UCR: Mission, Vision, Diversity, & Values Statements | School of Medicine
UCM: About the Program | Medical Education
UCD says at Admissions Criteria | UC Davis School of Medicine that “Geographic origin (e.g. rural or medically underserved area)” is considered in admission.
I’m in the Sacramento Valley area! Honestly, I’ve given this a lot of thought recently and have decided that UCD would be a dream, but UCR isn’t the end of the world. Even SDSU or a Cal Poly would be fine because I have a higher likelihood to stand out. Do you think UCSC would be a option for me?
What exactly do you mean by this? Related to selectivity? Because both CPSLO and SDSU have lower admit rates than UCD.
Stand out is VERY high bar. At either school, there will be a large number of highly competitive students enrolled in the typical pre-med classes.
At every college, the strongest students tend to cluster in engineering and physical sciences.
Please see @Gumbymom’s post above about your chances for getting admitted to any specific California public. UCSC is only slightly less competitive than UCD.
Have you considered smaller liberal arts colleges where you could get merit and need based aid? I think Occidental College in Los Angeles touts its med school placement as particularly high, there is pre-health advising and the accepted GPA range is 3.4-3.8 (your SAT score could help you here too, whereas it does not at any CA public).
I had a senior this year. CPSLO rejected a lot of 4.0 UW students this cycle, and SDSU rejected and waitlisted many with these stats. I think we will see that UCD also had a much lower acceptance rate this year, I saw a LOT of students get waitlisted this cycle and that list has not moved. CPSLO would be a reach with your stats and SDSU might be a hard target, as neither of these schools look at ECs or essays so you don’t have any way to stand out other than GPA.
Exactly.
However, I see two sides of this. Attending a university that is ranked lower than “top 50” or even “top 100” will still mean that premed classes are full of strong students and will be very academically demanding. “Standing out” will still be tough. Every premed student still needs to go in expecting to work very hard and needing to make a very strong effort to keep ahead in classes. Getting accepted to a public medical school in California, or to any MD or DO program in the US, will be tough for any student. This will need lots of experience in a medical environment and good references.
However, OP can do this with a bachelor’s degree from SDSU or Cal Poly or UCM or UCR. Of course UCR also has a very good medical school.
To make it easier, I’m sharing @Gumbymom’s information on overall admit rates here. I would also refer back to @Gumbymom’s post #16 for additional context on what the UCs consider for admission and the specific admission record from your school.
The UCs have a reputation for being unpredictable with respect to which students they end up accepting, but based on the information shared, this is how I would categorize your chances at the UCs, to see it from a different angle:
Extremely Likely (80-99+%)
Likely (60-79%)
Toss-Up (40-59%)
Lower Probability (20-39%)
Low Probability (less than 20%)
Extremely Low Probability (less than 5%)
At this point in your college application process, I would focus on finding some schools where your odds of admission are likelier that you would be happy to attend and that would be affordable for your family.
It has a very good medical school with a small class size (84 students with 24 seats going to students in the Thomas Haider Early Assurance Program) and a mission that places heavy emphasis on students who have strong ties to San Bernardino/Riverside Counties and who plan to remain in the region to work as physicians post residency.
UC-R SOM isn’t a slam dunk–even though its stats tend to lower than other CA public med schools. I know a med school applicant who was grew up in Riverside County, had better than average stats (3.9 GPA/4.0 sGPA, 514 MCAT) for UCR-SOM, who had spent 3 years working EMS in the county AND had interned in the C-suite of UCR Hospital for a year. They applied to UC-R SOM this cycle and didn’t even get an interview.
Hello,
I don’t mean to get ahead of myself, but I want to go to a t50 medical school. I know this is kinda crazy coming from my background, but I’m determined that if I study hard enough, and try enough, I can do it. I forgot to mention, but the reason my gpa in highschool is so low is because in sophomore year my parents found out I was LGBT, and etc etc spiralled into pretty serious depression. School was horrible as well as the girl I had been with was determined to make my life hell for breaking up with her. I know your not supposed to trauma dump on your college apps, but is any of this worth mentioning? I had a good junior year comeback, and really pushed myself (doing 5 aps). It’s for this reason that I believe I can do well in undergrad as long as I keep myself together.
