Worst/Best state to live in terms of Med School Choices

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Me MD

Me MD

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I have been thinking about this lately:

I live outside of Baltimore, Maryland. So I have within driving distance, Johns Hopkins, University of Maryland Medical School, Georgetown Medical school, George Washington Medical school and one other one that I don't think is that great. (I included a lot of DC schools)

Now this is a great place to live in if you have killer stats/experience. But if you didn't then this would be a career ender, if you didn't want to move (which I cannot). So this leaves me to kick butt in my undergrad. Makes me a little intimidated.

What about you? Or other states that just have a lot of top 20 options?
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I wish I lived in Texas...between the residency clause and the ridiculously low tuition. :thumbup:

I would say Illinois has a good mix...There are 7 med school in Chicago/surrounding Chicago areas and 1 downstate that has absolutely no love for us northerners :mad:

Pennsylvania is another good one imo and of course NY
 
Best:
California: Tons of medical schools. UC Irvine, UC Los Angeles, UC San Diego, UC San Francisco, UC Davis, University of Southern California, Loma Linda, Western, and Touro with another medical school opening up in 2012 at UC Riverside.

Worst: California. Everyone and their brother wants to go to medical school out here, so even the state schools have insane average stats. Really... how many non-California state schools have average stats in the 3.7's with an MCAT of 33?
 
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Im from Florida and I think we Floridians have a pretty decent gig going on. We have give or take 5 MD schools and a few DO schools. Most of our med schools are also highly preferential to its residents. Im sure there are better states to be in, but I'm pretty happy with what we've got.
:thumbup:::2-thumbs-up:::thumbup:
 
Me MD said:
I have been thinking about this lately:

I live outside of Baltimore, Maryland. So I have within driving distance, Johns Hopkins, University of Maryland Medical School, Georgetown Medical school, George Washington Medical school and one other one that I don't think is that great. (I included a lot of DC schools)

Now this is a great place to live in if you have killer stats/experience. But if you didn't then this would be a career ender, if you didn't want to move (which I cannot). So this leaves me to kick butt in my undergrad. Makes me a little intimidated.

What about you? Or other states that just have a lot of top 20 options?
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There are 2 others (at least): USUHS and Howard
 
Utah would probably be tough. I think there's only 1 school and I believe other states (Idaho?) have preference there as well.

Washington State used to suck since they take from 5 states, but now there's a second school there.
 
thesauce said:
There are 2 others (at least): USUHS and Howard
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Yeah I knew about USUHS, but from my understanding I need to be in the Services. Which I am not.

Is Howard any good? I'm sure I could look it up and find out.
 
Texas easily. 8 medical schools, 2 of which are top 20. All have in-state preference. All cost less than $15K a year in tuition.
 
Siggy said:
Best:
California: Tons of medical schools. UC Irvine, UC Los Angeles, UC San Diego, UC San Francisco, UC Davis, University of Southern California, Loma Linda, Western, and Touro with another medical school opening up in 2012 at UC Riverside.

Worst: California. Everyone and their brother wants to go to medical school out here, so even the state schools have insane average stats. Really... how many non-California state schools have average stats in the 3.7's with an MCAT of 33?
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You forgot about Stanford. However, it's not like that one is easy to get into either... :)
 
Me MD said:
Yeah I knew about USUHS, but from my understanding I need to be in the Services. Which I am not.

Is Howard any good? I'm sure I could look it up and find out.
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You don't need to be in the services for USUHS, but you do need to commit to being a military doc, which is not for everyone and isn't a decision that should be made lightly!
 
MichaelRW said:
Im from Florida and I think we Floridians have a pretty decent gig going on. We have give or take 5 MD schools and a few DO schools. Most of our med schools are also highly preferential to its residents. Im sure there are better states to be in, but I'm pretty happy with what we've got.
:thumbup:::2-thumbs-up:::thumbup:
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Except for UCF, my home state of Florida hasn't been too preferential to me:(!
 
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I honestly don't mind being in NC. We got UNC, Duke, and Wake Forest for the competitive. And if you're a NC resident with good grades but cant get in those, we have ECU which has an average leaving debt of like 60k. It's ridiculous. UNC is also pretty cheap instate.
 
I'm very glad to live in Virginia. UVA, VCU and EVMS are all excellent schools.
 
NY NY NY what up what up what up

(also, since i technically applied as a MA resident, i'll say that MA rocks too.)
 
mybubbles14 said:
Pennsylvania is another good one imo and of course NY
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All of the schools in PA are private and expensive (PSU Hershey is land-grant public yet still has the tuition and stats of a private school.)
 
