genieinabottle

I am from California and planning on attending Rice as an incoming freshman of fall 2008 and majoring in Biology. During Owl Days, I heard that many students from Rice attend Baylor College of Medicine. Does the fact that I am a resident of California and, thus, an out-of-state student, reduce my chances of being accepted to Baylor?

anhtimmy

i doubt it.

blackeyedsusan

It looks like you might be considered a Texas resident by that point. Texas Residency - Office of Admissions - Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas Does anyone know for sure?

LWMD

Texas requires documentation to claim residency for tuition purposes. Like many states, Texas asks for dcumentation that you intend to make Texas your permanent home, i.e., voter registration, driver's license, tec., for 12 months predeeding enrollment.

Read this document, especially the part about students -- http://www.thecb.state.tx.us/reports/pdf/0183.pdf

Let's say you start med school in the fall of 2012. If your parents claim you as a deduction in the 2011 tax year, you cannot qualify as a resident for tuition purposes. That's the way I read it.

r-crispie

"Do Texas medical schools welcome out-of-state students?" The plan for most going to school in Texas is to become classifiable as a resident, or have a recognized waiver. Although Texas has become more fussy, it has more possibilities with less burdensome requirements than many states for in-state admissions (most important) and in-state tuition. These are two separate, but related issues - a med student *if admitted* can change to in-state.

Some interesting Texas public med school stats:
House Bill 1420 - December 2006

Residency rules are complex, especially complicated by financial aid and tax credit requirements. Used to be, the students could more easily establish independent status from their parents but now the undergraduate is more tied to the parents and parents' residence.

For more on the rules, read the following links:
UT System-Other Topics & Information
THECB > THECB > Laws and Rules > Chapter 21. Student Services > Subchapter X. Determination of Resident Status and Waiver Programs for Certain Nonresident Persons

A family with judicious strategic planning might pay extra attention to §21.730 "Determination of Resident Status"
...(d) "A domicile in Texas is presumed if, at least 12 months prior to the census date of the semester in which he or she is to enroll, the person owns real property in Texas, owns a business in Texas, or is married to a person who has established a domicile in Texas. Gainful employment other than work-study and other such student employment can also be a basis for establishing a domicile."

However bear mind "enroll" addresses tuition, the med schools focus on "application date", so long range research about details and timing can be critical.

Also §21.735 "Waiver Programs for Certain Nonresident Persons" has some interesting possibilities, especially 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, for common circumstances. MD-PhD programs usually solve the residency problem, too. Of course, the research interests, GPA and test score requirements are more demanding.

Texas has a lot of medical schools, as does California. Students from other states typically have fewer chances and choices. Many students and parents still underestimate the numerical nature of the med school situation to get even *one* acceptance, although many students will get several acceptances and terminate the med school interview process. If you are not ahead of this curve, you are probably behind it.

Baylor tries to recruit the best class it can and out of state applicants certainly are important. It has had local political pressures before concerning Texas state financial support and in-state retention of its doctors that may create a consideration.

genieinabottle

Thanks for your responses!

Reading your responses, it seems like I have 2 choices:

1. Move residency to Texas before sophomore year and apply to a Texas medical school as a in-state (Texas) student
2. Apply to a California medical school after I graduate from Rice.

As a matter of fact, I did not think seriously about where to go to medical school and did not decide whether to stay in California or move to Texas yet and chances are half and half.
Is attending Rice still a good decision even I pick choice 2 and come back to California?
I was also admitted to UC Berkeley, UCLA and USC.
I really appreciate any comments.

anxiousmom

Rice is a great choice if you are interested in med school and also if you are not, but please realize that your interests may change!!! You may decide you like research better, or genetics, or philosophy or something else. Rice will prepare you well for any of these things. You may even decide to take a gap year or two (work as an EMT? Lab tech? who knows????) before med school, should you still choose to go. Relax and think about where you want to be for the next 4 years, and be open to the possibilities that will come from those experiences. Med school is a ways down the road.....

r-crispie

Some friends' examples, cautions and challenges.

Residency either for Texas or California schools should be fine. If you are switching to Texas, the plans need to be operational and effective by June or July following your sophomore year, because prime time for in-state Texas applications is June – August after your junior year in the rolling admissions process.

Anxiousmom is quite correct about lots of changes. Not only will your views change, so will the world around us as our economy labors under multiple claims for each asset and a runaway medical industrial complex. You (and your friends) may want to draw upon those who have gone before you.

“Who are you really”, “what drives you”, “what do you really like”, "what is the truth", and “what are the realities” are questions that you need to soul search for best answers over the next several years. Historically, doing well at Rice certainly can pave the road to MD specialties - what have long been ca. million dollar per year careers for at least two of my roommates. One turned down a top 10 med school's MD-PhD slot in California for a Texas med school (he did not think much of the scientific prospects for the particular research group's direction then; he was right). More recently, many states away, I have run into young MD graduates (not Rice) that simply walked away from it all after a couple of years, keeping only the educational loans!

“Medicine” is starting to change before our eyes, with immense stresses and stakes as the professions and pharmaceuticals collide head on with financial resource limits and patients' insistence for tangible performance. Here is a personal view from a National Merit Scholar, Rice and Southwestern Med graduate, from one of the battle lines of medicine, ten years ago: Damaged Care, Damaged Caregiver

I utterly respect her capabilities and efforts. She clearly could not reconcile her personal integrity and views with the realities of the medical complex (pharmaceutical and insurance too), its contradictions, and its fundamental shortcomings. I have sometimes wondered whether knowledge then of the following links might have changed her results if she had utilized some of the inexpensive therapeutic nutrition / biochemical approaches, below, to practice in a state with more medical freedoms.
DoctorYourself.com - Health, Naturally!
ScienceDirect - Medical Hypotheses, Volume 70, Issue 5, Pages 905-1076 (2008)
Orthomolecular.org - Journal Of Orthomolecular Medicine - Archives

One daughter, after a welcome reception at several top 10 and 20 medical schools, decided she was primarily interested in scientific research alone, at a top 10 grad school. One of her high school chums, NMSC National Merit Scholar and now magna cum laude from one of the Seven Sisters, has chosen to go into naturopathic medicine. The pharmacological basis of NDs, among many unconventional modalities, largely rests upon herbals and a different view of therapeutic nutrition.

Personally I think that there is a huge biochemical void between the MD specialties with patentable, molecular medicine vs consistent therapeutic nutrition of the NDs and the golden age of nutrient research in the 30s and 40s, perhaps best identified through all the smoke and fog by the MD-PhD successors to Pauling's version of molecular medicine. (Pauling coined "molecular disease" and was variously called the father of modern chemistry, organic chem, and biochemistry in his day, laying the very foundations of conventional molecular medicine.)

If you (and any friends) will read and biochemically integrate all that, you may be the doctor of many peoples' dreams, truly a “genie in the bottle”.

genieinabottle

As the journey is coming to an end, I would just like to thank you guys for helping me make such a tough decision. I finally decided to become a Rice owl! Hopefully, I will see you all during orientation. Good Luck!

blackeyedsusan

Congratulations!

simone902008

gem!! don't wait until orientation! join the rice facebook group!!!

simone902008

sry. i meant genieinabottle**