It sounds like they will be able to see on your transcript that you had a strong upward trend in junior year, both in terms of grades and rigor. From the perspective of someone reading your transcript, they wouldn’t know whether this was due to a change in life circumstances, or simply that you really got serious about your studies and improved your study habits… but is that distinction important? Either way, I think the upward trend in itself conveys the positive story you want to tell (that you have bounced back and feel ready to excel in college), so I’m not sure you need to add reasons for earlier difficulties.
You are getting way, way ahead of yourself. I would put this on the shelf right now and focus on finding an affordable school that you would be happy attending.
I’ll ask you…why.
But I’ll also give my free advice. For now, I would suggest you put medical school on the back burner. Right now you need to find an undergraduate college where you will be happy, and feel you can see yourself doing well for your four undergrad years…that is affordable without loans or with VERY low loan amounts.
Medical school application decisions will be based on how well you do in undergrad school…which you do NOT know right now…at.all. So…consider that decision when the time comes to apply…not now.
And remember, graduating from a top 50 medical school guarantees you absolutely nothing. And one can also be extremely successful as a doctor graduating from lower ranked MD and DO schools. Really!
So…find that undergrad school.
And look at costs. You said upstream that you have some family financial constraints. Please keep those in mind as well.
And remember…most of those T50 MD schools will cost over $100,000 a year if you actually get accepted years from now. Funding for medical schools is primarily loans loans and more loans…and the bank of mom and dad.
But in a post above you say you live in the “Bay Area” which usually refers to the San Francisco Bay Area.
@WayOutWestMom @ucbalumnus which of these gives preference to students at their undergrad for medical school admission (geographic area) or are both of these fine?
I don’t believe the San Francisco Bay Area is part of the Sacramento Valley.
Of course these geographic areas are different, and the OP will be aware of this since they live here, but I don’t think we know exactly where the OP lives. I’ve sometimes heard people who live as far east as Davis say they live in the Bay Area, because people outside the state are only familiar with Bay Area versus Southern CA.
Don’t mention anything of the sort - you have an upward trend, that matters, don’t attract attention to the one year your grades dipped. Your writing should emphasize what you want to be known for.
Getting into just one med school is as hard as getting into Harvard or MIT.
I understand you’re like the young athlete who says “I’ll win a gold medal in the Olympics” - but a goal of getting into a med school is already like wishing to win in the Olympics.
First of all, T50 is no longer the terminology that’s used. Many of what were formerly T25 schools have refused to cooperate with US News for over 6 years now. US News can only guess at at the internal data of the schools. Things like NIH funding, stats of incoming students, etc. So US News no longer ranks med schools at all. They do sort in into tiers, though. Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3. Schools in each tier are basically equivalent.
FWIW, one of my daughters was admitted to a Tier 1 school (ranked in the T10 at the time) and she declined her acceptance. Why? Because it would have left her close to $500K in debt after med school. She knew the difference between med school ranks is mostly smoke and mirrors and she decided to attend an in-state public med school (a Tier3 school) which left her with less than $30K in loans after med school graduation. She did well in med school, scored high in her USMLE exams, made AOA (med school equivalent of Phi Beta Kappa–only the top 5 students are invited to join the AOA at her school), honored all her clinicals and applied in a mid-competitive specialty that she loved. She interviewed at top ranked residencies all over the US. She picked her residency program mostly based on its location because she wanted to stay in the western US. She finished residency, did a fellowship and now is one of only about a dozen fellowship trained specialists in her field in the entire US. Two years post fellowship she’s now a medical director of sub-specialty clinics in 4 states for a major healthcare provider in the Rocky Mountain region. She’s well paid and loves her job. She was offered an academic faculty position at a med school, but turned it down. Why? Because she hated playing faculty politics and her current employer offered her almost twice the starting salary that the med school position paid.
Her sister, who also attended an in-state public med school because… price. She did well, top quintile in her class, scored well in her USMLEs and honored all but one of her clinical rotations, got great LORs from her preceptors, aced her away rotations. She interviewed for residency at places like Mayo and Yale–and matched at Yale.
TL;DR So the rank of your med school is not hugely important. Your achievements in med school are much more important. So, what is important for your future career? Where you do your residency and/or fellowship.
The discussion about rankings brings to mind that old joke, which could apply here too:
What do you call the person who came bottom of their class at med school?
Doctor.
The conventional definition of “San Francisco Bay Area” does include Solano County, part of which is considered in the Sacramento Valley area.