WAMC - 518, 4.0, rural state resident

[R2ski2]

May have tweaked a couple details for privacy, but the general idea is still the same. I do know that I have decent stats, but looking at MSAR, the greatest hurdle for me is that MOST competitive schools don't accept students from the Idaho/Wyoming/Dakotas region. So WAMC please?

cGPA: 4.0 – sGPA: 4.0
MCAT: 518 (130/127/131/130)
State of residence: Wyoming
Ethnicity and/or race: ORM
Undergrad institution: state school, microbiology
Clinical experience: will have 900+ hours as a medical assistant, ~100hrs hospital volunteer
Research experience: ~1000hrs, 2 2nd author pubs low-tier journal, 2 undergrad poster sessions
Shadowing experience: ~75hrs – a couple surgical subspecialties and family medicine
Non-clinical volunteering: ~100hrs youth outdoor program, but nothing sustained/meaningful
Other ECs: pre-med club president, lots of outdoor activities
Relevant honors/awards: tuition/honors scholarship
Anything else: 1st gen college student, somewhat rural hometown

School List: looking to tweak my school list. I’m fine with suburban or urban. Would like to be around classmates who are outdoorsy/value spending time outside. Not service-heavy schools, and I feel that I don’t have a particular drive to work with underserved groups. Let me know if I have too many Reach schools and if I should add/take away schools from other categories to fit my application profile and interests!

“Fit” Schools
U of Arizona College of Medicine - Phoenix
U of Colorado
U of Utah
Larner College of Medicine at UVermont
Oregon Health & Science University
University of Washington
U North Dakota SOM

“Moderate” Schools
UCSF
Brown
Kaiser
UCLA
Tufts

“Reach” Schools
U of Arizona College of Medicine - Tucson (low %OOS)
Northwestern
UVA
Mayo
Harvard
Weill Cornell
NYU
Johns Hopkins
Keck at USC

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[chilly_md]

Remove Arizona Tucson, the low OOS % does not make it worth it. It is likely that both Arizona schools take a lot of OOS students who speak Spanish or add another asset to the school.

UCSF and UCLA are also very competitive top 20 schools, so I would recommend adding the following to broaden your list:

Jefferson
Hofstra
Rochester
SLU
Ohio State
Cincinnati
USF
Dartmouth

 

[alwaysrunning]

Have you talked to the WY representative to WICHE to learn what schools are open to WY residents?

 

[mike-sheree]

May have tweaked a couple details for privacy, but the general idea is still the same. I do know that I have decent stats, but looking at MSAR, the greatest hurdle for me is that MOST competitive schools don't accept students from the Idaho/Wyoming/Dakotas region. So WAMC please?

cGPA: 4.0 – sGPA: 4.0
MCAT: 518 (130/127/131/130)
State of residence: Wyoming
Ethnicity and/or race: ORM
Undergrad institution: state school, microbiology
Clinical experience: will have 900+ hours as a medical assistant, ~100hrs hospital volunteer
Research experience: ~1000hrs, 2 2nd author pubs low-tier journal, 2 undergrad poster sessions
Shadowing experience: ~75hrs – a couple surgical subspecialties and family medicine
Non-clinical volunteering: ~100hrs youth outdoor program, but nothing sustained/meaningful
Other ECs: pre-med club president, lots of outdoor activities
Relevant honors/awards: tuition/honors scholarship
Anything else: 1st gen college student, somewhat rural hometown

School List: looking to tweak my school list. I’m fine with suburban or urban. Would like to be around classmates who are outdoorsy/value spending time outside. Not service-heavy schools, and I feel that I don’t have a particular drive to work with underserved groups. Let me know if I have too many Reach schools and if I should add/take away schools from other categories to fit my application profile and interests!

“Fit” Schools
U of Arizona College of Medicine - Phoenix
U of Colorado
U of Utah
Larner College of Medicine at UVermont
Oregon Health & Science University
University of Washington
U North Dakota SOM

“Moderate” Schools
UCSF
Brown
Kaiser
UCLA
Tufts

“Reach” Schools
U of Arizona College of Medicine - Tucson (low %OOS)
Northwestern
UVA
Mayo
Harvard
Weill Cornell
NYU
Johns Hopkins
Keck at USC

Is it that they DON’T accept from ID, WY and DAK’s or that there are darned few applications from there as a percentage of the applicant pool? I cannot imagine they would discriminate against an applicant from those states as opposed to any other state.

