Should I change State Residency before applying????!

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DrGoals

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Help!!!

I am a legal resident of Georgia but I have been living in Pennsylvania for a year while obtaining my Master's degree. I would like to stay in the area and work as an EMT for my gap year, but that would require me to change my legal residency to Pennsylvania. I've been told to look at the stats on the AAMC and AACOM websites to see how many in-state and OOS applicants matriculate in each state but it isn't 100% clear how changing my state will affect me since I will have only been a resident for about a week until I plan to submit my application.

Does anyone have any input as to what they know/think? Super stressed and need a little logical guidance.

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Help!!!

I am a legal resident of Georgia but I have been living in Pennsylvania for a year while obtaining my Master's degree. I would like to stay in the area and work as an EMT for my gap year, but that would require me to change my legal residency to Pennsylvania. I've been told to look at the stats on the AAMC and AACOM websites to see how many in-state and OOS applicants matriculate in each state but it isn't 100% clear how changing my state will affect me since I will have only been a resident for about a week until I plan to submit my application.

Does anyone have any input as to what they know/think? Super stressed and need a little logical guidance.

A resident is a resident. If you meet the criteria then it generally doesn't matter if you've been one for a week or two decades.
 
I'd be careful to look at each school's residency requirements (I believe the requirements can be set school-by-school, e.g., MCG). For example my medical school required a non-dependent student be employed in the state for the preceding twelve months without having taken academic coursework in order to qualify as in-state.

If I assume you are still a relatively young person then I expect your parents live in Georgia and could possibly claim you as a dependent for medical school. That would likely qualify you as in-state for Georgia. Otherwise it's possible that living and working in PA for a year could qualify you as in-state for PA. Again, I'd recommend looking at school-by-school requirements.
 
Help!!!

I am a legal resident of Georgia but I have been living in Pennsylvania for a year while obtaining my Master's degree. I would like to stay in the area and work as an EMT for my gap year, but that would require me to change my legal residency to Pennsylvania. I've been told to look at the stats on the AAMC and AACOM websites to see how many in-state and OOS applicants matriculate in each state but it isn't 100% clear how changing my state will affect me since I will have only been a resident for about a week until I plan to submit my application.

Does anyone have any input as to what they know/think? Super stressed and need a little logical guidance.

You'd be crazy to change your residency status to Pennsylvania. If you look at the instate percentages of Pennsylvania and Georgia medical schools you will see that the med schools in Pennsylvania are much less inclined to accept instate students than Mercer and MC Augusta. Mercer is 100% instate and MCG is 95% instate. https://www.aamc.org/download/321442/data/factstablea1.pdf

Generally speaking, being a student in a state does not change your residency to that state. Maintain your Georgia driver's license as well as voting registration and file a Georgia income tax return. You can always apply to the Pennsylvania med schools. Geisinger Commonwealth will be the only one where your Georgia residency will be a handicap.
 
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