school but no clear timeline

University of California, Riverside School of Medicine
-Has funding issues but hopefully will take its first class in 2013. Yay!

The Scripps Research Institute School of Medicine
- No new information for years. Wikipedia says plans were cancelled.


California Northstate University College of Medicine
-Who knows what is going on here?


Yay for 1 school!
 
As others have said - its not that bad. Californians are just as likely to be accepted to med school as non-californians. We're just less likely to be able to stay at home to do it. And we as Californians have a very hard time with that - most of us are very in love with our state and don't know how to deal with cold weather.

Many Californians are exiled for med school and come back for residency, so it works out in the end - its just 4 years. But still stressful.
 
alwaysaangel said:
As others have said - its not that bad. Californians are just as likely to be accepted to med school as non-californians. We're just less likely to be able to stay at home to do it. And we as Californians have a very hard time with that - most of us are very in love with our state and don't know how to deal with cold weather.

Many Californians are exiled for med school and come back for residency, so it works out in the end - its just 4 years. But still stressful.
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Couldn't agree more. I've accepted that in all likelihood I'll be attending medical school OOS and I plan to work my tail off to come back for residency. Still, living outside of CA for 4 years is going to be an additional stressor on top of all that stress medical school normally induces.
 
I personally think people should embrace traveling to other states any way. Living in one place all your life is missing out on a lot of what the US has to offer.
 
California is practically its own country. Just move to Montana for two years and apply to those schools. :-/
 
Sorry to hijack the thread, but what do you guys think about a 3.66 cGPA, 32Q (PS/VR/BS 11/8/13)?
I know it's still around the average for accepted in cali, but I couldn't help feeling worried about my chances of getting in to UCs..
Is it worth the time and effort to retake, or should I focus on improving my ECs?
Thanks a lot everyone! 😍
 
bubble1986 said:
Sorry to hijack the thread, but what do you guys think about a 3.66 cGPA, 32Q (PS/VR/BS 11/8/13)?
I know it's still around the average for accepted in cali, but I couldn't help feeling worried about my chances of getting in to UCs..
Is it worth the time and effort to retake, or should I focus on improving my ECs?
Thanks a lot everyone! 😍
Click to expand...

I think you will get more responses if you ask this question by creating a new thread in the 'what are my chances' forum.
 
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shinbeats said:
I keep reading all these horror stories about California students not getting interviews, getting wait listed, rejected and going to the Caribbeans even with competitive stats. Is it honestly that bad to be a Cali resident!? I'm already some what aware of the answer but want to help California residents that aren't aware with the process understand how state residency plays a role in the application process. Thank you in advance!
Click to expand...


Yes, but it has more to do with California having a huge population and being broke than the schools having any sort of deeper bias towards its own applicants. By law (since the university is supported in part by CA tax money), the public CA MD schools are required to take a certain percentage of the class from in-state. Being that the entire UC system is teetering on financial oblivion right now, they're obviously going to meet the bare minimum and draw the rest from elsewhere, as they can charge the exorbitant OOS tuition rate.

Also, the fact that you hear more on these forums about CA kids faring poorly in the admissions game is again because there are a whole lot of people from california-and therefore a whole lot of vocal californians on SDN.

To all my californian cousins: Going out of state really isn't a big deal. Pricewise it's an inconvenience, but i went to Cal and ended up in FL. You still get to be a doctor, and the OOS thing isn't really a hindrance in terms of matching into one residency program over another when you get down to it.
 
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