what and how many schools should you apply to?

Medical school admission is very competitive. In general, a given medical school accepts about 5% (five percent) of applicants. On the other hand, about 30% of applicants get into medical school in any given year. This discrepancy is easily explained by the fact that virtually ALL applicants apply to at the very least ten medical schools...you can figure out the rest of this story.

In general the more schools that you can apply to, the better. There are a number of limitations that may or may not apply to you and that will determine both to how many and to what schools you apply. These limiting factors arise from (1) your state residence and (2) your financial situation--to how many schools you can afford to apply.

In general, everyone can apply to private medical schools. But even many private schools have strong preference for in-state residents. So if you're applying to a private school outside of your home state, find out both its policies and actual statistics with respect to out-of-state applicants. If you're an international student, you must be even more careful and find out if they accept international students, especially if you did your premedical education outside of the US.

You should definitely apply to all your state's public medical schools. Almost all of them give very strong preference to in-state residents and many do not even accept out-of-state residents. On the other hand, you should not apply haphazardly to out-of-your-state public schools unless you ascertain that they accept out-of-state applicants---you would waste your money and precious time/energy that could be used to apply to schools where you actually have *some* chance of getting in.. You can find this statistics in the AAMC's publication: Medical School Admission Requirements.

It costs about $100-$130 to apply to each schools which includes the AMCAS fee ($30-$40 per school) and secondary application fee $70-$100 per schoool. In general it is advantageous to apply to as many schools as possible, but of course the costs run up quickly. In addition, if you're applying to many schools you should plan to spend a lot of time filling out secondary applications--so plan ahead.

Even if your qualifications are impeccable, I still would recommend that you apply to 15 schools or so since there is much uncertainty when it comes to admissions. Should you get more than one acceptance, you will have a choice of where to go--which is a desirable bonus to get.

When deciding to what schools to apply, you should select schools that will accept you at least in principle as I discussed above. So if you're Nevada resident do not apply to state schools in NY. There are a number of schools that have big medical school classes ie over 150 students (such as NY Medical College-a private school) and those that do not have any in-state applicants such as the schools that are in Washington DC. You may want to consider applying there along with other places.

It should be obvious that you should apply to a range of schools from the most competitive to the least competitive to spread your risks.