Thank you for answering questions!
As an out-of-stater, one thing I'm always concerned about for all my OOS schools is cost of attendance. Could you provide some insight on scholarship opportunities at VCU? Do you know of any OOS students who were able to eventually switch to in-state residency?
Cost of attendance is important to some degree. I can understand it being a big concern especially since a decent number of specialties are getting paycuts due to the whole healthcare reform.
I'm going to be very honest with you in that switching to in-state residency is possible but rarely happens. The VCU financial aid office has certain criteria that I'm not aware of but you can call and ask (either way it's tough to switch but I've heard of a couple students doing it).
Scholarship opportunities at VCU are plentiful. I get an overwhelming number of emails about scholarships from the financial aid office almost every other day to the point that I stopped reading those emails.
VCU has a lot of opportunities for you to cut your tuition down.
In the end of the day take my advice on this, don't just pursue an out of state school because it's cheap. Medical school is pretty tough. I think the most important thing is to find a school where you'll be happy.
As a 4th year medical student here's my advice on what will make medical school easier and what you should look for in an OOS or even an IS program:
-Try to stay close to friends and family. You really do need the support system. Some days, weeks and even months will be extremely rough. I've had days especially during 3rd year where I felt depressed, overworked, lonely, tired and my family pulled me through.
-Pay a lot of attention to curriculums. Try to avoid schools that force mandatory stuff. In the end of the day no one can shuv all of this information down your throat even if they teach you countless hours in the class. You need some time for you to sit down and learn the information.
-Find a school that gives you a decent amount of time for dedicated study time for the boards. VCU gives its students over 6-8 weeks (not exactly sure what the new time is this year) of time to study for USMLE Step 1 and that gives you a huge edge compared to students that only have 3-4 weeks of dedicated time. You won't realize this until you're a 4th year medical student and applying to residency but board scores matter a lot. You need high board scores to get into top level programs in any specialty or any program at all in the competitive specialties (Derm, Ortho, ENT, Plastics, Optho etc...)
-In the end of the day I would pick a laid back school where I'm happy and pay $50k a year than an uptight school where I wouldn't be as happy for 30k. If you're in a city where you're unhappy then trust me those 4 years of medical school are going to feel like a decade and take the same toll on you. I can't emphasize that point enough. I guess the question would be well how do you find out if you'd be happy just by a simple interview? Spend an extra day or two in the city to explore, see if you connect with the people in the city/school, attend second look if you think you like a certain medical school. Spending the extra $100-200 bucks will save you 4 years of pain under hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of loans.
-Money is important but realize that this journey of medical school is an extremely long one. If you have to pay a few more bucks to have a better decade of medical education then who cares. In the end you'll be a doctor making > 200k on average and that's more than enough to pay for student loans. A lot of kids cry and complain about student loans but it's very manageable especially with all of the repayment plans that are out there (I don't want to go into too much detail on this topic since I'm no expert on the matter).
