Nontraditional student with foreign undergrad degree & without state residency

[FrederickMoh]

Hi everyone,

I'm new here to understand what should I do or what is my chance.
I'm 24 now and in weird situation about residency and school work.
I have a BS (in Life Science) from Taiwan, with GPA 3.61 (WES evaluated).
I took MCAT once in 2012, scored 30, and applied to med schools once and failed.
I am full time research assistant in a med school in Taiwan now. But only did little volunteer work.
Although I have all pre-reqs and a lot of credits done, AMCAS don't recognize them and most med schools need pre-reqs done in US or 1 full year study at US, some may require more.
With my US citizenship, I'm going to UTD as 2nd bachelor major in Biochem this fall, wishing to retake at least pre-reqs and many more. (oh! I'm still waiting some post-bacc pre-med programs' admission)
What I found out is that because I came to Taiwan when I was 3, I'm now not a resident in any state. However, I do wish to have lower tuition or better chance entering med schools.

So, my questions are:
Am I able to establish my residency at Texas?
Can I apply after one year study (with half pre-reqs in applying year)? Or should I take 2 years study and another one year to apply?
I'm going to do shadowing and more volunteer work in next few years. Is that hard for me to do these, study at school, while prepare MCAT again?
How long am I going to finish all these requirements?

What my original plan is to spend one year to do some pre-reqs and apply for non-Texas schools.
Or spend 2 years study and apply for Texas schools (they need 90 credits finished in US and I can reach that in the end of applying year).
Which of them seems better? Or please give me some other advice.

Thank You

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[DrMidlife]

State residency depends on your establishment of a domicile. That usually means you work in the state 1-2 years, presumably as a taxpayer. If neither you nor your parents paid in to the TX system, then TX doesn't bear responsibility to give you a tuition break.

Things that happened when you were 3 years old don't matter. Things that happened in the last couple of years do matter.

Find the UT residency determination pages on your school's website and read through. If you have to delay your 2nd bachelors in order to establish TX residency, it's probably worth it.

You are going to have to be patient and follow the rules if you want your path to med school to go smoothly. You're responsible for learning what the rules are.

Best of luck to you.

 

[FrederickMoh]

Thank you!

I have been doing research on Texas residency these days, and learn a lot of that.
No matter of getting residency or not, I'm going to stay at Texas to study. So that might not be the most important problem here.

But I'm still curious about the timeline of this path.
Is it able to do only Bio, Chem, Phys, Math, English in the first year, then apply to schools that only require 1 full year study in US or pre-reqs in US? (and complete all other pre-reqs in the applying year)
Or better strategy is to do pre-reqs in 2 years and then apply in the third year?

 

[familyaerospace]

Thank you!

I have been doing research on Texas residency these days, and learn a lot of that.
No matter of getting residency or not, I'm going to stay at Texas to study. So that might not be the most important problem here.

But I'm still curious about the timeline of this path.
Is it able to do only Bio, Chem, Phys, Math, English in the first year, then apply to schools that only require 1 full year study in US or pre-reqs in US? (and complete all other pre-reqs in the applying year)
Or better strategy is to do pre-reqs in 2 years and then apply in the third year?

Realistically it is less stressful to do it in two years. Organic tends to be the pre-med weedout class. Plus the additional year will allow you to have another year of Texas residency.

 

[FrederickMoh]

Realistically it is less stressful to do it in two years. Organic tends to be the pre-med weedout class. Plus the additional year will allow you to have another year of Texas residency.

Thank you too!
Do these in 2 years also allow me to have some other courses that will be listed on application. They might be helpful since my foreign transcript doesn't count in GPA.

 

[FrederickMoh]

Answer some of the questions myself.
I sent emails to some Texas med schools and they said I have to get 90 semester hours prior to application.
Which means I have to spend about 3 years to finish them and then apply. (That's 4 in total)
: (


Maybe start looking for other med schools......

 

[familyaerospace]

Answer some of the questions myself.
I sent emails to some Texas med schools and they said I have to get 90 semester hours prior to application.
Which means I have to spend about 3 years to finish them and then apply. (That's 4 in total)
: (


Maybe start looking for other med schools......

Honestly, I think most are going to want those 90 hours.

 

[Amygdarya]

Answer some of the questions myself.
I sent emails to some Texas med schools and they said I have to get 90 semester hours prior to application.
Which means I have to spend about 3 years to finish them and then apply. (That's 4 in total)
: (


Maybe start looking for other med schools......

You can finish your prereqs during the year that you apply, so that it'll be 3 years, not 4. It's perfectly fine to finish your prereqs after you submit your application, as long as you take most prereqs by then and do well in them + complete all the prereqs by the time of matriculation. I don't know of any school that frowns at people competing prereqs during the application year, certainly not TX schools.
Plus, you can take summer and wintermester classes, which will allow you to earn more credits faster. Some schools offer accelerated summer classes, like, say, 2 semesters of A&P in one summer or 2 semesters of O-CHem in one summer, though this kind of courses are usually quite intense.
Also, TMDSAS schools, including its crown jewel UTSW, are perfectly fine with community college classes. Translation: you can take night/weekend/even online classes to speed up the process.

As for applying to other schools, considering how competitive the application process is, it's usually a good idea to cast a wider net. Not all schools require 90 credits; in fact, most only require 30 credits/all prereqs taken in the US. However, if you establish TX residency, TX schools will likely be your best shot.

 

[QofQuimica]

OP, you're only 24, so you have plenty of time to do everything the right way and maximize your chances of success. Here's what I suggest.

First, plan on doing the 90 credit hours over three years. That will give you time to establish a strong academic record here in the US, and as Amygdarya said, you can apply to med school at the beginning of the third year. (The 90 credit hours only have to be done by the time you matriculate into med school, not by the time you apply.)

Second, find out exactly what you have to do to establish TX state residency, and do it. You may need to do things like get a part-time job, obtain a TX driver's license, register to vote in TX, etc. If so, jump through those hoops, because it's worth it. TX is one of the best states to be a premed, if not the best. They have a ton of great schools, their tuition is cheap, and their schools heavily protect their seats for state residents. If you can be a TX resident, it will really help you when it comes time to apply.

Third, start doing some clinical volunteering as soon as possible. You didn't mention having done any, so I'm guessing that right now you have none. That's ok, because again, you have plenty of time to fix this. Just 2-4 hours of volunteering per week during the next three years while you're taking classes will be more than adequate for a solid app.

I know three years seems like a lot of time to you right now, but it isn't, especially in the whole scheme of how long medical training takes. And you have a lot of things you need to accomplish during that time to maximize your app competitiveness, so don't get lulled into a false sense of security about how you have plenty of time to do it all. Like I said, start working on the volunteering and state residency requirements now so that everything will be lined up and ready to go in June 2016 when you go to apply. Best of luck to you.

 

[Aelius]

Getting residency should be a priority for you. From my understanding, if you are new to Texas, you cannot go to school and become a resident a year later. You have to be working in Texas for a year to establish your residency, while NOT in school (my information might not be 100% correct, so double check). I'm basing this on a friend of mine that went to UT as a non-resident (out-of-state). He took time off from his program for a year, while working to establish Texas residency.

Your situation might be different because you are not coming from another state but another country with US citizenship. What was the last state you resided in? You might want to see if that state will allow you to have immediate resident status.