But 75% of the class is in-state preference, and the average states aren't outrageous. And we have 2, btw. UA Tucson and UA Phoenix. Just sucks cus AZ is too damn hot.
 
Being in CA it is true...it seems like everyone and their grandma wants to be a doctor of some kind...(Dentist, Pharm...)

We have awesome schools, great weather, beautiful sights but it's so hard to get into a CA school.

Out of 10 people I know last year that applied from Berkeley to medical school, none got into a UC school. They all ended up going to other states.

Sigh but it's okay, after medical school I can still come back here!
 
xBODOMx said:
AZ only has one MD school :(
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so does MA, but it's a great one. and since only IS people can apply, the number of apps is lower and the admission rate is a bit higher.
 
I'd take Cali over RI any day. All they have is Brown, and I have yet to meet a person in real life to get an interview there anyway.
 
NY seems to be good. Jersey. What about Ohio? Schools in there have preference for IS even if they aren't too one sided.
 
What's this about "not moving". You can't apply broadly (the SDN mantra) and apply only to schools within commuting distance.

The best hometowns to be within driving distance would be DC, Manhattan, Chicago & Boston, I think.
 
Slack3r said:
But 75% of the class is in-state preference, and the average states aren't outrageous. And we have 2, btw. UA Tucson and UA Phoenix. Just sucks cus AZ is too damn hot.
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+1

The average stats are not too bad, but the UA med schools tend to emphasize the EC's more than other schools. Plus, nearly every UA pre-med works in a lab, and with only with like only 2/3 spmewhat large hospitals in Tucson, it is hard to differentiate yourself from the rest of the bunch. Plus abou the weather/seasons, we got hot and hotter, that's about it.
 
7starmantis said:
Texas always wins these state competitions :D

Whats this residency clause I'm hearing about?
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just the 90% texas residents thing. Tennessee is another state that reserves 90% of the seats for residents (and I think residents of surrounding states perhaps).

circulus vitios said:
All of the schools in PA are private and expensive (PSU Hershey is land-grant public yet still has the tuition and stats of a private school.)
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yeah I wasn't really inferring they were cheap just that there are a good number. Illinois isn't quite the place to be for cheap instate tuition. The estimated COA averaged over 4 years is 65k/yr :eek: The other privates schools aren't cheap either.
 
Ohio has a good spread-- couple high, couple mid, couple low, and a DO to boot! Most of these give a lot of IS preference too.
 
thesauce said:
Utah would probably be tough. I think there's only 1 school and I believe other states (Idaho?) have preference there as well.

Washington State used to suck since they take from 5 states, but now there's a second school there.
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WA State still sucks (from the standpoint of med school admissions). I don't know much about the second school (it's a DO school) except I believe it is in Yakima. no offense to any Yakimites, but I would never want to live in Yakima. as for UWSOM, even as a WA resident one's odds of getting in there are abysmal. to paraphrase the admissions director, your chances are something like 1 in 7. I believe I once heard her say that of the WWAMI states, your best odds of getting in were as a WY resident
 
reidmike said:
Except for UCF, my home state of Florida hasn't been too preferential to me:(!
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Did UCF offer you a seat in their program? Did you apply to FSU, UF FIU, and Miami as well?
 
TheMightySmiter said:
Nope, Colorado only has one med school. And it still has those high stats. :rolleyes: Sucks for us residents, but at least it's a great school.
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Yeah, CA residents complain a lot since there are so many of them but quite a few other states get screwed. In CO we have two medical schools but one of them is Rocky Vista COM, the ONLY for-profit medical school in America (AFAIK). They still don't even qualify for educational loans yet, so their students have to take out private loans at a higher interest rate. Definitely not going to be applying there...

WA gets it pretty bad too, there are even more people living in WA than CO and they only have one allopathic medical school as well. And like Colorado, Washington's medical school gives in-state preference to the surrounding states without a medical school as well.

When you divide the state population by the number of allopathic medical schools -- yes I'm aware this is a very imprecise calculation and if I wanted to spend more energy I would do it by # of seats and not by # of schools -- California (with 7: UCD, UCI, UCSD, UCSF, UCLA, Stanford, and USC, leaving LLU out because it's kind of a special school) has 5.3 million people per medical school, while CO has 5.75 million per medical school (including half of Wyoming and Montana) and WA comes in at a staggering 9 million per medical school (including half of Wyoming and Montana, and all of Idaho and Alaska).

Edit: Oh yeah, for completeness: Univ. of Colorado has 3.8 median cum. GPA and 34 median MCAT, while UW comes in at 3.7 and 31.

In conclusion, CA may be a difficult state to apply from but I wouldn't say it is the worst.
 
