Are you considering applying to medical school in Michigan? The Great Lakes State is known for its plethora of outdoor activities, beautiful and diverse landscape, passionate sports culture, humid summers, bitter winters, and yes, an abundance of Great Lakes.
But what’s it like to attend medical school in Michigan, and how do you get accepted?
In this post, we’ll break down everything you need to know about going to medical school in Michigan, including where the medical schools are located, what it’s like to live in Michigan, how to apply, and tips for gaining acceptance to medical schools in Michigan.
Here’s what to expect below.
- How Many Medical Schools Are in Michigan?
- List of Medical Schools in Michigan
- List of Osteopathic Medical Schools in Michigan
- What Are the Best Schools in Michigan?
- Michigan Medical School Locations
- How Much Is Medical School Tuition in Michigan?
- In-State vs Out-of-State Preference
- What It’s Like to Go to Medical School in Michigan
- How to Apply to Michigan Medical Schools (MD)
-
- Application Requirements
-
- Application Deadlines
-
- How to Apply to Osteopathic Medical Schools in Michigan
- Tips to Gain Acceptance at Michigan Medical Schools (MD and DO)
-
- Understand In-State vs. Out-of-State Preference
-
- Craft an Application Narrative Focused on Michigan
-
- Bottom Line: Is Going to Medical School in Michigan Right for You?
How Many Medical Schools Are in Michigan?
There are 7 medical schools in Michigan. 6 of them are MD (allopathic), and 1 is a DO (osteopathic) medical school.
List of Medical Schools in Michigan
- Central Michigan University College of Medicine
- Michigan State University College of Human Medicine
- Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine
- University of Michigan Medical School
- Wayne State University School of Medicine
- Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine
List of Osteopathic Medical Schools in Michigan (DO)
What Are the Best Schools in Michigan?
Distinguishing which Michigan medical schools are the best is challenging, as what’s best for one student may not be best for another.
From an admissions standpoint, this is how competitive your hard metrics will need to be if you want to be considered at a Michigan medical school. These numbers are based on 2023 matriculant data from MSAR.
Michigan Medical School (MD) Median GPA
These are the median GPAs of Michigan med school matriculants.
| Medical School | Median GPA |
|---|---|
| Central Michigan University College of Medicine | 3.78 |
| Michigan State University College of Human Medicine | 3.80 |
| Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine | 3.91 |
| University of Michigan Medical School | 3.90 |
| Wayne State University School of Medicine | 3.86 |
| Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine | 3.82 |
| Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine | 3.50-3.70 |
Michigan Medical School (MD) Median MCAT
These are the median MCAT scores of Michigan med school matriculants.
| Medical School | Median MCAT |
|---|---|
| Central Michigan University College of Medicine | 507 |
| Michigan State University College of Human Medicine | 509 |
| Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine | 511 |
| University of Michigan Medical School | 518 |
| Wayne State University School of Medicine | 513 |
| Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine | 513 |
| Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine | 506-508 |
Michigan Medical School Locations
Michigan is the 11th-largest state by area and the 10th-most populous state in the country.
- Central Michigan University College of Medicine: Mount Pleasant, Saginaw
- Michigan State University College of Human Medicine: Grand Rapids
- Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine: Oakland County
- University of Michigan Medical School: Ann Arbor
- Wayne State University School of Medicine: Detroit
- Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine: Kalamazoo
- Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine: East Lansing
Michigan medical schools offer comprehensive training in unique settings. Each area of Michigan is different from the other. For example, Wayne State in Detroit has a more inner-city, urban setting, whereas Central Michigan, which has a campus in the suburban town of Mount Pleasant as well as Saginaw, focuses more on rural medicine. Oakland also has more of a suburban feel, and all of these training experiences offer students a chance to expose themselves to different patient populations.
Each medical school is located toward the south of the state, all within around two and a half hours of each other, though most are closer. The most populous city is Detroit, with a population of approximately 633,218. Detroit has an international airport, but you’ll also find a number of other airports around the state.
If you want to explore the state, you will need a car. This is also true of your clinical rotations. You’ll very likely need a vehicle as you rotate between various locations that lack adequate public transportation.
How Much Is Medical School Tuition in Michigan?
So, how much does medical school cost in Michigan?
Michigan Tuition Costs (2023 Data From MSAR)
| Michigan Medical School | Yearly Tuition In-State | Yearly Tuition Out-of-State |
|---|---|---|
| Central Michigan University College of Medicine | $44,127 | $64,237 |
| Michigan State University College of Human Medicine | $31,676 | $58,430 |
| Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine | $59,096 | $59,096 |
| University of Michigan Medical School | $53,278 | $72,304 |
| Wayne State University School of Medicine | $40,459 | $68,572 |
| Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine | $67,000 | $67,000 |
| Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine | $31,691 | $43,776 |
View the most recent AAMC tuition data.
