Good schools to apply to OOS for CA residents?

[Pusheen]

I wasn't able to find any recent threads on this. With all the sadness that is CA med school apps, what are some good places to apply OOS? I have the MSAR, but I'd still love some additional input.
Not applying til next year, but I think it would be good to start a list like this for fellow Californians.

I've done some light research and currently have these listed. I'm assuming most private schools have no preference (right?), so I'm only listing publics. Is there any advantage to applying to public vs private once you are OOS?

U of Colorado
SUNY's
U of Utah
U of Arizona

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[piii]

WVU, UVM, UVA, VCU

 

[md-2020]

Vermont, Penn St, EVMS, VCU, WVU, SUNYs, U Az, OHSU (if you have solid stats)

 

[alpinism]

Use the MSAR.

Basically any school that takes 20% or more OOS students.

 

[GrapesofRath]

I wasn't able to find any recent threads on this. With all the sadness that is CA med school apps, what are some good places to apply OOS? I have the MSAR, but I'd still love some additional input.
Not applying til next year, but I think it would be good to start a list like this for fellow Californians.

I've done some light research and currently have these listed. I'm assuming most private schools have no preference (right?), so I'm only listing publics. Is there any advantage to applying to public vs private once you are OOS?

U of Colorado
SUNY's
U of Utah
U of Arizona

Arizona-yes
SUNYs--yes in many situations. Stony Brook in particular gets cited as a school that CA applicants have success with.
Colorado---there are far friendlier OOS schools and Colorado average stats aren't low either.
Utah----very difficult OOS

The best are those without any real IS bias whatsoever and don't get boat loads of apps. Here are some that come to mind
Wake Forest
Quinnipac
Oakland
Creighton

Medical College of Wisconsin, Saint Louis, Jefferson and Tulane are also solid. Do be aware the median MCAT at all but one of these schools(MCW) is a 33 and it wouldn't shock me if one of these schools creeped up to 34 in the latest MSAR version(not referencing this as I type).

You'll see people all the time on here recommend Rush, Loyola, VCU, Penn State, Eastern Virginia type schools and those are fine and yes you should apply as a CA resident but realize alot of these schools take almost half their class IS and regardless of whatever they say officially on record about not having IS bias the stats are what they are. Western Michigan also isn't a bad option but there is a little IS bias and they have a small matriculating class making it rather competitive.

WVU has IS bias and they are looking for something specfic in their OOS applicants which is half their class(regional proximity is one thing and obviously CA residents won't have that). TCMC is another school cited that there are definitely CA applicants who have had luck with but realize you are talking about a school that is 80% IS and gives more than half its interviews to IS apps.

Rosalind, Tufts, NYMC are also commonly thrown into the fire but keep in mind all of these get lots of apps(although not GW bad).

Lower yield commonly cited lower tier schools are GW, Georgetown, Va Tech, Drexel and Temple types. GW and G-town get truckloads of apps. So does Drexel and Temple and 1/3 of their interviews go to IS applicants(70% of Temple's class is IS). Va Tech has a tiny incoming class every year.

For those of what people call the "middle tiers" variety Hofstra, Boston U, Einstein, Rochester and Case Western are often cited. Keep in mind these are all schools with 35+ type median MCATs.

 

[Throwaway692015]

Are Californians put at a further disadvantage than other out of state applicants?
For example if someone with the same application applied from say Oklahoma and california to the same private school with no oos bias would the Californian have lower odds?

 

[GrapesofRath]

Are Californians put at a further disadvantage than other out of state applicants?
For example if someone with the same application applied from say Oklahoma and california to the same private school with no oos bias would the Californian have lower odds?

They have to compete against each other. Schools are cognizant of many applicants they take from each state just like they are cognizant of how many people of each race they take etc. California may arguably have the best pool of medical school applicants in the country compared to any other state and there are a TON of them. And yesthere are certainly schools for which there is clearly a limit to how many CA applicants they want to take. So by competing against each other for a limited number of spots and that competition being so fierce, yes it is clearly a disadvantage. Perhaps the most telling thing is to look at a top school like Stanford or UCSF that states rather emphatically they don't have IS bias(and gyngyn also will tell you this as well) and the proportion of their applicants they take that are from CA. It's just a war zone over there competing for spots. It's not uncommon at all to see your solid 3.7/32 CA applicant after 2 cycles not have a single acceptance, even with a solid EC background and solid list of schools.

The biggest thing that screws CA over though imo is not really having any great state schools that interview a high number of IS applicants. Look at how many states across the country that have at least one school in their state that interviews over 1/3 of IS applicants or so. CA doesn't have that or come close. And the state schools they do have applicants suffer from what I cited above; competing against each other for a select few spots and there being an insane amount of strong applicants.

 

[gyngyn]

Are Californians put at a further disadvantage than other out of state applicants?
For example if someone with the same application applied from say Oklahoma and california to the same private school with no oos bias would the Californian have lower odds?

Only 34 matriculants left OK, 1436 had to leave CA. These places know that the majority of Californians have to leave the state.
Unless there is some reason to believe that an OK applicant wants to leave OK, a similar CA applicant is a better bet (even though they don't want to leave home!).

