Cal State Fullerton: Bio major to medical school

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FutureMDKatie

FutureMDKatie

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Anyone here went to cal state Fullerton and is now in med school?
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Considering the student population there of ~40,000 I'm sure the answer is yes! Did you have some questions that only a Fullerton student would be able to answer...?
 
efle said:
Considering the student population there of ~40,000 I'm sure the answer is yes! Did you have some questions that only a Fullerton student would be able to answer...?
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CSU Fullerton had 38 applicants last year.
There may actually be very few medical students, I'm afraid.
 
gyngyn said:
CSU Fullerton had 38 applicants last year.
There may actually be very few medical students, I'm afraid.
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Wow, less than 1 in 200 graduating students applies? That's really surprising considering the high quality of the Cal State system
 
efle said:
Wow, less than 1 in 200 graduating students applies? That's really surprising considering the high quality of the Cal State system
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Well, it's because CSU, while being a great system (some of them have top-notch programs and campus as well), are meant to prepare students to enter job market right after undergrad.
When I went to high school, the spokesperson often visited nearby high schools. They would talk about post-secondary systems in California. The presentation often presented in the sense that CSUs prepare you for a job right after undergrad, meanwhile, UCs prepare you for the Graduate. So a lot of people who goes to CSU right after high school, often makes that decision because they want to enter job market after 4 years. If they are willing to continue their education after UG (i.e. graduate/med school/law school etc) they would choose the UC path. My friends chose to go to CSU because of Nursing program, Physical Therapy, Engineering major and so on. They wanted to enter the job market, because they are in a home-situation conflict which compels lower-class students to get a job to help their parents and etc.

It's also partly because of social dogma being placed on CSUs. It is often said that CSUs are lower tier than UCs. It is designed that way, two UCs have better endowment than the entire CSU system. A lot of students are already discouraged to even apply to Graduate when they enter CSU. Believing that CSU students will never have any chance at Graduates and etc.
 
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gyngyn said:
CSU Fullerton had 38 applicants last year.
There may actually be very few medical students, I'm afraid.
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I was just wondering where you got that number from? I was interested in finding out how many applicants come from my university.
 
gyngyn said:
We are in desperate need of the type of applicant that can be found abundantly in the Cal State system.
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Do you mean Spanish speaking URM? I'd have thought there'd be good prevalence coming out of the UCs with their astronomical thousands of premeds. In fact I'm surprised CA schools struggle with having too few of ANY kinds of applicants
 
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efle said:
Do you mean Spanish speaking URM? I'd have thought there'd be good prevalence coming out of the UCs with their astronomical thousands of premeds. In fact I'm surprised CA schools struggle with having too few of ANY kinds of applicants
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CA produces a shamefully small number of applicants from some of her largest communities.
Heck, UCLA only had 2 more Mexican American applicants than the University of AZ Tucson!
This is despite the fact that UCLA's total number of applicants is more than twice the number from AZ Tucson.
The UC has not kept up with workforce needs.
 
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gyngyn said:
CA produces a shamefully small number of applicants from some of her largest communities.
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The, uh, social construct in California still confuses me. I'm taking ethnic studies this Fall just to get a grasp of the situation. And I'm majoring in Geography in part of that endeavor. Hispanic/Latinx community in California comes in as majority- 15 Million.
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-census-latinos-20150708-story.html
I agree, the number of hispanic/Latinx students applying to med school is very small relative to their population.
 
Hi. Is anyone studying for the MCAT to take in May 2017. I am looking for a phone study partner that wants to quiz and discuss MCAT topics
 
Geo16 said:
The presentation often presented in the sense that CSUs prepare you for a job right after undergrad, meanwhile, UCs prepare you for the Graduate.
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I've never heard this in my life. Born in raised in California.

Geo16 said:
It is often said that CSUs are lower tier than UCs. It is designed that way, two UCs have better endowment than the entire CSU system. A lot of students are already discouraged to even apply to Graduate when they enter CSU. Believing that CSU students will never have any chance at Graduates and etc.
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This is not true. Yes, UCs are tougher to get into, but no one discourages CSU students to apply to grad school...where the heck did you hear that?! What would a university system have to gain by discouraging their students from grad school?
 
Dr.Kat said:
I've never heard this in my life. Born in raised in California.


This is not true. Yes, UCs are tougher to get into, but no one discourages CSU students to apply to grad school...where the heck did you hear that?! What would a university system have to gain by discouraging their students from grad school?
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It was a small time presentation. I think this one exist only within our district.
This is the kind of presentation I was talking about:
http://www.vvc.edu/puente/docs/2011/CSUvsUC.pdf
I've seen this kind of slideshow when I was in highschool. (Not sure if this person actually made it..)

Shoot, I didn't mean that the school discourages the students. No one discourages them of course. I've never said that.

What I've meant to say was: the students who enter CSU are more eager to enter the job market after UG. It's not that schools discourage them. It's that they are more eager to learn the trades and learn the practical skills while attending CSU; so that they can enter the job market right after getting their diploma.

So what I'm saying is: CSUs don't discourage the students, but students look forward to enter the job market after UG. That is why I've used 'discouraged.' I should've just said 'less-eager' to clear the confusion. It'd be outrageous if CSUs intentionally discouraged and demoralized students to apply to Grad/Professional schools. In fact, they do encourage that. But most future CSU-transfer students I've met are eager to just pass UG by and get a job. I've my a friend who's trying to do that; aiming for CSU Engineering program (Cal Poly) so that he can become an engineer.
 
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Man not many Mexicans applying to medical school 😱
 
FutureMDKatie said:
Anyone here went to cal state Fullerton and is now in med school?
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N=1, but I know a Mexican-American guy who went from a Cal State (don't remember which) to UCSF. Other than a shared authorship on a review paper, he was an average applicant by most measures.