- Additional fees not included.
There are also many other financial factors to consider, including housing, transportation, food, exercise, and events. Fortunately, the cost of living in Michigan is below the national average.
You must also consider the cost of medical school applications, which compound quickly across primary fees, secondary fees, exam fees, study resources, matriculation fees, and interview travel costs. Learn more: How Much Do Med School Applications Cost? The Full Price Analyzed.
In-State vs. Out-of-State Preference
| Michigan Medical School | In-State Applicants | Out-of-State Applicants | In-State Matriculants | Out-of-State Matriculants |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Central Michigan University College of Medicine | 1314 | 6284 | 80 | 21 |
| Michigan State University College of Human Medicine | 1547 | 5236 | 149 | 37 |
| Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine | 1367 | 6167 | 69 | 56 |
| University of Michigan Medical School | 1212 | 7658 | 85 | 78 |
| Wayne State University School of Medicine | 1585 | 5901 | 190 | 104 |
| Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine | 1130 | 2951 | 33 | 51 |
Michigan medical schools largely favor in-state applicants.
For more tips on applying to out-of-state schools, check out our guide: Applying to Out-of-State Medical Schools — What You Need to Know.
What It’s Like to Go to Medical School in Michigan
Michigan is bordered by Ohio and Indiana in the Lower Peninsula to the south and Wisconsin in the Upper Peninsula to the southwest. It’s also connected to Minnesota, Illinois, and the Canadian province of Ontario by Lake Michigan, Lake Superior, Lake Huron, and Lake Erie.
And speaking of lakes, Michigan’s official state nickname is “The Great Lakes State” due to its abundance of, you guessed it, great lakes. It has the second-most water area of any state besides Alaska. This means you’ll find a number of great summer spots and beach town options, particularly in Western Michigan and on Lake Michigan.
Michigan also has plenty of excellent outdoor activities, sightseeing, and tourist attractions in the north, including Mackinac Island, the Mackinac Bridge, the Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive, among many others. You can find sand dunes, valleys, hills, shorelines, streams, waterfalls, and small lakes all along the coast of Michigan, so if you like hiking, camping, fishing, hunting, road trips, hitting the beach in the summer, and skiing in the winter, Michigan has a tremendous amount to offer.
If you’re more of a city mouse, Midtown Detroit is a host to many concerts and events. The Great Lakes State also has an active sports scene, between the Detroit Red Wings for NHL, the Detroit Lions for NFL, the Detroit Pistons for NBA, and the Detroit Tigers for the MLB, plus many more college teams. Thanks to Michigan’s low cost of living, tickets to these events also won’t break the bank.
With the exception of Detroit, Michigan doesn’t have large metropolitan areas, so the pace of life is slower compared to some other states. For example, while Detroit has a population of 633,218, the second-largest city is Grand Rapids, with a population of 196,608.
Michigan is unique in that each city has its own culture, but overall, the people are very kind, welcoming, willing to help, and warm. Michigan has a great deal to offer for unique training experiences, and each school and hospital can offer a different feel, whether it’s rural, urban, suburban, or even lake-side in some of the western parts of the state.
Michigan experiences all four seasons, which can be a blessing or a curse, depending on how passionately you feel about snow. And if you do love snow, be prepared to reconsider your opinion after years of back-breaking shoveling multiple times a day paired with trying to get to campus in the midst of a blizzard.
Temperatures are generally bone-chilling in Michigan from November straight through to March. If you already know you hate being cold and hate the snow, you need to think long and hard about whether or not you can put up with that kind of weather for nearly six months of the year. Plus, while the summers are warm, they’re also unbearably humid. Michigan is one of the most humid states in the entire country.
How to Apply to Michigan Medical Schools (MD)
Regardless of how many allopathic (MD) schools you want to apply to in Michigan, you’ll use the American Medical College Application Service (AMCAS), which is the centralized medical school application processing service.
This means you only need to submit one primary application to the service, and AMCAS will distribute your application to as many medical schools as you like.
If you are only planning to apply to osteopathic (DO) medical schools in Michigan, skip to the next section, which outlines applying through the centralized osteopathic medical school processing service, AACOMAS.
Here’s what you need to know about applying to allopathic (MD) med schools in Michigan.
1 | AMCAS Application Requirements
Your AMCAS primary application has multiple components, such as your college transcripts, MCAT score, personal statement, letters of recommendation, and Work and Activities section—and each piece plays an essential role in your acceptance.
Depending on which schools you’re applying to, you may also need to complete a situational judgment test, such as the Acuity Insights’ Casper test or the AAMC’s PREview exam.