 

[R2ski2]

OOS students who speak Spanish

I hadn't really thought of this, but that's a great point!

UCSF and UCLA

I added these two because if I was able to get in, I could potentially have reduced tuition because they're part of the WICHE program.
Thanks for the recommendations! I've done some research and will think about adding Dartmouth, the OH schools, and Rochester while removing some others from my list.

 

[R2ski2]

Have you talked to the WY representative to WICHE to learn what schools are open to WY residents?

I've looked at the website, they have a list of medical schools listed for WY residents.

 

[R2ski2]

Is it that they DON’T accept from ID, WY and DAK’s or that there are darned few applications from there as a percentage of the applicant pool? I cannot imagine they would discriminate against an applicant from those states as opposed to any other state.

I guess I'm not sure. For that reason, I've stuck to schools that are OOS friendly, are part of the WICHE reduced tuition program, or private schools. Do you have any recs for schools to remove/add?

 

[chilly_md]

I hadn't really thought of this, but that's a great point!

I added these two because if I was able to get in, I could potentially have reduced tuition because they're part of the WICHE program.
Thanks for the recommendations! I've done some research and will think about adding Dartmouth, the OH schools, and Rochester while removing some others from my list.

Those UC schools would be worth trying for, but keep in mind they may not be part of WICHE. I do not believe they provide reduced tuition as they are not known to have a formal relationship with states like Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. It usually is just Oregon Health and Sciences, University of Washington and the University of Utah (sometimes North Dakota) that formally sees students from Wyoming as a separate category with either reserved slots and sometimes reduced tuition if the state of Wyoming agrees to pay the difference. Of these, I believe it is University of Washington that actually still has a contract with WY for that. The University of Utah keeps spots for WY residents, but it seems they will charge them OOS tuition until a new agreement is put in place:

Montana & Wyoming Residents

admin.medicine.utah.edu

As always, directly asking the schools should get you the most updated information. The WICHE website itself may be outdated.

I guess I'm not sure. For that reason, I've stuck to schools that are OOS friendly, are part of the WICHE reduced tuition program, or private schools. Do you have any recs for schools to remove/add?

In the last cycle, there were 65 WY residents who applied to allopathic programs and 27 of them ended up matriculating. UW has 20 spots and Utah usually has around 5, so that accounts for almost of them. The numbers are similar for Idaho and Montana.

 

[mike-sheree]

I guess I'm not sure. For that reason, I've stuck to schools that are OOS friendly, are part of the WICHE reduced tuition program, or private schools. Do you have any recs for schools to remove/add?

no. sorry, i don’t. but pay attention to goro, et. al.

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Obviously reach out to schools on your list and ask. There are very few applicants from Wyoming so I would also check for program fit (OP has a good list). Are you interested in rural health scholar tracks?

 

[R2ski2]

I do not believe they provide reduced tuition as they are not known to have a formal relationship with states like Wyoming, Montana and Idaho.

I hadn't really thought about that. I'll try contacting their office of admissions to get a better idea. Like you had said, I'm worried that the WICHE website doesn't provide all the details I'm looking for.

In the last cycle, there were 65 WY residents who applied to allopathic programs and 27 of them ended up matriculating. UW has 20 spots and Utah usually has around 5, so that accounts for almost of them. The numbers are similar for Idaho and Montana.

This is interesting data! The numbers make sense. Where did you find this information?

 

[R2ski2]

Obviously reach out to schools on your list and ask. There are very few applicants from Wyoming so I would also check for program fit (OP has a good list). Are you interested in rural health scholar tracks?

I am interested in some schools that I don't have on my list, but I've looked at MSAR and many of these schools in the last cycle haven't accepted anyone in the WY, ID, MT, or Dak region. Do you think if I contacted the med school(s) office, they would be transparent if I asked whether the low/no acceptance was due to low # of applicants from the region or if they believe these students would return to their home states rather than practice in that medical school's state? If that makes any sense... maybe you would have a better way to phrase this question?

