My child got accepted into the following Pre-Med programs as a CC transfer student entering their Junior year.
UCLA - Human Biology & Society
UCSD - Human Biology
UCI - Public Health
UC Davis - Neurobiology, Physiology & Behavior
UCR - Biology ($3000 Scholarship per year + Pathway programs to medicine)
UCSB - Biopsychology
UCSC - Biology ($2000 Scholarship per year)
May I seek some advice on where to send my child for the best chance of medical admission? UCR has a strong pathway program with Dr. shadowing, clinical experience, etc. However, itâs unclear if their early assurance program accepts UCR undergrad students who were transfer students. Since my child is a transfer, is it best to go to UCLA, UCSD, UCI, or UCR?
The best chance for Medical school admission is the school where the student would be the happiest attending.
Happy students in general will be more successful and all the schools offer the resources for your student to apply to Medical school so they should be looking for fit and where they believe they can thrive.
The chances of medical school are on the studentâŠnot the college. All of these colleges you have listed offer the necessary courses for medical school admissionsâŠso all are fine.
Just an FYI, my understanding is that CA is one of the most difficult places to get accepted to medical school. IIRC, most CA kids attend OOS medical schools simply because there just arenât enough spots in the medical schools to accommodate them.
SoâŠkeep costs in mindâŠmedical school will likely cost $100,000 a year. SoâŠpick the undergrad where the student will be happy, but also where no loans are needed to attend.
Do a little research about how easy or difficult it is for transfer students to get required courses at each of the schools. Iâve read frustration from transfer students who came in with fewer units than existing students and had a difficult time getting the required upper division courses.
Our daughter did Davis.
She did the NPB coursework.
They have an awesome premed advising staff.
Also the school is collaborative- students work together. They study for their MCATs -together. The students are happy on that campus under all that stress.
The campus is between Sacramento, which is where the UC Davis hospital is located, and a train ride to Berkeley/San Francisco.
Also, because the university is located in the middle of farmland, there are a number of low-income, medically indigent agricultural workers and families who donât have medical coverage and they go to clinics, in the surrounding area which are staffed by a large number of Davis student volunteers.
Your student needs to speak Spanish and have a medical Spanish dictionary. Itâs kept in their right hand white coat pocket, almost always.
Our daughter got into five schools. UW Colorado, Texas, USC, and UCSF. She chose the most expensive place to live- UCSF
My suggestion would be to visit those schools and see where they would fit.
Yes. Thank you so much for all your suggestions. Now we have shortlisted two universities that have medical schools such as
UCLA is prestigious for pre-med. Now UCLA also gives us good scholarships. But am I also hearing too much competition among pre-meds? If UCLA has good support like UC Riverside pathways, our kid will go to UCLA and UCLA is more closer to home. Would like to know how much support and help will be available to CC transfer students. Does UCLA have pathways or medical pipelines like UCR?
UC Riverside - gives the prestigious UC regents scholarship (only approx. $3000/year). UCR also gives us pathways as medical scholars programs for doctors shadowing, clinical experience, research internships, and volunteering opportunities. Not sure UCLA has all of those. If it is, then UCLA is better also due to being closer to home(can come home during weekends)
Now I have to compare both UCLA (HBS) and UC Riverside (Biology) as a 3rd year Junior student who transfers from CC(Community College).
Any suggestions are appreciated.
Thomas Haider Early Assurance Program | School of Medicine Student Affairs lists nothing specific about transfer students, although students need to complete at least four quarters at UCR before applying (and will complete at least six quarters total at UCR and have not applied to medical school before) as well as be committed to practicing medicine in inland southern California (this means that students without ties to the region are very unlikely to be selected).
Also, when asked about the statistics of how many of those cc transfers were accepted into Thomas Haider, we did not get any answer. So far, we found that those who got accepted into these Thomas Haider programs were straight full 4-year undergraduates from UCR. We could not find even a single story of any CC transfer to UC Riverside who got accepted into Thomas Haider. Maybe the UC Riverside SoM (School of Medicine) admission committee knows. Looks like cc transfer premeds are not encouraged.
The primary consideration for admission to the Thomas Haider program is âmission fitâ.
The mission of UCR is to provide primary care physicians for the Inland Empire area of California.