Casper is a computer-based situational judgment test administered by Acuity Insights. It was created to evaluate a med school candidate’s soft skills, such as their interpersonal communication, empathy, ethical decision making, and bedside manner.
Duet is a value-alignment assessment that compares what an applicant values most in a program to what programs have to offer. There aren’t any right or wrong answers with Duet; it’s designed to help students find the program that’s truly the right fit for them.
The AAMC PREview Professional Readiness Exam is another situational judgment test just recently released by the AAMC, and it was essentially designed to compete with Casper. Composed of a series of hypothetical scenarios that students may face in medical school, this multiple choice exam was created to assess a premed’s empathy and ethical decision making, as well as their awareness of effective and ineffective professional behaviors.
At the time of this article, the Central Michigan University College of Medicine requires both components of Acuity Insights, the Casper test and Duet, and Michigan State University College of Human Medicine requires either Acuity Insights or AAMC PREview. Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine recommends its applicants take the PREview exam.
View the full list of schools requiring Casper and schools requiring AAMC PREview.
Our Casper Test Guide and AAMC PREview Guide have everything you need to know about these situational judgment tests. When it comes time to prepare, utilize our Casper and PREview AI courses, which generate instant feedback, including emotion detection analysis and immediate personalized evaluation. These courses include unlimited practice problems, so you’ll have endless opportunities to adapt to various scenarios, refine your skills, and deeply understand the nuances of both exams.
Medical schools change their requirements from year-to-year, so always be sure to double-check what each school you’re excited about requires well before application season begins and leading up to your submission so that nothing slips through the cracks.
It’s very likely you will receive a secondary application from most or all of the schools you apply to two to four weeks after you submit your primary. While this can feel encouraging, medical schools collect a fee for secondaries, so it’s to their benefit to send out as many as possible.
Secondaries are distinct from your primary as you will submit each secondary directly to the med school you received it from. If your secondary sparks the interest of the admissions committee, you’ll receive an interview. Interview season runs from September into the following year.
The complete application process explained: How to Get Into Medical School.
2 | Application Deadlines
In addition to making each component of your application as compelling as possible, your medical school acceptance also depends on keeping track of key dates and deadlines.
The AMCAS application opens during the first week of May, and you can submit your application at the end of May or early June. The medical school application process is a long one. For example, if you want to start medical school in the fall of 2026, you must start the application process in the spring of 2025.
While each school has its own technical deadlines, these should be taken with a grain of salt, as they paint a vastly different picture of how long you have to submit your application. The reason to submit your application as soon as possible is rolling admissions. Rolling admissions mean adcoms review applications as they receive them on a rolling (continuous) basis. They don’t wait until each application has been submitted to begin their assessments.
So, the first candidates to submit their primary application are the first to receive secondaries. The first candidates to submit their secondaries receive the first interviews. The first candidates to interview receive the first acceptances—and there are only so many spots available in any given class.
Procrastinating on any step of your application squanders your chances of acceptance. Apply as soon as applications open for your best chance of success.
Here’s what you should be working on month-by-month: Medical School Application Timeline and Monthly Schedule. (Updated every application cycle.)
How to Apply to Osteopathic Medical Schools in Michigan
You will use a different application service to apply to Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine, the state’s only osteopathic school, but the process is much the same.
Rather than applying through AMCAS, you’ll use the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine Application Service (AACOMAS). Just like with the AMCAS application, the DO primary is made up of your transcripts, MCAT score, personal statement, letters of recommendation, and an experiences and achievements section.
However, there are a few key differences. For example, understandably, the DO application is focused on osteopathic medicine. The subject of your personal statement isn’t simply why you want to be a doctor, but why you want to be an osteopathic doctor specifically. Plus, at least one of your letters of recommendation must be written by a DO who you have shadowed or worked closely with in the past.
You need to demonstrate that you are dedicated to osteopathy and are deeply familiar with osteopathic values in order to be a competitive applicant.
Michigan State University College of Osteopathic Medicine does not require Casper or PREview at this time.
Learn more about the DO application process: AACOMAS Application Guide for DO Schools.
Tips for Acceptance at Michigan Medical Schools
1 | Understand In-State vs. Out-of-State Preference
Aside from the Western Michigan University Homer Stryker M.D. School of Medicine, all medical schools in Michigan show a strong preference for in-state applicants.
For example, only 0.9% of out-of-state applicants matriculated to the Michigan State University School of Medicine, and only 1% of out-of-state applicants matriculated to the University of Michigan Medical School.
The numbers don’t lie. If you’re an out-of-state applicant eager to study medicine in the Great Lakes State, you face an uphill battle.
