Correction, SMU have Florida officially as well. Check the website.

Also, about Saba and approval before the effective date, don't know if anyone actually got into Cali, but I do know it is case by case basis for pre-effective date people.

But yeah, don't sell yourself short. Do everything you can to get into a better school. Age is just a number. SMU will still be here if in the following years you decide to go to SMU finally.

if you can improve your mcat, at least shoot for SGU. The extra $45000 cost is worth it in terms of your whole medical career.

they are the best & most organized carib school

your post raises a few questions to me that id consider if i were you;

the first is, if you were rejected from several offshore schools, you need to seriously consider this unpleasant notion: can you really make it through med school and pass the usmle.

I am not commenting on SMU- i simply dont know enough to suggest it applies; but in general, if someone is finding their getting rejected from several offshore schools they run the risk of being taken advantage of by a school that will admit any student (again- I am not commenting on smu as I simply do not know that much about them) regardless of the liklihood that they will 1) graduate and 2) pass their boards. Plenty of places are happy to take your time and moeny without consideration as to whether or not youre likely to make both hurdles. so when someone has had a few rejections from offshore schools, without knowing your specifics, i think its a fair thing to raise for their consideration. In all honestly I hope this isnt something that's a concern for you, i just feel its the most honest question to raise first.

Having said that; lets say you do a great job and pass without a problem. You may indeed find that you can not nor ever come back to cali to practice. how important is that? How important will that be in the future. youre young now. Maybe if youre in your 20's it doesnt feel like a big deal. but in your 30's and 40's and older, your family will be aging etc. do you really want to possibly be ubnable to practice near them? what if you have kids etc. these are real life long term questions you need to consider.

Why not try bolstering your application if you are young. This way maybe you'll get into the us but if that's really locked out, perhaps a cali approved school or even a DO school are better options? Just food for thought for you. Good luck.

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Steph
If you get a warning, put on yer manpants and stop whining about it.

are you kidding me, where do you get your information from? seriously dont post on here if you are going to give out retarded advice.. to say smu "ONLY" has NY approval is both ignorant and false. SMU has more than 40 states they can practice in and if you are using the approval thing, they the are also FLORIDA approved

Did you seriously think that your statement is not commenting on SMU??? seriously if you don't know anything about a school then STAY ON YOUR OWN SCHOOLS FORUM!!! to say that SMU "will admit any student" is with the other guys post ignorant and false. Just because one schools board sees something in someone and another doesn't, does not give you the right to criticize... oh let me say how impressed I am with your infarction giving ability

erm.....ok

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Steph
If you get a warning, put on yer manpants and stop whining about it.

erm... ok is right,

what have we learned here today kids: just because someone has nothing better to do than post 13,000 times on a website doesn't constitute knowledge, its only called advice when its from someone who has intelligence...... No one specific though, I wouldn't want to show any disrespect

california approval is not the be-all end-all measure of a school's worth as it is made out to be. this is especially true in smu's case.

report on smu contained a lot of mistakes, big and small. criticizing a non-existent hyperbaric medicine program, bemoaning a lack of tabs on withdrawn students which isn't a function of any school, various other inaccurate characterizations of the joint program (pm for details), and other inaccuracies and falsehoods. it's not a particularly big deal that there would be mistakes; we're all human and subject to fallacies. more telling is they issued no retraction or apology for it even after it was brought to light. that suggests they decided the outcome in advance and engineered the "facts" and findings to fit the outcome. it's quite a gross beach of trust and responsibility. but since it's the cali board they aren't really accountable to anyone and probably feel they are entitled to pick on a school now and then without cause.

secondly, with the baby boomer generation retiring, the current disparity between twenty thousand residencies and sixteen thousand five hundred u.s. allopathic grads will only increase in size and scope. if one is willing to go to rural and/or impoverished areas and accept work in fields not so sought after, you will find a place for yourself, whether graduating from a cali-approved school or not. that is just the worst case scenario and much opportunities are out there if you don't end up at 185-195 on step 1, which some do because of luck, fate, circumstances, or just substandard work ethic. cali disapproval is not the mark of doom it is being made out to be. this school has grown so much in the last couple of years without cali on board, and this is because satisfied students spreading praise thru word of mouth do more for a school than a board which approves and disapproves schools based on personal politics and prejudices. it should also be noted that they automatically includes hundreds of schools on their "list" which are little more than holes in the ground simply because they meet the "endemic" criteria; that is, they draw fifty percent or more of their student population from the area in which they are located; this has nothing whatsoever to do with the quality of medical training.

choose a school based on accreditation, reputation, student satisfaction, administrative responsiveness to concerns, cost, residency placement, prospects for the future and so on....cali just gets way too much respect considering their poor evaluation process which is subject to no checks and balances and no oversight or accountability from what i can see.....

i think the issue really is just pragmatic; if going back to cali is likely to be important to her now or in the future, you cant ignore that in the short term. or you can but not if youre smart.

Youre right in that not being Cali approved isnt the adequate measure of the quality of the school. but it can be critical in the life of the individual

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Steph
If you get a warning, put on yer manpants and stop whining about it.

why not apply to ROSS?

they accept over 200 students each term, im sure you'd have a decent shot. I don't like how people judge a school based on whether they have cali or not. There are plenty of good states other than california that would be perfect to practice in. I got accepted to Saba, am I going there because of Cali approval? hell no. Might i practice in Cali later on? maybe, but my decision was based on their reputation, not what states they can or can't practice in. If you have a preference for California, then I would apply to ROSS because it seems like the easier out of the so called "big 4" to get into.