Another hiccup I have is that I'm not strongly leaning towards rural health, yet it seems like my best/only option for medical school is to advertise myself like I am. However, I would say that I'm more interested in community/public health than doing laboratory research.

 

[chilly_md]

I hadn't really thought about that. I'll try contacting their office of admissions to get a better idea. Like you had said, I'm worried that the WICHE website doesn't provide all the details I'm looking for.

This is interesting data! The numbers make sense. Where did you find this information?

The AAMC provides date regarding this:

https://www.aamc.org/media/6006/download?attachment

https://www.aamc.org/media/6011/download?attachment

Washington's numbers can be found when searching for a class profile and they divide it up by the respective WWAMI states.

I am interested in some schools that I don't have on my list, but I've looked at MSAR and many of these schools in the last cycle haven't accepted anyone in the WY, ID, MT, or Dak region. Do you think if I contacted the med school(s) office, they would be transparent if I asked whether the low/no acceptance was due to low # of applicants from the region or if they believe these students would return to their home states rather than practice in that medical school's state? If that makes any sense... maybe you would have a better way to phrase this question?

Another hiccup I have is that I'm not strongly leaning towards rural health, yet it seems like my best/only option for medical school is to advertise myself like I am. However, I would say that I'm more interested in community/public health than doing laboratory research.

I would not suggest using MSAR like this. The majority of schools you apply to should be private medical schools or some public schools that accept many OOS students (eg Colorado, UVA, Ohio State).

 

[Mr.Smile12]

I am interested in some schools that I don't have on my list, but I've looked at MSAR and many of these schools in the last cycle haven't accepted anyone in the WY, ID, MT, or Dak region. Do you think if I contacted the med school(s) office, they would be transparent if I asked whether the low/no acceptance was due to low # of applicants from the region or if they believe these students would return to their home states rather than practice in that medical school's state? If that makes any sense... maybe you would have a better way to phrase this question?

Another hiccup I have is that I'm not strongly leaning towards rural health, yet it seems like my best/only option for medical school is to advertise myself like I am. However, I would say that I'm more interested in community/public health than doing laboratory research.

On the first topic, I don't think that line of questioning will be productive. Not having many applicants from the region will result in a lower number of acceptances, and a lot of applicants don't like to travel too far from home in general. Whether they return to their home states is more a reason related to mission for your home states if you had a program in-state. Would most schools be welcoming to any qualified student who would fit well with their community? I'm very sure they would. You would add a perspective most of the students won't have, but you need to be receptive to the cultural changes you may have to experience... like driving if you aren't used to real traffic (as relatively defined).

I would ask for help if there are any alumni living close to you with whom you can connect (including any residents or fellows). You can talk to that person about what you're thinking about with your career direction and any questions about training at the school of interest.

 

[alwaysrunning]

The Utah residency page says WY funding is suspended and recommends you contact the WY WICHE rep at the email listed. I would email that person and ask about Utah and ask if there are other schools with WICHE funding.

 

[ElTacoGrande]

I am interested in some schools that I don't have on my list, but I've looked at MSAR and many of these schools in the last cycle haven't accepted anyone in the WY, ID, MT, or Dak region. Do you think if I contacted the med school(s) office, they would be transparent if I asked whether the low/no acceptance was due to low # of applicants from the region or if they believe these students would return to their home states rather than practice in that medical school's state? If that makes any sense... maybe you would have a better way to phrase this question?

Another hiccup I have is that I'm not strongly leaning towards rural health, yet it seems like my best/only option for medical school is to advertise myself like I am. However, I would say that I'm more interested in community/public health than doing laboratory research.

Thats because most everyone goes to WWAMI

 

[LeaveNoTrace]

You have a shot at top 20 schools, although you should apply to lots of midtiers as well. You're a first gen college student from a rural area; that's some diversity they're looking for. It will not hurt your chances if you were going up against some hypothetical dude with your stats and application that was from Florida or something. Good luck. Make sure to add another couple reaches as well.

 

[wysdoc]

Please make any further comments on this poster's updated WAMC here: WAMC/School List: 518/4.0, low ECs

Closing this one to further comments