However, in-state applicants have an opportunity to make connections when applying simply by saying they are from Michigan or have a relative in the area. There are plenty of underserved areas in the state, and programs want to know trainees plan to serve these areas after graduating.
Even for residency, Michigan programs actively seek applicants from the state who are willing to stay for their future practices.
Because the schools tend to focus on retaining trainees in-state, the opportunity to network and become part of the medical community grows as attendings and other medical leaders have some connection to their particular school. Michigan loyalty is strong.
2 | Craft an Application Narrative Focused on Michigan
Since schools in Michigan show a clear preference for in-state applicants who want to one day practice medicine in Michigan, it’s vital that your application reflects this same desire.
If you are an out-of-state applicant but still wish to study in Michigan, make yourself a more compelling applicant by emphasizing your love of the Great Lakes State, as well as your plans to live and practice there once your education is complete.
Schools in Michigan prioritize meeting the primary care needs of both the urban and rural medically underserved areas of Michigan. So, in your application, demonstrate your own experience working with and supporting underserved populations. And if you’ve done this in Michigan, all the better.
Weaving this theme into your application can be accomplished in a number of areas, particularly in your personal statement and Work and Activities section. You can speak about your wish to serve medically underserved communities and address health disparities in your personal statement, and you can back this wish up with concrete examples from your extracurriculars. For example, working at a soup kitchen and volunteering with the homeless in a big city.
Your narrative can be especially driven home in your secondaries, where you have more space to dig into the details of your experiences as well as your dream of providing care in Michigan.
The most essential thing is developing a cohesive theme to tie your application together, from your personal statement to your letters of recommendation to your Work and Activities to your secondaries to the answers you provide during your interview.
Your narrative must be laced throughout your application. For example, if you say that you want to help the underserved in your personal statement but your extracurriculars or letters of recommendation do not reflect this, admissions committees won’t buy what you’re selling.
Developing a consistent narrative takes a serious time investment and soul searching, so do not procrastinate on getting started.
What do you need adcoms in Michigan to know about you? What’s driving your ambition to pursue medicine? Is it the death of a loved one who might have been saved if they had better access to healthcare? Is it your own experience living with health disparities? Whatever the theme is, make sure each component of your application reflects and builds on it.
Do not repeat yourself. Use each piece to expand and deepen your narrative.
Learn more: How to Develop a Cohesive Narrative for Medical School Applications.
Bottom Line: Is Going to Medical School in Michigan Right for You?
For the most part, medical schools in Michigan prioritize providing primary care to the medically underserved people of Michigan.
But beyond the medical program and the school’s resources, it matters if you actually enjoy the community and environment you’ll call home for the next four or more years.
Pros of Medical School in Michigan
- Surrounded by the Great Lakes
- Lots of outdoor activities (hiking, boating, camping, fishing, skiing)
- Big sports culture (NFL – Lions; NBA – Pistons; NHL – Red Wings)
- Affordable housing
- Low cost of living
- Reasonable tuition
- Many types of learning environments (urban, rural, lake-side, suburb)
- Many hospitals and practices
- Midwestern hospitality
- Excellent craft beer and wine scene
- Western Michigan and Lake Michigan are great summer spots and provide many beach town options
- Multiple airports
- Driving is accessible throughout the state.
Cons of Medical School in Michigan
- Poor infrastructure
- Long, harsh winters
- Muggy, humid summers
- Detroit is considered one of the most dangerous cities in the country (though it is improving)
- Some areas have limited diversity
- Not much public transportation available between each city or suburb
Michigan offers a low cost of living, laid back and friendly people, and all the outdoor activities you can ask for. If you don’t mind the cold and love hikes through the forest and lazing about on the beach in your downtime, the Great Lakes State may be the state for you!
Learn more: How to Decide Which Medical Schools to Apply to (12 Important Factors).
What Adcoms Are Looking For
Whether you’re applying to schools in Michigan or anywhere in the country, admissions committees are looking for mature, passionate, and resilient students who will enhance the student body of their school. A checkbox mentality won’t cut it—it’s critical that you demonstrate why you are an ideal fit for the schools you apply to and clearly communicate how you will help the program fulfill its mission.
Med School Insiders can help you craft a narrative-driven application that will wow adcoms at Michigan medical schools, as well as any schools at the top of your list. We have a wide variety of services to help you design a well-rounded application, from one-on-one guidance to application editing to our Medical School Interview AI Course and our Ultimate Research Course.
Our services are tailored to meet the needs of each student because we understand that every applicant is unique. Learn more about our comprehensive medical school application packages.
Sign up for our newsletter and follow our blog for the latest medical school application news, guides, and study strategies.
Thank you to Alwin David, MD, from Central Michigan University, for being our Insider contributor for this guide.
