AthensBeth said:
It is very competitive for non-residents of Hawaii. It's a little easier for out-of-state people who can prove some tie to Hawaii. Their averages are pretty low, so I imagine it isn't that competitive for in-state applicants.
True, the thing that helps most for in-state residents is having a close relatioship with an admissions advisor who has a close relationship with the medical school. I am speaking from personal experience on this one. Get connected with someone like that if you haven't already. I can give you the names of people to contact on the Big Island, but not O'ahu, sorry.
You can get up to 5 points for residency requirements. They then use towards your overall ranking. You have to meet 3/5 to be considered in-state (be a legal resident, and have went to undergrad as a resident in Hawaii). I interviewed there last year, but only made 2 of the 5 residency requirements. In my case, Dr. Izutsu gave me a "discrepancy point" because my grades were high, which then allowed me to be considered as an in-state applicant. They rank the top 52 applicants and accept only those and notify you in May of their decision (only 6 are out of state). 10 slots are saved for disadvanatged mionoriteis who did a post-bad the previous year. If you weren't born there, attended high school there, parents don't live there (like me) thats three points against you. I have no idea if I was that close, but it could have been the reason I got rejected as my stats were gravy for their standards.
It is pretty competetive for in-state applicants. Consider that nearly everyone applying in Hawaii is choosing UH as their first choice (being the only medical school in Hawaii). They interview 6 applicants for every acceptance (at least they did last year), so I think that is more competetive than other in-state schools. Compare that to MSU, where I got accepted to this year, I think it was like 3-4 interviews per slot.
In short Dr. Izutsu encourages all the applicants to apply to 15 schools, because the medical school is just so small. I think they need to increase their class size, because so much of Hawaii is considered medically underserved.