International US citizen applying for Pre-med, HELP PLEASE!!

[Dr.FQ]

Hey everyone. I posted this in the allopathic forum for med students, but I think it fits better here because most of you have gone through this process recently. So I'm going to paste the text here, and then in the next post I want to ask a few questions to clear some things up! I know I'm asking for a lot, but this is an important moment that will determine what I do for the rest of my life so I wanna make sure I get things straight.

"Hey everyone. I hope this is in the right place.

So basically, I was born in the US (so I have a passport and citizenship), but have since lived in the middle east. I just entered Medicine in a university here, and I'm starting the 2nd semester of the 1st year of a 6 year program. Unfortunately, before I applied and stuff, I didn't know of the great disadvantages IMGs have with regards to the match and residency; people used to tell me I'll be golden because I have the citizenship (which didn't turn out to be the case).

Recently, I've been seriously considering starting pre-med in the USA and spending an extra year (since this one would be wasted), and work my ass off, so I can have a lot more options open for me. I've heard that you can't get scholarships if you're a foreigner. But what about me? I mean, since I have a US citizenship and stuff. Does that help? Can I go to Uni for pre-med with a scholarship? I know med school doesn't offer any scholarships, but I was wondering about Pre-med.

Also, I've heard that if I have ~1800 on my SAT, or some other requirements, Pre-med will only be 3 years instead of 4. Needless to say, I've stopped trusting those things that people tell me, and I wanted to know for sure. If it matters at all, in high school I did IGCSE and took the externals. I got 7 A*s and 3 As in O level, and 1 A* and 1 A in A levels. I don't know if that's what they look at.

Also, given that I have a US citizenship but hypothetically was accepted to a Pre-med University program, will my situation hinder me in any way from being accepted into med school, given I do all the right things (GPA, MCAT, research, shadowing, etc)?

Again, sorry if this is in the wrong place or if I didn't give enough info or something, but I wanna make sure I get the facts straight so I can weigh my different options. Thanks!"

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[Dr.FQ]

In this post, I'm gonna ask a few random questions I have on my mind regarding general things.

*when I say area, I mean north vs south vs east vs west vs central

1) Is it true that med school in a particular state will accept MANY more applicants if they graduated from that state? So does that mean I should decide on my pre-med college based on which med school/area I wanna apply to?

2) IN GENERAL, which areas would you say have the highest and lowest living costs?
3) Highest/Lowest competitiveness,
4) Highest/Lowest chance of giving a scholarship
5) Highest/Lowest rate of people getting accepted into med school.
6) Highest/Lowest schools where getting a good (3.4+) GPA is slightly easier than others?

7) Do most students get 100% tuition free scholarships, like I heard?

8) What is the normal living conditions for students there? I mean, do most colleges have dorms where students live or do they rent a place or what?

9) How important/ how much weight is placed in the college I attended when I apply to med school? If they see that my college isn't the best or is basically mid-tier, will that really hurt me?

THANK YOU SO MUCH. I know these will take a long time to get through, but I'm basically freaking out. I'm in med school right now where I'll be a guaranteed MD, but I might go to the US and work my ass off and then get to med school just so I have more options available to me in terms of specialties and residencies!

Anyway, sorry if I ramble too much, but thanks in advance!

 

[allantois]

I hope this will be helpful:

While it is true that IMGs are increasingly at a disadvantage, you are not an IMG but instead an FMG (a mouth full of terminology, I know). This is advantageous in several ways: you are a native speaker of English and you need not to worry how to be in the US legally (which is the biggest hurdle for IMGs).

Things get complicated with in-state tuition for you and I'm not sure how it will work out given that your parents don't reside in the US(?). You might have to move to the US first to establish residency for tuition purposes (and may I suggest Texas). Then, you will need to attend undergrad, take prerequisites, take MCAT, do tons and tons of other hypocritical activities, and then apply to medical schools, attend medical school, find ways to finance this whole process along the way. To get a US MD might very well take 10 years if not more (this year waster, 1 year to establish residency, 4 years of undergrad, 4 years of med school, etc, etc).

