What makes something a "safety" school?

[Ellie Arroway]

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I've got my top 5 list of schools picked out, but something that concerns me is that most of them are highly-ranked "reach" schools - but all med schools are competitive. What makes something NOT a "reach" school, as long as it's still an MD school and not in the caribbean? I'm in Oregon, so I'm only in-state for one state school (I think, more on that below). I am interested in a lot of other state schools, but non-residency makes all of those "reach" schools also, right?

I'm interested in going into primary care internal medicine and working with urban undeserved populations, and I am mostly only looking at schools that have MD/MPH programs. Also, so far my GPA & sGPA are on-par for almost everything in the MSAR. Hopefully OChem doesn't mess that up. Anyway, here is my list. Does it seem reasonable?

Top 5:

1. University of California San Francisco (PRIME-US Program)
2. University of Washington (I was born in Spokane & grew up in WA - maybe I can still swing residency?)
3. Oregon Health & Science University (I am currently an OR resident)
4. Brown University
5. George Washington University

Others on my list of possibilities (unranked):
Yale
Michigan State
University of Minnesota
Wright State
Temple
SUNY Downstate
A couple of DO's, but I still need to go through that book again.

 

[Morsetlis]

Average matriculant GPA, MCAT, and %OOS acceptance.

With the variances in admission criteria, unless you have universally awesome stats and EC's, even the safety schools might reject you.

 

[ponyo]

In-state is the most reliable safety net, especially if you have the numbers/EC/LOR to be competitive at top schools. Even mediocre med schools elsewhere can be extremely hard to get into if you're out of state. I would suggest looking into the out of state numbers before deeming a school a "safety".

Edit: OP... you haven't taken Ochem OR the MCAT yet. Don't you think you're getting a little ahead of yourself listing schools like UCSF...?

 

[NickNaylor]

I'd call a school a "safety" school if 1) there's a strong IS preference and you're a resident and/or 2) your numbers are much higher than the school's average (this assumes the rest of your app is strong).

Truthfully, though, very few schools are true "safeties," and you shouldn't assume anything.

 

[mmmcdowe]

I'd call a school a "safety" school if 1) there's a strong IS preference and you're a resident and/or 2) your numbers are much higher than the school's average (this assumes the rest of your app is strong).

Truthfully, though, very few schools are true "safeties," and you shouldn't assume anything.

Agreed, I got rejected from my "safest" med school without an interview.

 

[Northwesterly]

Unfortunately for the OP, OHSU seems to be weighting decisions less and less in favor of in-state students. (The state contribution to their budget is extremely low, and they get a lot more tuition from OOS kids.) If you look at last year's OHSU thread you'll notice that they went approximately 3x as deep into their waitlist as usual (~105 vs. ~36), almost certainly because the yield for OOS offers was lower.
Just something to keep in mind.

Good luck!

 

[Ellie Arroway]

OP... you haven't taken Ochem OR the MCAT yet. Don't you think you're getting a little ahead of yourself listing schools like UCSF...?

I'm postbacc & applying next cycle (so, MCAT in the spring), and I figured it made sense to start researching schools more than 2 months before application.

I'm not really that worried about my GPA - my academic weak spot is math, and I just aced a year of fulltime gen chem, math, and physics. I was the top student in my gen chem class for 2 out of 3 terms. I've also gotten through a year of human A&P with straight A's. My sGPA is 3.9 right now, and that's only because I blew off an environmental science class 10 years ago.

For what it's worth, my EC resume is pretty good - by application, I'll have 500+ hours volunteering at a clinic that serves primarily homeless youth, and I've shadowed with their staff MD, who is an assistant professor of family med at OHSU. She's already written me an LOR for this year that helped get me some scholarships (last year of prereqs for free! Hooray). I just started a research volunteer gig in the critical care unit at OHSU, and have already put in 6 months of volunteer time in health services there with patients in the oncology unit. I also helped found a group that gives talks on transgender issues in healthcare to different agencies, which has included the OHSU schools of nursing and medicine. I'm a first-generation college student. I'm about to run a marathon. I do things.

 

[sector9]

I've got my top 5 list of schools picked out, but something that concerns me is that most of them are highly-ranked "reach" schools - but all med schools are competitive. What makes something NOT a "reach" school, as long as it's still an MD school and not in the caribbean? I'm in Oregon, so I'm only in-state for one state school (I think, more on that below). I am interested in a lot of other state schools, but non-residency makes all of those "reach" schools also, right?

