Why do CA applicants have a harder time?

[repoetic]

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It seems to be the consensus on SDN that applicants for California have a harder time getting into an M.D. program and, as someone who may be moving to the state for gap years, I’m concerned about that. My questions are
1) If I move to California from elsewhere for a research job during my gap years, do I have to declare myself as a CA applicant on AMCAS?
2) Realistically, how much harder is it to get into medical school coming from California? According to some AAMC data I found, CA had 2585 out of its 6237 applicants get into medical school last year. A 41.4% success rate was higher than a lot of other states (like Michigan with a 39% rate that I calculated), so why do many people say it’s hardest for residents of California?

Thank you for the guidance!

Source: 2018-19 data from

https://www.aamc.org/download/321462/data/factstablea4.pdf

https://www.aamc.org/download/321460/data/factstablea3.pdf

 

[dr_kateb]

It’s harder to get into a California medical school, not medical school in general. More California applicants have to go out of state.

 

[LizzyM]

Because there are so many applicants from California and only so many in-state seats and because some schools outside of California are not friendly to OOS applicants.

Disagree with @doctorcocter If it were as easy for California residents to get into medical school as it was for students from, let's say, Vermont, then the percentage of applicants admitted would be the same for California residents as it is for other states but it is not.

Take a look at the MSAR and that data table you have and figure out the number of residents of a state who applied to any medical school per instate (public) med school seats in that state (applicants from that state per 100 seats in that state). Count applicants (one applicant equals 1) and not applications (because an applicant applies to numerous schools). You'll see that it is rather awful to be from Maine which has no MD school at all. Count the number of seats available to students from Alaska, etc at U Washington as seats available to residents from that state. Let us know what you find out.

 

[dr_kateb]

Eh what I meant was a greater proportion of California applicants have to go out of state.

 

[repoetic]

Because there are so many applicants from California and only so many in-state seats and because some schools outside of California are not friendly to OOS applicants.

Disagree with @doctorcocter If it were as easy for California residents to get into medical school as it was for students from, let's say, Vermont, then the percentage of applicants admitted would be the same for California residents as it is for other states but it is not.

Take a look at the MSAR and that data table you have and figure out the number of residents of a state who applied to any medical school per instate (public) med school seats in that state (applicants from that state per 100 seats in that state). Count applicants (one applicant equals 1) and not applications (because an applicant applies to numerous schools). You'll see that it is rather awful to be from Maine which has no MD school at all. Count the number of seats available to students from Alaska, etc at U Washington as seats available to residents from that state. Let us know what you find out.

Thanks for the suggestion! I don’t have the paid access to the MSAR, but I would guess that California has a very low ratio of seats available to the number of applicants from that state. I’ve heard that’s increasingly become a problem that newer schools are trying to address.

My question is, does that mean that California applicants are worse off in terms of success nationwide? Like, if a California applicant strategically applies to many out of state schools with friendly admissions policies towards him/ her, do the statistics suggest that move would adequately compensate for not having IS-friendly public schools?

 

[LizzyM]

Thanks for the suggestion! I don’t have the paid access to the MSAR, but I would guess that California has a very low ratio of seats available to the number of applicants from that state. I’ve heard that’s increasingly become a problem that newer schools are trying to address.

My question is, does that mean that California applicants are worse off in terms of success nationwide? Like, if a California applicant strategically applies to many out of state schools with friendly admissions policies towards him/ her, do the statistics suggest that move would adequately compensate for not having IS-friendly public schools?

There are just too many variables. We don't know the strength of the applicants, where they apply, how they write, how they interview, etc. If we knew all that, we could make some models that would predict success in a given cycle but it would be only that, a prediction based on a model created from population-based data. How that works out for a specific candidate is like saying we know the likelihood of survival for 5 years in people in a specific demographic group with a specific cancer diagnosis but that prediction does not necessarily assure any one patient that they are going to survive.

Also, if you are considering an application in this cycle, there is no better way to spend your money than to buy access to MSAR. If it saves you even one ill-advised secondary, it will have paid for itself.

 

[repoetic]

All we can say is that as the of the 6237 California residents who applied via AMCAS, 2585 matriculated to a US MD school. Only 10% of CA applicants who applied, matriculate at a CA public medical school

Yeah, it doesn’t look good that the number is so low for IS matriculants at the UCs. I had originally asked the question because I was curious if those numbers were an indication of it actually putting CA residents at a disadvantage. Interestingly, it seems like they do okay despite that abysmally low IS acceptance rate and I wasn’t sure why.

This question is also probably relevant for CA applicants who are concerned with how they fare as OOS applicants to private schools elsewhere in the US.

 

[Goro]

It seems to be the consensus on SDN that applicants for California have a harder time getting into an M.D. program and, as someone who may be moving to the state for gap years, I’m concerned about that. My questions are
1) If I move to California from elsewhere for a research job during my gap years, do I have to declare myself as a CA applicant on AMCAS?
2) Realistically, how much harder is it to get into medical school coming from California? According to some AAMC data I found, CA had 2585 out of its 6237 applicants get into medical school last year. A 41.4% success rate was higher than a lot of other states (like Michigan with a 39% rate that I calculated), so why do many people say it’s hardest for residents of California?

Thank you for the guidance!

Source: 2018-19 data from

https://www.aamc.org/download/321462/data/factstablea4.pdf

https://www.aamc.org/download/321460/data/factstablea3.pdf

It's not that they have a harder time getting into any MD program, it's that they have a hard time getting into their state schools.
UCLA premeds alone can fill every MD School seat in California