take acceptance or reapply?

[WashMe]

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It depends on the school. Our state school has a 98% acceptance rate to first-choice matches for residency, which means that most graduates do residencies at Hopkins/Vanderbilt/Berkeley/Ivy type schools. Does that mean you should choose it over Harvard Med School? Not necessarily. Given the choice, I would, but that's ONLY because I'm a non-trad who would rather pay $20,000 a year and stay local (where I've established my life already) than pay 3-4 times that and move elsewhere. I'm also ready to start a family and not gunning for a "top" residency.

If my own kid had a choice between a top med school and our highly prized state school, I'd work around the clock to make sure money wasn't the deciding factor. Given your stats, it sounds like (if you score 35+ on the MCAT) you're young and the sky is your limit. My instinct was initially to scoff at your early acceptance, but I understand your concerns.

If you go to this state school (and if it's the one I think it is), you probably have a great shot at whatever residency you want, assuming your GPA and USMLE scores are top-notch. But you may be selling yourself short, if you have a 3.9 from an Ivy and already scored a 31 on a practice MCAT...and you can deal with the price tag attached to a top med school. I'm sure you'll get where you want to be, regardless of what you decide. You sound like you're bright and very motivated, and you'll succeed whether you choose to matriculate here this year, or elsewhere next year.

Good luck in whatever you decide, and congrats on your achievements!

False

So, the thing about "first choice" for residencies is that it's only first among the places you were allowed to rank. If I apply to top residency programs, but am never interviewed, I am not allowed to rank any of them first. I wouldn't think Berkeley has a top residency program though. They are being held-back a bit by their non-existence 🙂

Anyway, didn't mean to jump on that comment, just wanted to clear that up.

True

 

[WishfulDoc]

Does anyone know which Med Schools do not require a credit check as a part of the admissions process?
I'm asking because I was just rejected for having bad credit.


I'm sorry if this is the wrong place for this question, but I just became a member today.

 

[The Poet Sings]

maybe her state is carribean?

i dunno. isnt carribean part of the united states?

i only heard of those schools not taking a mcat score.

the caribbean (note, 1 r and 2 bs, not the other way around) is a sea. most of the islands in it are not a part of the united states. many are independent nations, but not all of them. puerto rico and the us virgin islands are territories of the us. dominica (not to be confused with the dominican republic), where ross is, is independent. hope that clears up any confusion you may have had!

but for the op, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. it seems like you've already made the right decision. get that cali residency (or florida, we're amazing too!) and enjoy the warm weather a few years down the line. if the cold hasn't killed you yet, you're good to go for a bit longer.

 

[flip26]

Does anyone know which Med Schools do not require a credit check as a part of the admissions process?
I'm asking because I was just rejected for having bad credit.


I'm sorry if this is the wrong place for this question, but I just became a member today.

None check your credit as far as I know, but they all advise applicants that you may encounter difficulties financing your education - most people take out a crapton of loans.

Do you get college loans? Have any problems getting them?

 

[monkeys!]

good point. i kinda wish i didn't go to an ivy and jump-start my indebtedness.

i've done tons of research and have been tempted to reapply as MD/PhD but since I want to practice and not do research for a living it'd probably be a waste of nih funding.

It would also be a massive waste of your time! Do not apply for MD/PhD unless you are seriously interested in pursuing a research career. Also, you absolutely do not need the PhD to be a researcher (tons of academic docs who devote a significant amount of their time to research "only" have an MD), so you can easily change your mind in the future with that route.