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Evergrey said:
WA gets it pretty bad too, there are even more people living in WA than CO and they only have one allopathic medical school as well. And like Colorado, Washington's medical school gives in-state preference to the surrounding states without a medical school as well.

When you divide the state population by the number of allopathic medical schools -- yes I'm aware this is a very imprecise calculation and if I wanted to spend more energy I would do it by # of seats and not by # of schools -- California (with 7: UCD, UCI, UCSD, UCSF, UCLA, Stanford, and USC, leaving LLU out because it's kind of a special school) has 5.3 million people per medical school, while CO has 5.75 million per medical school (including half of Wyoming and Montana) and WA comes in at a staggering 9 million per medical school (including half of Wyoming and Montana, and all of Idaho and Alaska).
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interesting info. but to be accurate, UWSOM has a certain # of spots set aside for residents of each WWAMI state (I'm not certain but I think the number of seats for WY/AK/MT/ID is 20 per state - the # is set by the legislature of each state). so it's not as if the WA residents are competing with the WY/AK/MT/ID residents for spots; they only are competing with each other and with the very few non-WWAMI people who are considered for admission. that said, it still sucks. aside from that, living in WA is amazing!
 
Evergrey said:
Edit: Oh yeah, for completeness: Univ. of Colorado has 3.8 median cum. GPA and 34 median MCAT, while UW comes in at 3.7 and 31.

In conclusion, CA may be a difficult state to apply from but I wouldn't say it is the worst.
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Those numbers are for accepted applicants, not matriculants.
 
Statistically speaking, it looks like people from the Mountain west states have the worst time of it, even with the WICHE program. Kinda sucks.

% NOT matriculated (In OR out of state)

Top 5:
Hawaii: 64.8%
Nevada: 62.8%
Montana: 62.2%
Utah: 62.2%
Oregon: 60.9%

In terms of getting in in-state, looks like residents of Utah, D.C, New Hampshire, Washington and Maryland have the worst time of it.

Including the states without schools, it doesn't look like Ca even breaks the top 10.

http://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/table5-facts09slmat3-web.pdf
 
Evergrey said:
They still don't even qualify for educational loans yet, so their students have to take out private loans at a higher interest rate. Definitely not going to be applying there...
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I am confused by your wording here. You say "still don't even qualify" as if RVCOM is just taking their sweet time to be allowed to receive federal student loans. It doesn't matter how much or little effort they put into qualify for student loans if they can't get full accreditation (which is the case at all new medical schools), and thus federal student loans, until they graduate their first class. You can't compare the loan situation at new medical schools to the situation that occurs at foreign schools (who have control over making improvements to qualify).
 
Ohio as one of the best.

Case, OSU, Cincy, Toledo, Wright State, NEOUCOM, CCLCM, and OU (DO)

Not hard to get some IS love if you live in Ohio.
 
although hoping to get out of OHIO, OH has a good thing goin on for those that want to to go medical school in state.

OSU and Cincy are starting to pull more from OOS tho. But we have 7 schools.
 
Wisconsin has a couple nice schools for in-state residents, with UW itself and MCW. Stats are above average at both, but whenever I talk to someone from WI, they mention how they would love to go to either one.
 
I have to second RI. All we have is Brown and they have around 40 seats per year that are not from their combined program, or from agreements with other universities.

But at least we have nice med schools neighboring us to cushion this, Harvard, Yale, Tufts, Bu. Ya know, to cushion us.
 
Not sure about the best, but it sucks over here in Kansas. One medical school, plus it's cold as (expletive). :mad:
 
thesauce said:
That's not a state last I checked.
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The title of this thread is a little different than the question the OP is asking which relates to the best place to be such that one can commute from home for med school.

The number of schools in a particularly large state isn't much help for someone living in one city who can not move (maybe because of a spouse and children).

Philly is a good place and I'm kicking myself for having forgotten about it.
 
being from MA is terrible. state school with ridiculous residency reqs and high stats, and the other schools are either harvard or get 10K apps a year
 
MacBookMD said:
although hoping to get out of OHIO, OH has a good thing goin on for those that want to to go medical school in state.

OSU and Cincy are starting to pull more from OOS tho. But we have 7 schools.
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As kappa listed above, we actually have 8. Lucky us!
 
thesauce said:
That's not a state last I checked.
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I believe this was a response to LizzyM's post about cities that have schools within commuting distance; Philadelphia has five (yes, five) within the greater metropolitan area.

I would have vouched for Pennsylvania myself for the number of schools it has, but they're all private/land-grant and tend to be expensive. Why PA has no state medical schools is beyond me.
 
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