So, I'm going to suggest something that many on here will disagree with: stay where you are, get your MD, be the best student you can be and really put an effort to learning keeping in mind that you need to be the best student you can in order to successfully compete in the US later on. You will then have time to study for USMLE, as well as the other test that foreign graduates take, plus do what I believe are visiting rotations in the US before applying for residency here. If you are a brilliant student, you could still match into a good specialty (and there are tons of IMGs and FMGs in all sorts of specialties practicing today). But if you are a good student, there's still a decent chance of matching somewhere. In my opinion coming to the US to go through the whole process here is bigger of a gamble for you due to the lack of support system here, unknown prospects of financing you education, and at the end no guarantee of even matriculating into medical school.

For your second part, and if you do decide do come to the US, for all practical purposes (low cost of living, low tuition, number of medical schools, heavy in-state bias) the answer is Texas.

 

[Dr.FQ]

allenlchs, thank you for the very informative post.

This is an incredibly difficult decision to make. As it is right now, all surgical subspecialties are out of the question for IMGs, even general surgery, unless I'm willing to take preliminary years, which I'm not sure I'm up for. It seems like the only think available for IMGs right now is IM, and the number of IMGs even in IM is declining every single year. By 2020, when I graduate, the numbers will be so low that I will barely be accepted into a bad program, regardless of my application.

If I do have to end up doing IM, I would like to take a fellowship in Cards/GI, but then again those are very competitive and it seems like a bad idea to go into IM for the sole purpose of matching into one of them and then finding out that it isn't feasible, especially because the programs I'll be eligible for as an IMG are ones that are low tier, and therefore have lower matching statistics into those fellowships.

And now with the US state residency situation, it seems that going down that route is even more challenging. This is a mess...

I'm clueless on what I should do! Everywhere I look there are risks, and I'm not sure where to take this!

 

[referee3]

I hope this will be helpful:

While it is true that IMGs are increasingly at a disadvantage, you are not an IMG but instead an FMG (a mouth full of terminology, I know). This is advantageous in several ways: you are a native speaker of English and you need not to worry how to be in the US legally (which is the biggest hurdle for IMGs).

Things get complicated with in-state tuition for you and I'm not sure how it will work out given that your parents don't reside in the US(?). You might have to move to the US first to establish residency for tuition purposes (and may I suggest Texas). Then, you will need to attend undergrad, take prerequisites, take MCAT, do tons and tons of other hypocritical activities, and then apply to medical schools, attend medical school, find ways to finance this whole process along the way. To get a US MD might very well take 10 years if not more (this year waster, 1 year to establish residency, 4 years of undergrad, 4 years of med school, etc, etc).

So, I'm going to suggest something that many on here will disagree with: stay where you are, get your MD, be the best student you can be and really put an effort to learning keeping in mind that you need to be the best student you can in order to successfully compete in the US later on. You will then have time to study for USMLE, as well as the other test that foreign graduates take, plus do what I believe are visiting rotations in the US before applying for residency here. If you are a brilliant student, you could still match into a good specialty (and there are tons of IMGs and FMGs in all sorts of specialties practicing today). But if you are a good student, there's still a decent chance of matching somewhere. In my opinion coming to the US to go through the whole process here is bigger of a gamble for you due to the lack of support system here, unknown prospects of financing you education, and at the end no guarantee of even matriculating into medical school.

For your second part, and if you do decide do come to the US, for all practical purposes (low cost of living, low tuition, number of medical schools, heavy in-state bias) the answer is Texas.

Normally I'm against anyone trying to go to foreign medical school and than trying to match in the US, but in this case I agree with allenlchs. It would just take you so long since you would have to do undergrad and medschool.

One question I have for you though is why don't you just want to stay where you are and practice medicine? It sounds like that would be a lot more straight forward for you.

 

[Dr.FQ]

Well referee, for starters, doctors are becoming more and more unappreciated or well reimbursed (or reimbursed at all) here where I live. It's just logical that someone who works hard and is willing to do what it takes gets a chance to get out there and try his luck in the most fruitful places. My friend's sister is taking a residency in Radiology here, and he tells me she's pretty much the attendings' personal maid, and doesn't get paid nearly as much as she deserves (I'm talking around the equivalent of 400 bucks a month). And even after residency, the salaries are terribly low, and the lifestyle doesn't make up for it either.