 

[morning]

1. Sure, SUNY Upstate has a reputation among med students but if you mention it to anyone else, you get a lot of "ooooh okaaaay that's nice."
-School name doesn't matter, school names that would matter would cost a lot. Like people have said, the quality of education is the same.
2. Upstate New York is horrible. Ithaca is cold, snowy, rainy, boring, small, isolated, just crap. The sun does not shine here. The sad thing is that for fun we go to Syracuse, meaning that if we want to escape Ithaca, Syracuse is an escape, even though it has the same/worse weather. So...how do you escape Syracuse?
-Med school is for studying? It doesn't matter if the town you're in sucks?
3. Syracuse is pretty far from home (~5hrs) and far from EVERYTHING.
-again I should be studying in med school anyway
4. I've been told I'd be a great candidate for MD/PhD
-I like bench research, until I hate it when experiments fail and I donno if I want to deal with the stress of 4 years of "is this going to work? can i publish this?"

1. Hate to tell you this but a lot of people are clueless about higher education in general. Most people have no idea how many med schools there are and where they are. Most people would not be impressed if you told them you went to med school at Hopkins or Washington (the University of) or Washington (St. Louis), because most people are unaware of those schools' stellar reputations. The only real "prestige" schools in medicine that have the universal name recognition are Harvard, Yale and Stanford. MAYBE Duke, although I wouldn't bet on that even. DO NOT bet on getting into those three.

You would be surprised how little people know about higher education in general. You live in a country where only around 25% of the population (in the correct age range, 21 and up) have a bachelor's degree. How many people outside medicine do you think are aware of how great UCSF is for medical school? The University of Michigan? Baylor? And if you're trying to impress people WITHIN medicine, giving up SUNY Upstate would be silly because they already know that medical schools are more or less equivalent.

It may be a sad statement, but a person is more likely to know a university by how good their football team is than how good their medical school is or even how good their reputation is overall.


2. Winter sucks. I completely agree. There is absolutely NO guarantee you are going to get acceptances outside of a wintry state next year.

 

[DoctwoB]

Go to upstate. Simple as that

1. Good school with solid reputation among medical community, with IN STATE TUITION, which makes it better than Harvard (admittedly unless you get a phat merit scholarship)

2. No MCAT, no studying, no need to have the perfect resume of voluteering, clinical exposure etc. You can do what you want and what you enjoy with the rest of your college career. Don't underestimate how big this is. I don't know what cycle you were going to apply, but having to take the MCAT could make you wait a year, which would suck unless you wanted a gap year.

3. If you want MD/PhD, some schools allow you to apply after your first or second year. Not sure if upstate does.

4. Sure, Ithica sucks, but its only 4 years and you'll learn to love it. I've always felt happiness with something like a school is a hell of a lot more about you than it is about the school. Make some good friends, use some of the money you save for tropical vacations, and you'll probably be sad to leave in 4 years.

 

[Morsetlis]

I wonder why people keep thinking of prestige when they go into medicine.

Prestige = law, business, sports.

 

[WashMe]

I wonder why people keep thinking of prestige when they go into medicine.

Prestige = law, business, sports.

Prestige = the upper hand, all other things equal. Top schools generally aren't much more expensive, so who wouldn't want to take part in some intellectual posturing? You might end up getting a better residency position because someone knows about the reputation of your school. Then, you might get a better job. Why not go for it? It's easier to roll downhill than uphill.

"Might" is the key word though.

 

[URHere]

For what it's worth, I had several friends and classmates in Rochester who were accepted to Upstate's early assurance program. Two of them decided to matriculate, but the other three opted to take the MCAT and go through the regular application cycle.

The three who left the program had extremely solid applications (>3.9, >35, lots of teaching, volunteering, research), and all were accepted to good allopathic programs (Hopkins, Rochester, etc). Only one was even asked about Upstate's program during interview. I think that schools understand how much can change for a student in two years of college. Your grades or research interests might evolve, you might be motivated to move closer to family, or you might finally realize how much you hate the snow. Declining an EAP program acceptance doesn't really hold the same stigma as applying in the regular pool one year, declining an acceptance, and reapplying the next.

That being said, Upstate's MD/PhD program greatly values students who have a desire to study at Upstate. If you decide to pursue MD/PhD training, and you contact the school, I think you have a very good chance at being admitted to the program before you even start MS1 year.