I'm interested in going into primary care internal medicine and working with urban undeserved populations, and I am mostly only looking at schools that have MD/MPH programs. Also, so far my GPA & sGPA are on-par for almost everything in the MSAR. Hopefully OChem doesn't mess that up. Anyway, here is my list. Does it seem reasonable?

Top 5:

1. University of California San Francisco (PRIME-US Program)
2. University of Washington (I was born in Spokane & grew up in WA - maybe I can still swing residency?)
3. Oregon Health & Science University (I am currently an OR resident)
4. Brown University
5. George Washington University

Others on my list of possibilities (unranked):
Yale
Michigan State
University of Minnesota
Wright State
Temple
SUNY Downstate
A couple of DO's, but I still need to go through that book again.

That's an ambitious list for someone without an MCAT score. Focus on your grades and MCAT and stop worrying about your school list

Also, you can't "swing" Washington residency. You only get to pick one state to be a resident of on your primary application not a list of states you want to "swing". That gives you a low chance of being taken seriously at UWash since 95% of their students are WWAMI residents. They may take you a little more seriously because of your ECs if they look at them before rejection, but it will be an uphill battle there...

I personally wouldn't apply to Michigan State due to their extremely expensive OOS tuition.

 

[Ellie Arroway]

I feel like my sentiment is not totally unreasonable on the residency thing, but I'm sure the actual rules & regulations are plenty more stringent than how I feel. I know that UW is a stretch and I'm not relying on it.

I've lived on the Washington/Oregon Border (both sides of it) for almost all of the last 28 years (other than a few sporadic years spent living in Spokane, Texas, Salem, and Olympia), and the idea that Oregon and Washington are separate states still feels weird to me. I'm an Oregon resident, but my whole family lives in Washington, 15 miles away from me. I know the rules don't work this way, but I generally think of myself as a dual-resident. Curse these imaginary lines!

 

[PantherPride]

I think a safety school would be one where your stats, ec's, etc are well above the average there. "Safety schools" worked with undergrad because each school accepted a wide enough body of students that you had a good enough idea of whether or not you would be accepted. However, with med schools, there are a very limited number of spots. A school you apply to because its you think its your "safety" has dozens of other applicants, like you, also applying because they think the school is their "safety."

 

[music2doc]

I feel like my sentiment is not totally unreasonable on the residency thing, but I'm sure the actual rules & regulations are plenty more stringent than how I feel. I know that UW is a stretch and I'm not relying on it.

I've lived on the Washington/Oregon Border (both sides of it) for almost all of the last 28 years (other than a few sporadic years spent living in Spokane, Texas, Salem, and Olympia), and the idea that Oregon and Washington are separate states still feels weird to me. I'm an Oregon resident, but my whole family lives in Washington, 15 miles away from me. I know the rules don't work this way, but I generally think of myself as a dual-resident. Curse these imaginary lines!

Plainly, your sentiment is irrelevant.

As for picking these schools out without an MCAT and before taking any of the truly challenging pre-med courses (i.e., ochem 1, ochem 2, some of the upper level bio courses, biochemistry, etc.) OR taking the MCAT is putting the cart WAAAAY before the horse. It's great you're doing well so far, but keep in mind where you are now and focus on that.

Here are sobering statistics for you:

On average, at most schools only around 10-20% of students who start as pre-med make it to the application phase. Even where you are, you can anticipate that a good 50% of students will be eliminated by ochem 1 & 2 (likely most anyone with <B-, which is frequently the median for these courses). Of the 50% or so that make it through to the MCAT, 25-50% will be eliminated by the MCAT from even applying (about 60-80k take the MCAT each year and only about 40k apply).

This means that the chances of you even making to the application phase at this point are probably still only about 1 in 3. At that point, your chances will be <1 in 2 (~40%), meaning your overall chances of entering medical school for the class of 2017 are, statistically, about 1 in 7.

In other words, focus on doing well now. Selecting schools this early (outside your state school) is an exercise in futility. Don't waste your time. You may end up having to select DO or Podiatry schools for all you know. Are you going to start picking out your top 3 Pod schools just in case?! (I didn't think so.)

