During second year, students learn everything all over again in the context of disease. In June of the second year comes the nadir of med school, the Boards Part I exam. Third-year students rank low on the totem pole of the medical team, but most students have rewarding experiences interacting with patients. By the completion of core rotations, which can be done at the Valley Medical Center in Fresno as well as at San Francisco sites, students decide which field of medicine to enter. Fourth-year students coast, since the curriculum consists primarily of electives, some of which may be taken at other medical schools across the country.
Residencies take an average of three to four years to complete in most specialties.
This applies to students in all programs. The mean age for entering medical students here is 24, with a range of 18-40. Last year, the top feeder schools to the medical school were Berkeley, Stanford, and Harvard. While other UC medical schools are experiencing devastating drops in minority student enrollment since Proposition 209 eliminated affirmative action, UCSF is tenuously holding its own. This year's entering class has 12 African Americans and 14 Mexican Americans, compared to last year's 11 and 14, respectively.