Any "Disadvantaged" friendly schools?

[Cerbernator]

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I expect the answer to be "not really". Anyone have any experience with this?

 

[Harps]

I expect the answer to be "not really". Anyone have any experience with this?

Hey Cerb.,
I was recently reading an article in the Stanford Medicine Magazine that detailed Stanford and UCSF as the leaders in promoting admissions policies to help disadvantaged and minority students. I don't know much about disadvantaged status beyond this article. Sorry! You may visit school websites and search for programs that cater to disadvantaged students. Now that I think about it, Yale and Harvard are open to disadvantaged students, as one person, last year, from my school applied as disadvantaged (for dubious reasons, at best). Hope this helps you Cerb.

Oh yeah, sorry I don't have any personal "experience" with it, though. So, you may want to read my post with a grain of salt 🙂


-Harps

 

[TIMMY]

Jesuit institutions like Creighton, Loyola.....? I know creighton is big on disadvantaged and minority students.

 

[HBMD]

If you are from Cali, UCI tends to favor "disadvantaged" students. There is even a question on the secondary asking if you consider yourself disadvantaged, and if you answer yes, you are given a paragraph to explain yourself. Still a pretty tough school to get into though....

 

[Entol]

Cerb, I was disadvantaged too and I applied disadvantaged on AMCAS. The above poster is right, because I applied to UCLA and they had a section to write if you were disadvantaged. UCI might ask the same question.

Although I don't know if it helped, I know that it was a topic of discussion in my personal statement. It came up in my interviews because I had written about it in my PS. If it was an important part of your path to becoming a doc, include it for sure. It can only help the schools understand your background. Also, I don't know this for sure, but I think it would be ridiculous for a school to reject you for not having the funds to pay for med school, since loans will generally cover everything (theoretically).

I am a minority but not URM, so I can't help you as far as URM status goes, but I know that some schools will applaud you if you had to work 40 hours/week to get through school while maintaining a high GPA and getting a high mcat score.

 

[Cerbernator]

I have a pretty interesting disadvantaged background, so i think I have a fairly good and credible (there is definite verifiable "disadvantage") story. I just wonder if it would really help all that much.

I doubt I have a shot at UCSF anyway though (i have nill in the research dept and a lowly 3.6'ish..maybe slightly lowers GPA). If I do amazingly well on the MCAT, I may try anyway though...

 

[Eraserhead]

All of the UCs and Stanford... otherwise, none IMO!

 

[Cerbernator]

All of the UCs and Stanford... otherwise, none IMO!

Which sucks for me considering I am not a CA resident and therefor have no chance of getting in 🙁

 

[Eraserhead]

OK well I applied disadvantaged and the non-CA schools "out of my league" that gave me interviews were UPitt and Cornell basically. So, they might be big on it, I don't know. Read their admissions shizzle.

I got interviews at all the CA schools besides Davis, but only two accepted me! Disadvantaged issues only came up in like 2-3 of the many interviews... that's something notable I think... I expected more questioning. UCLA was VERY into picking apart my application and I didn't seem disadvantaged enough for my interviewer.

 

[Persistence101]

Which sucks for me considering I am not a CA resident and therefor have no chance of getting in 🙁

You still have a shot. I think another SDNer (Mentoz, I think) got into UCSF as a Texas resident. I think you have a pretty good chance.

 

[Eraserhead]

You still have a shot. I think another SDNer (Mentoz, I think) got into UCSF as a Texas resident. I think you have a pretty good chance.

Mentoz also got into a bunch of other top schools. I think she might be uber-special.

 

[Persistence101]

Mentoz also got into a bunch of other top schools. I think she might be uber-special.

So is the Cerbernator... 😀

 

[DRTOBE1]

UIC- If you are a minority they take the most minorities outside of Meharry, Morehouse and Howard.

 

[Cerbernator]

Bring Up My Penis ummm Post

 

[Paws]

Hey Cerberus,

I think you should apply to any school you like and that you would be interested in attending, including such "I wish" schools like Yale. You just never know. Definitely Stanny is very friendly to non-cookie cutter types. But all schools like to have a nice mixture of students and you never know who will like you - and you may be pleasantly surprised, too.

I applied as disadvantaged and I was surprised to be invited to Upstate's "Special Interview' session in NYC, instead of at the campus. When I got there it was more like a "minority session" which kind of made me mad. I mean, disadvantage-ment comes in all colors and religions and so I felt like they took one look at my blond hair and blue eyes and thought: what the heck is she doing here. Really, even if I WAS black I would kind of ticked to be grouped in a 'special' group. I would want to interviewed like anyone else at the main campus and to be treated like anyone else. But that's just me ...