Dr. David Flick, one of the master advisors for Med School Coach, takes the mic this episode to talk about the demographic factors that are often overlooked when applying to med schools.
We’re about halfway through the 2018-2019 application cycle and beginning to look forward to the 2019-2010 cycle. If you’ve applied for the current cycle and haven’t gotten any interviews or acceptances yet, or you haven’t applied at all and will be doing so in the next cycle, this segment is for you. There are so many things to do when preparing, and Dr. Flick talks about how choosing the right schools to apply to is very important.
[1:34] Choosing the schools that you’re going to apply to.Most applicants are very well-prepared to select their school choice based on the average GPA and MCAT for that school. Dr. Flick want to draw your attention to how many out-of-state applicants a school receives. Most private schools take anywhere from 50%-80% of their class from out-of-state applicants. On the other hand, state schools take less than 50%, and some even less than 5%.
[2:29] Why state schools favor in-state applicants.Mostly, schools are looking to recruit talent that’s going to stay in the state. So, why would an in-state school be interested in taking any out-of-state applicants? There are two categories these applicants fall under. The first is the applicant may have very close ties to the state, such as having family in the state or otherwise intend to stay. The second is that the school wants out-of-state applicants who are highly competitive; they want to attract top talent to their school.
If you’re not an extremely competitive applicant, applying to state schools that take low out-of-state applicants is relatively low yield. For that reason, Dr. Flick recommends not to apply to out-of-state schools that take less than 40% out-of-state applicants. He has seen competitive applicants that were frustrated by rejection based on a poor strategy for managing this demographic factor, and less-than-competitive applicants rewarded by taking a strategic approach to select the right schools for them.