Do you/ your child currently live in San Bernardino or Riverside counties? Did your child graduate from a high school in one of those counties?
If not, your child would not be considered a viable applicant for the Thomas Haider Early Admission Program. It doesnât matter if they are CC transfer or not.
(Also the Thomas Haider Program is extremely competitive for admission. Last year there were 1247 applicants for 12 positions. 75% of those selected were from disadvantaged low SES backgrounds.)
So I misunderstood. The premise is that you want to get her into a school that will provide the best chance for a direct acceptance to a medical school program? Is that correct?
The best chance of acceptance to med school is to target out of state programs after undergrad. There are just too many bio and âpremedâ students at the UCâs.
Most of the UC medical school programs wipe the slate clean. By that, I mean they know what each of the UCâs are providing for training. So they seek a variety of students from differing educational systems.
My daughter had never heard of some of the schools where some of her classmates had received their undergrads. One of her classmates was from Siena college. My daughter thought she meant Sierra And asked me, âMom have you heard of a College in the Sierras?â
The majority of my daughterâs classmates at UCSF were from everywhere. They had amazing volunteer experiences. They were from almost every state. Our daughter was lucky because she had a strong background in Spanish and had an âinternshipâ in Spain Learning about their medical system.
With medical schools there are no guarantees and it is so competitive that a number of students are not accepted into medical school straight out of undergrad.
To be completely honest, no undergrad is going to just hand your child shadowing spots, or clinical volunteer spots or research positions. Which is what you seem to be looking for.
No matter where your child attends college, itâs their responsibility to seek out these kinds of experiences and opportunities. All colleges have these opportunities, but no one at the college or in the health profession advising office is going to hand your child a list and say: Here you goâŠthese places are looking for volunteers. Or these professors are looking for research assistants.
You child has to be pro-active. They need to be the one emailing and/or calling professors about research positions. They need to be the one who calls or emails doctorsâ office to ask if they allow shadowing. They need to be one who contacts the volunteer coordinators at various healthcare settings and ask, Do you need volunteers? I have these [skills and experiences], how can I help your clinic/organization?
Getting into med school is enormously competitive. Something like a half million college freshmen nationally list their goal as to go to med school. In the end, there are only 22,300 med school seats available nationwide.
Your child doesnât need to go OOS for undergrad. They can get the coursework they need to fulfill med school admission requirements at any UC or CSU. But there are ZERO guaranteed pathways. For anyone.
(Even programs like the Thomas Haider Program isnât guaranteed. Thereâs a whole list of conditions the participant has to meet before they can start med school. Plus they have to be selected for the program in the first placeâand with a less than 10% acceptance rate, getting accepted into the program certainly isnât guaranteed.)
So stop trying to tie yourself into knot trying to figure the easiest way for your child to get into med school. There isnât one.
Send your child to college your family can afford without taking on debt, have them take their pre-req classes and work on their ECs. When theyâve graduated and if theyâve developed a strong application portfolio, then they can apply to a couple of dozen medical school both inside and outside of California and see what happens. This is how the process works. For everyone. No shortcuts. No guarantees.
And to be totally flippantâthe best way to improve your child chances of getting into med school would be to move.
Move out of California.
West Virginia has 2 medical schools (Univ of West Virginia and Edwards SOM at Marshall University) and 52% of WVA residents who apply to med school get accepted at one of them.
Or Arkansas where 50% of AR state residents get accepted to the Univ of Arkansas SOM.
Or Nebraska where 43% of NE med school applicants get accepted to one of 2 med school in that state (Univ of Nebraska and Creighton).
The best choice would be UCLA, more students from UCLA get accepted to SOM than from the other UCs you have listed.
The only exception is that if the UC has a medical school such as UCR, then they usually show preference for their own graduates, in that case, UCR would be a better choice because they are offering a pathway program to their SOM.
âUCLA has more applicants to medical school than any other collegeâ
This is the reason why UCLA is the better choice.
If you look at the number of applicants that are UCLA graduates, you will see that it is a disproportionate amount. This is because of the stellar education given to these students that prepares them for the MCAT and medical school. Not to mention the plethora of research and extracurricular activities that these students participate in.
Last year alone UCLA sent 1,199 applicants for medical school compared to Yale and Princeton which sent 191, and 133, respectively.(Source: https://www.aamc.org/media/9636/download)