 

[gyngyn]

They have to compete against each other. Schools are cognizant of many applicants they take from each state just like they are cognizant of how many people of each race they take etc. California may arguably have the best pool of medical school applicants in the country compared to any other state and there are a TON of them. And yesthere are certainly schools for which there is clearly a limit to how many CA applicants they want to take. So by competing against each other for a limited number of spots and that competition being so fierce, yes it is clearly a disadvantage. Perhaps the most telling thing is to look at a top school like Stanford or UCSF that states rather emphatically they don't have IS bias(and gyngyn also will tell you this as well) and the proportion of their applicants they take that are from CA. It's just a war zone over there competing for spots. It's not uncommon at all to see your solid 3.7/32 CA applicant after 2 cycles not have a single acceptance, even with a solid EC background and solid list of schools.

The biggest thing that screws CA over though imo is not really having any great state schools that interview a high number of IS applicants. Look at how many states across the country that have at least one school in their state that interviews over 1/3 of IS applicants or so. CA doesn't have that or come close. And the state schools they do have applicants suffer from what I cited above; competing against each other for a select few spots and there being an insane amount of strong applicants.

You sure type fast.

 

[Throwaway692015]

They have to compete against each other. Schools are cognizant of many applicants they take from each state just like they are cognizant of how many people of each race they take etc. California may arguably have the best pool of medical school applicants in the country compared to any other state and there are a TON of them. And yesthere are certainly schools for which there is clearly a limit to how many CA applicants they want to take. So by competing against each other for a limited number of spots and that competition being so fierce, yes it is clearly a disadvantage. Perhaps the most telling thing is to look at a top school like Stanford or UCSF that states rather emphatically they don't have IS bias(and gyngyn also will tell you this as well) and the proportion of their applicants they take that are from CA. It's just a war zone over there competing for spots. It's not uncommon at all to see your solid 3.7/32 CA applicant after 2 cycles not have a single acceptance, even with a solid EC background and solid list of schools.

The biggest thing that screws CA over though imo is not really having any great state schools that interview a high number of IS applicants. Look at how many states across the country that have at least one school in their state that interviews over 1/3 of IS applicants or so. CA doesn't have that or come close. And the state schools they do have applicants suffer from what I cited above; competing against each other for a select few spots and there being an insane amount of strong applicants.

Ah that makes a lot of sense. Are there schools though that take advantage of this fact and accept Californians to boost their stats?

 

[GrapesofRath]

Ah that makes a lot of sense. Are there schools though that take advantage of this fact and accept Californians to boost their stats?

I'm not the best person by any means to answer this but yes there are some schools that don't take that many OOS that CA residents have had success with. SUNYs come to mind. As does TCMC and U of Arizona

Also keep in mind some of these SMP programs are just loaded with CA people who's stats could have generated an acceptance if they lived in other states but are instead stuck with trying to do anything they can to stand out with acing an SMP being a big thing along with the linkage some provide. That can boost CA resident totals in certain med schools

 

[Goro]

Perversely, despite the name, Penn State is a private institution.

Vermont, Penn St, EVMS, VCU, WVU, SUNYs, U Az, OHSU (if you have solid stats)

 

[Goro]

Schools aren't going to accept people to boost stats. They do it because they believe the candidates will make good medical students, and more importantly, good doctors.

Ah that makes a lot of sense. Are there schools though that take advantage of this fact and accept Californians to boost their stats?

 

[GrapesofRath]

Perversely, despite the name, Penn State is a private institution.

It's amazing that a state as large as PA does not have one single state school for medicine.

 

[cantankerous]

It's amazing that a state as large as PA does not have one single state school for medicine.

In order to pay for all the old people (and there are a lot) in this state, the government has rid itself of all liabilities and cut funding left and right.

 

[GrapesofRath]

In order to pay for all the old people (and there are a lot) in this state, the government has rid itself of all liabilities and cut funding left and right.

That's all well and good but there are alot of states in this similar situation(imagine the states where people actually like moving to)

https://services.aamc.org/tsfreports/report.cfm?select_control=PUB&year_of_study=2011

Honestly count how many states on here don't have some sort of public school. It can't be more than 10 and they are states like Idaho not a state with the 6th largest population in the US like PA.

 

[Goro]

Well, there's U Penn!

But its exclusivity is almost the same as NOT having a state school!

It's amazing that a state as large as PA does not have one single state school for medicine.

 

[p0gono]

Well, there's U Penn!

But its exclusivity is almost the same as NOT having a state school!

Haha wait UPenn is a private ivy.....right?

 

[Goro]

Bah! you're right...my bad!!! Mea culpa.

Haha wait UPenn is a private ivy.....right?

 

[GrapesofRath]

Well, there's U Penn!

But its exclusivity is almost the same as NOT having a state school!

Penn medical school gets significant funding from the state?

 

[Goro]

MSAR calls it a private school.

Penn medical school gets significant funding from the state?

 

[Spector1]

University of Illinois if you can handle the really high OOS tuition (well over $100k/yr).

wow I didnt know it was that expensive X_X