 

[StudyShy]

You are right where I am at in the pre-med process. I feel like I have come far, but I know that I have a lot further to go.

I also feel like I should be looking at schools since I will be applying the spring just like you are. Without an MCAT score, it does get harder to see where I will truly be more of a fit. My school list so far is a lot less ambitious than yours; however, even my lower-tiered schools could reject me easily.

We both have to focus on the MCAT. That is probably one of the biggest challenges that we have yet to face.

 

[mauberley]

Nothing makes a school a safety school.

 

[45408]

Nothing makes a school a safety school.

I mostly agree with this.

 

[NickNaylor]

Nothing makes a school a safety school.

I mostly agree with this.

I definitely think it's possible to say that you have a strong chance at some schools. That's the assumption that I made in my application strategy and it saved a lot of time and money. Where people go wrong is when they apply to only a few schools that are supposedly safeties and assume they'll get into one.

 

[zwitterion34]

A new school with little reputation is considered a safety school. Or a school that has a lower MCAT average for matriculants. 😎

 

[kpcrew]

Being in the Caribbean I suppose.

 

[Ellie Arroway]

As for picking these schools out without an MCAT and before taking any of the truly challenging pre-med courses (i.e., ochem 1, ochem 2, some of the upper level bio courses, biochemistry, etc.) OR taking the MCAT is putting the cart WAAAAY before the horse.

Fair enough, but serious question: Do people really wait until the night before they send out their AMCAS app to start researching schools? It seems like a $200k investment merits more serious consideration than that. Personally, I am doing some of this research now because I know I am going to be too busy later this school year doing things like OChem and MCAT studying, and I'm applying in June.

I've also been going to a handful of scholarship foundation events recently where donors, who have invested a non-trivial amount of money in me, ask me things like "where are you thinking of going?" and "What do you think you might like to specialize in?" These are community leaders and potential future colleagues and mentors. I don't want to come across as an uninformed doofus, so I've put in some time finding particular programs that I know would specifically help me advance my career goals as they exist now.

 

[NickNaylor]

Fair enough, but serious question: Do people really wait until the night before they send out their AMCAS app to start researching schools? It seems like a $200k investment merits more serious consideration than that. Personally, I am doing some of this research now because I know I am going to be too busy later this school year doing things like OChem and MCAT studying, and I'm applying in June.

I've also been going to a handful of scholarship foundation events recently where donors, who have invested a non-trivial amount of money in me, ask me things like "where are you thinking of going?" and "What do you think you might like to specialize in?" These are community leaders and potential future colleagues and mentors. I don't want to come across as an uninformed doofus, so I've put in some time finding particular programs that I know would specifically help me advance my career goals as they exist now.

Nothing about people should surprise you.

 

[Ellie Arroway]

I definitely think it's possible to say that you have a strong chance at some schools. That's the assumption that I made in my application strategy and it saved a lot of time and money.

That's pretty much where I am at. I know there is a whole lot more work ahead and I can't rest on the few laurels I've got. I just eventually need to make sure that my app list has some more things that aren't long-shots. But I guess making that cut is a lot harder until I have my MCAT score, especially since it feels harder to really differentiate the schools beyond my 5 dream schools that seem to have all the right programs.

 

[mauberley]

I definitely think it's possible to say that you have a strong chance at some schools. That's the assumption that I made in my application strategy and it saved a lot of time and money. Where people go wrong is when they apply to only a few schools that are supposedly safeties and assume they'll get into one.

My definition of "safe" is a guaranteed acceptance. So long as people realize nothing is guaranteed in this process, I have no issue.

 

[KindofBlue]

I too have to agree that there are really no safe schools except for Caribbean and maybe your state schools with very high in-state acceptance rates.
But I guess if you as an applicant are in alignment with what the school's looking for, and have above average stats of the school's matriculants, then you might expect to have a better shot than most at getting into that school. You could probably figure this out by studying the school's mission statement, selection criteria etc.

 

[45408]

I definitely think it's possible to say that you have a strong chance at some schools. That's the assumption that I made in my application strategy and it saved a lot of time and money. Where people go wrong is when they apply to only a few schools that are supposedly safeties and assume they'll get into one.

I think that's true too. I was fairly confident I would get into one school, but I was truly interested in attending there and it's ultimately where I went. You can have some confidence in yourself.