Md/Phd in CA as OOS

[geeyouknit]

Talk about abbreviations in the title. Please consider that this isn't a chance thread, but more of a discussion thread about general chances at CA public school.

Are public Md/Phd schools in California still impossible to get into? I am very interested in neuro research, and every list of rankings I can find for neuro/research/neuroresearch/ has UCSD and UCSF in the top 10. I checked out some the of the research and I'm definitely interested.

I'm just wondering if I should bother applying to those CA schools? Does the level of stats really matter, being an OOS?
I have a 3.9 gpa (although it's only been 2 years - this next one will be scary). And I'm taking the MCAT in August, so can't tell you that yet, but my AAMC avg has been 35ish.

Thanks for your help.

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[Choculitis]

MSTP programs are federally funded and therefore don't take residency into consideration. The UC schools are obviously still really hard to get in to, but being OOS makes no difference.

Also, FYI, last time I looked, UCSF MSTP had 37 as the average score for matriculants. UCSD is a little lower, though.

 

[geeyouknit]

That's more encouraging. Thanks for the help. Since we can disregard OOS for MSTPs, would UCSD and UCI be considered mid-tiers for MD/PhDs if the avg stats are lower than top tiers?

 

[Choculitis]

I might be wrong about UCSD's stats, because I couldn't find anything just now on their site.

I don't know much about UCI, but I wouldn't consider UCSD mid-tier. It's not quite as elite as SF, but it's still in the top 20 in the US news rankings. I think it would be an excellent place for MSTP especially, due to all the institutes that are affiliated with it (Scripps + a bunch of others).

 

[Dark Templar]

Although MSTP is federally funded I think there may be some regional bias though I have no solid evidence.

http://www.mstp.uci.edu/students/bios_undergrad.php
http://mstp.ucsd.edu/people/alumni/Pages/2005-2009.aspx
http://www.medschool.ucsf.edu/mstp/students/current.aspx
http://mstp.healthsciences.ucla.edu/pages/students

 

[Choculitis]

I guess it's possible. There sure are a lot of UC and Stanford people at those places. But it's hard to tell if that's because of bias by the school or the applicants.

 

[K31]

That's more encouraging. Thanks for the help. Since we can disregard OOS for MSTPs, would UCSD and UCI be considered mid-tiers for MD/PhDs if the avg stats are lower than top tiers?

I would consider all the Cali MSTPs top tier as far as application difficulty since so many people consider California to be a desirable place to live, even if their US News rankings don't reflect this. The same could be said about NYC programs.

 

[a532]

I was looking at which institutions the MSTP classes from UCLA, UCSF, UCSD came from and it seems roughly half of each year are from california schools. Seems like a regional bias to me.

 

[Choculitis]

I was looking at which institutions the MSTP classes from UCLA, UCSF, UCSD came from and it seems roughly half of each year are from california schools. Seems like a regional bias to me.

I don't think you can necessarily draw any conclusions from that. California has a lot of great schools and therefore a lot of strong applicants. Given that virtually all the MSTPs are either on the East Coast or in California, it could just be that all these people from Berkeley, Stanford, LA, etc want to stay there.

We'd need more sophisticated stats to draw any strong conclusions. I'd be interested to see the acceptance/matriculation rates for people from Cali schools compared with those for people from similarly strong institutions in other states. Also, what about people who are from somewhere else but did u-grad in Cali (so they wouldn't have Cali residency, AFAIK)?

 

[a532]

I don't think you can necessarily draw any conclusions from that. California has a lot of great schools and therefore a lot of strong applicants. Given that virtually all the MSTPs are either on the East Coast or in California, it could just be that all these people from Berkeley, Stanford, LA, etc want to stay there.

We'd need more sophisticated stats to draw any strong conclusions. I'd be interested to see the acceptance/matriculation rates for people from Cali schools compared with those for people from similarly strong institutions in other states. Also, what about people who are from somewhere else but did u-grad in Cali (so they wouldn't have Cali residency, AFAIK)?

Hmm you are right. In order to judge we need to see the statistics on how many people in state apply to california MSTPs, versus how many from OOS apply.

We can say there is no bias if roughly 40-50% of applicants are from in state.

 

[solitude]

at UCSF med school, 50% of accepted students are in-state and 50% are out-of-state. However, of matriculated students, 80% are in-state and 20% are out-of-state.

for the MSTP they are not allowed to consider residency. However, to be considered by the MSTP you have to pass the MD committee 1st, which does favor in-staters. Hence there may be some bias in who is ultimately considered by the MSTP.