So yeah, it's totally doable op. Good luck!
 
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gyngyn said:
CA produces a shamefully small number of applicants from some of her largest communities.
Heck, UCLA only had 2 more Mexican American applicants than the University of AZ Tucson!
This is despite the fact that UCLA's total number of applicants is more than twice the number from AZ Tucson.
The UC has not kept up with workforce needs.
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Geffen actually released a 17 page plan detailing how they plan on diversifying their program and recruiting more marginalized applicants. I think they're missing that the problem is more upstream from undergrad, imo. Doubling harvesting efforts isn't enough when you lack the necessary seed crop.

Also, I don't remember the science departments at UCLA making much of an effort to reach out to marginalized communities -- mostly meeting and flyers and "statements of support." Proposing actual policy changes tended to be more of a social sciences/humanities thing.

gyngyn said:
This has been a major source of frustration over my lifetime.
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Make your frustration known! Those admins are kind of stubborn you know.
 
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Whoops, I missed this from the report: "Together with the community engagement core of the CTSI create an inventory of existing programs at UCLA and affiliates for this group of students and expand the K-12 pipeline through identifying gaps and encouraging the development of new programs."

Pretty vague but I'm glad to hear it!
 
gyngyn said:
We are in desperate need of the type of applicant that can be found abundantly in the Cal State system.
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Gyngyn, you replied to one of my threads concerning a CSU school and its medical school applicants. You mentioned in that post as well that you'd like to see more excellent applicants from my school. Now I'm just wondering, after seeing this thread, do you mean any excellent applicant or good URM applicants? I'm asking because I'm a white female (by the time I apply, I'll have my green card but am a citizen of another country) and I'm wondering if med schools accept more URMs from a CSU and fill their "white student category" from UC students. I have a very different application now already and I'm 110% sure that there are no other med school applicants with my nationality thus it makes me a little bit special.
 
FinPreMed2020 said:
Gyngyn, you replied to one of my threads concerning a CSU school and its medical school applicants. You mentioned in that post as well that you'd like to see more excellent applicants from my school. Now I'm just wondering, after seeing this thread, do you mean any excellent applicant or good URM applicants? I'm asking because I'm a white female (by the time I apply, I'll have my green card but am a citizen of another country) and I'm wondering if med schools accept more URMs from a CSU and fill their "white student category" from UC students. I have a very different application now already and I'm 110% sure that there are no other med school applicants with my nationality thus it makes me a little bit special.
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Strong candidates are strong candidates.

CSU's produce very few applicants of any type, not nearly enough UiM's to make a dent in the need.
 
I think it's because CSUF has a strict weeding out system. According to this article, 85% of those who get a committee letter get into medical school.

According to their website, their committee letter applications are due at the end of February. That means students find out far in advance whether they have a real shot of getting into medical school.

I'm noticing a trend in which schools with committee letters have higher acceptance rates. Maybe because committee letters have an edge over schools that don't write them, maybe not. But I do think schools that have a committee letter also have a pre-med advisor and are good a weeding out those that won't make it.

Fullerton
 
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infectiousdisease101 said:
I think it's because CSUF has a strict weeding out system. According to this article, 85% of those who get a committee letter get into medical school.

According to their website, their committee letter applications are due at the end of February. That means students find out far in advance whether they have a real shot of getting into medical school.

Fullerton
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With only 43 applicants last year, that's pretty stiff weeding out...
You'll notice they are describing "medical professionals," not physicians with the 85% figure.
 
gyngyn said:
With only 43 applicants last year, that's pretty stiff weeding out...
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I edited the post you quoted a bit.

That's the price you pay for entering a school with a higher than average medical school matriculation rate and thinking there's no downside to it.

EDIT: Based on this article, it seems you are right, it's all healthcare fields. But still, 1987-88 and 1988-89 cycles, 100% acceptance, that is really something.

Program Successful for Health Students
 
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infectiousdisease101 said:
I edited the post you quoted a bit.

That's the price you pay for entering a school with a higher than average medical school matriculation rate and thinking there's no downside to it.

EDIT: Based on this article, it seems you are right, it's all healthcare fields. But still, 1987-88 and 1988-89 cycles, 100% acceptance, that is really something.

Program Successful for Health Students
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This type of data is almost un-interpretable.
The school gets to decide the denominator. 100% matriculation of some tiny subset of aspirants is not reflective of reality for the majority excluded from consideration.
All schools do this, by the way (not to slam CSUF).
 
gyngyn said:
This type of data is almost un-interpretable.
The school gets to decide the denominator. 100% matriculation of some tiny subset of aspirants is not reflective of reality for the majority excluded from consideration.
All schools do this, by the way (not to slam CSUF).
Click to expand...

I didn't think the stats were deceptive, but evidently not. :/
 
Pretty certain schools care more about your character than the school you went to. Why else would they go through the trouble of reading your letters, PS, work/experience, and secondaries?
 
infectiousdisease101 said:
I don't go to CSUF, so I wouldn't know exactly how it works, but based on the 85%, they seem to at least have a pretty good advisor. UCI only has a 27% med school matriculation rate.

I really want to look more into this. I know the 85% is all medical professions, but still, professional schools aren't exactly easy to get into.

http://sites.bio.uci.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Student-Statistics-Summary-Analysis-Handout.pdf
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The actual quote is:
In the past 22 years, 85% of the students recommended by the committee have become medical professionals.
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Those pre-professional students who earned the recommendation by the committee are going to be the cream of the crop....and 85% were accepted to their various health-related professional schools. I don't think that is a particularly unusual stat, especially when it may include overseas schools.
 
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