University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine Admission
University of California, San Francisco,
School of Medicine Undergraduate Program
University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine Application

The Facts

The University of California is a rather large, public institution located in the city of San Francisco, California, and has a combined graduate and undergraduate population of over 24,000 students. The university's School of Medicine, however, is significantly smaller, and is home to about 630 graduate medical students. The average age of enrollment is around 24, and it is quite rare for any of the students to enter the school directly from their undergraduate education. The school is perhaps best known for its incredible research programs, its extensive core science program, as well as for its emphasis on patient contact. Aside from the basic MD degree, the school offers combined degrees in the MD/MA, the MD/MPH, the MSTP, and the MD/PhD in the areas of biochemistry, biophysics, cell biology, developmental biology, endocrinology, genetics, immunology, neuroscience, cancer biology, stem cell biology, chemistry, vascular and cardiac biology, virology, as well as medical anthropology.

Admission to UC San Francisco's School of Medicine is extremely competitive among the many students who apply; last year, over 4,045 students applied for admission to the school, and approximately 225 of those students were accepted. Eventually however, only about 140 of the admitted students actually enrolled for the coming semester. The admitted students had average MCAT scores of about 11.7 in Biology, 11.4 in Physics, and 10.4 in Verbal, as well as an average undergraduate GPA of about a 3.7. Students are notified of their admissions status on a rolling basis, and there is currently no early application program in place.

Graduates of UC San Francisco's School of Medicine are often accepted into some of the most prestigious and competitive residency programs in the nation, and most frequently specialize in the areas of family practice, internal medicine, primary care, pediatrics, emergency medicine, psychiatry, ob/gyn, surgery, orthopedic surgery, neurology, opthamology, dermatology, anesthesiology, neurosurgery, otolaryngology, radiology, oral surgery, pathology, physical medicine, plastic surgery, radiation oncology, as well as urology.

The School of Medicine has about 1,558 faculty members, all of whom come from relatively diverse medical and academic backgrounds. The school also boasts a very manageable student to faculty ratio of about 2:1, and the small classes allow for plenty of discussion and interaction between students and their professors.

Clinical Programs

Students are required to complete extensive clinical training including 2 weeks of anesthesia, 6 weeks of family and community medicine, 8 weeks of medicine, 8 weeks of neurology and psychiatry, 6 weeks of ob/gyn, 6 weeks of pediatrics, 8 weeks of surgery, as well as 2 weeks of surgical subspecialties.

What's Good

"The research programs here are always doing something incredibly innovative and exciting that you can get involved in."

"The faculty here is world-class, and they have really been around the block."

"Students are actually very supportive of one another here."

What's Bad

"The really terrific research projects are nearly impossible to get into."

"San Francisco is an extremely expensive place in which to live as a student."

"There are some professors who assume their class is the only one you have, so they lather on the work."

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