Thank you for the feedback. all of this is very new to me. Can you explain why you don't think it will benefit me to apply as a CA applicant?
CA is a very saturated market.
Take a look at FACTS Tables A-19 and A-20.
Last cycle, CA provided 7,216 applicants with a mean GPA/MCAT of 3.65/508 (that is
way more than any other state, and it's not even close). However, of those applications, only 2,933 matriculated, with a mean split of 3.8/~514. That's an A+ average and roughly a 90th percentile MCAT. We are not controlling for holistic review/demographic information at this point that could be exerting downward pressure on the average, and it
still seems like a steep cliff. We can infer the ORM averages in CA are significantly underestimated by the mean. This puts you at a relative disadvantage with your MCAT amongst your most comparable peers.
Conversely, if you were from Mississippi, you would be a superstar relative to their mean matriculant MCAT of 506, for example. CA has some of the best schools, and its students some of the best resourced. They are producing high-quality students consistently, and that raises the bar for everyone, but especially amongst Asians (who matriculated at well over twice the rate of
even Whites, see Table A-11). Medical schools are going to be more discerning because they can afford to be: thousands of students from CA are applying with near-perfect numbers. Because numbers lack discriminatory value in this market, it puts more scrutiny on ECs, and so there grows an arms race of increasingly ridiculous levels of achievement amongst that stratum of applicants (even more so relative to the general population of applicants). This is why applicants tend to joke that you need to cure cancer before applying.
Considering schools value diversity, an Asian from CA is a dime a dozen—you would need to stand out in ways that are increasingly unrealistic to overcome the raw numbers... but your profile does not rise to meet that challenge based on what I can see. Ultimately your career in tech is very cool, and I'm sure it has been an interesting ride, but why would someone pick you over another hypothetical CA Asian who spent 5,000 hours working as an NP/PA or got a PhD in a relevant field instead?
Please understand I'm not saying this to be mean or provoke some kind of race war. I'm also not saying you're a particularly poor applicant. I do think being realistic and aware of what you're up against is valuable information as you prepare to apply.
Beyond the numbers, consider that, for most students, their best chance is at their state public schools. I am not so sure that applies to CA to the same degree. The UC system's flagships view themselves as national resources and admit a sizable OOS population. Yes, UCD/UCI/UCR are more regionally biased, but more to my point, that makes them selective even within CA residents.
The location, being generally desirable, attracts a lot of OOS students to apply—so it isn't just that CA overproduces pre-meds, it also cannot absorb most of its own population. So CA applicants are forced to apply very broadly and take their chances outside their state, anyway. Obviously it's not to the point where CA applicants are doomed, but I think their IS advantage is weak in comparison to applicants of other states, like, say, Texas, who creates a huge number of premeds but primarily reabsorbs their own population through the TMDSAS.
Any of the above effects in isolation would lower your chances given your profile... but, stacked and compounded, create real considerations for anyone applying out of CA. Worse for people planning to apply into the most competitive seats in the country, which is why you got the incredulous response to your list.
If you have the option to reasonably claim residency literally
anywhere else, I would do that, because it wouldn't necessarily evaporate your chances at the flagships (UCLA, UCSF), while still allowing you to claim IS advantage elsewhere.
