Medical students can apply to several schools throughout Illinois.
When you've taken the MCAT and received your score, you'll have a better idea of what medical schools you should apply to. Illinois medical schools are spread out across the state, with a cluster in the Chicago area, and others spread throughout the rest of the land of Lincoln. You just need to decide whether you prefer urban or rural living.
SIU School of Medicine
Southern Illinois University School of Medicine is primarily located in Springfield, Illinois, with parts of the program in Carbondale -- where the main SIU campus is located -- and family medicine centers in Carbondale, Decatur, Golden, Quincy, Springfield and West Frankfort. The medical school has almost 300 students, with another nearly 300 residents. The school offers medical, M.D./J.D., doctoral, master's and residency degree programs. The school requires applicants to be Illinois residents at the time they apply, unless applying for the M.D./J.D. program, and they must have a minimum MCAT score of 22.
Rush University Medical School
Rush University is located in Chicago's West Loop and in the Illinois Medical District, along with the University of Illinois Medical Center, the John H. Stroger Hospital of Cook County and the Jesse Brown VA Medical Center. To apply to Rush, students must be U.S. citizens or have permanent resident status. The school's initial screening status weeds out applicants who don't have an undergraduate science GPA between 3.0 and 4.0 and a composite MCAT of 27 or higher.
Stritch School of Medicine
The Stritch School of Medicine is part of the Loyola University Health System and is located in Maywood, Illinois, a western suburb of Chicago. Applicants are required to have a bachelor's degree, and they must be U.S. citizens or hold a permanent resident visa. The class size is about 150 students -- the school offers about 350 spots from more than 5,000 applicants. Mean MCAT scores for students at Stritch are 10.3 for verbal reasoning, 10.7 for physical sciences, P for writing skills and 11.1 for biological sciences.
University of Illinois College of Medicine
The University of Illinois offers the largest medical school system in the state of Illinois. With campuses in Rockford, Peoria, Chicago and Urbana, students can learn in both rural and urban settings. Students interested in emergency medicine will get immersed in the field at the school's Chicago campus, while Rockford students learn rural medical practice. In Peoria, students can focus on family practice, and in Urbana, they can learn the intricacies of internal medicine. The College of Medicine sees applicants with a mean MCAT score of 30 and an undergraduate GPA of 3.5/4.0. The school warns those numbers are for reference only, and other attributes are considered upon application to the program.
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