Generally, there's not much of a great future for doctors here. Only one or two people from each specialty become "great" and get the breaks that allow them to live the life a hardworking person deserves. The others would probably make more money, sometimes, if they get another job.

The other option I was thinking of was finishing med school here and then getting a residency in Europe, but apparently that isn't much easier either, and things are either bad or salaries barely make up for the living costs.

 

[Catalystik]

1) Recently, I've been seriously considering starting pre-med in the USA and spending an extra year (since this one would be wasted)
2) I've heard that you can't get scholarships if you're a foreigner. But what about me? I mean, since I have a US citizenship and stuff. Does that help? Can I go to Uni for pre-med with a scholarship?
3) I know med school doesn't offer any scholarships,
4) I've heard that if I have ~1800 on my SAT, or some other requirements, Pre-med will only be 3 years instead of 4.
5) Also, given that I have a US citizenship but hypothetically was accepted to a Pre-med University program, will my situation hinder me in any way from being accepted into med school, given I do all the right things (GPA, MCAT, research, shadowing, etc)?

1) It won't be wasted if you get a transcript translation service (like WES) to create an equivalency report on your grade report and if a US school accepts those credits in transfer (with or without grades being included, it could speed your progress toward required graduation credits).

2) US students can't count on significant scholarships, so you shouldn't either.

3) Some med students are given scholarships, based on merit, or representation of a rare demographic, for example.

4) Regardless of SAT score, one can graduate in 3 years with AP credit from HS, advanced placement credits, summer classes, higher than typical course loads.

5) No. Except in that if you don't have state residency anywhere that has lenient med schools, your odds of acceptance might be a bit lower.

Do you have any US relatives or friends of parents who could give you a base of operations?

 

[Dr.FQ]

Hey guys sorry for the extremely late reply. A lot has been going on lately, and I kind of decided to stay here, but then a doctor (MD) friend of my father's talked to me for a while. That doctor lives in Pennsylvania, and I also have another close relative (my dad's uncle) who lives in Omaha. I was wondering if this changes anything? If I decided to go to a uni in Texas, will I still have to pay out-of-state tuition if I say that my place of residence is with either one of those people?

Also, I've read somewhere that I don't have to take a pre-med program to get accepted into med school, but that it helps me become accustomed to the work-load of med students. Is this true? I found it odd.

One last thing, is there really no hope for getting scholarships? I think this is the main obstacle for me right now. I know that when I start med school (if i get accepted) I'll take student loans, but I've always thought that most people study for a very small tuition, if any, before they go into med school.

 

[Catalystik]

To qualify for in-state tuition, you'd have to live and work in Texas for one year for non-academic purposes (ie, work full time while not attending school) before applying to schools there. Or you could buy property there and qualify sooner. You could google this for the exact details.

You can major in anything you like in college so long as you fit in the typical prerequisites for med school, which are the classes you'd need to do well on the MCAT.

If you want free tuition, check out the requirements for qualification in Malta.

 

[MU420]

I would do undergrad in the US if I were you OP. People are saying that it's going to take a long time, but then you're just out of high school (it's a combined 6 year program, correct?), which is quite young. I don't really think you'll be any older than an average US student taking a traditional route to medical school.

*when I say area, I mean north vs south vs east vs west vs central

1) Is it true that med school in a particular state will accept MANY more applicants if they graduated from that state? So does that mean I should decide on my pre-med college based on which med school/area I wanna apply to?

First part is correct, but you shouldn't decide your undergrad just based on that.

2) IN GENERAL, which areas would you say have the highest and lowest living costs?

Bigger cities generally have higher cost of living. Both coasts (West and East) are typically more expensive to live in compared to Midwest (Central) and South.

3) Highest/Lowest competitiveness,

Really depends on individual schools. Are you talking about undergrad or medical school here?

4) Highest/Lowest chance of giving a scholarship

Once again, depends greatly on your state of residency, your application, individual schools, etc.

5) Highest/Lowest rate of people getting accepted into med school.

I unfortunately don't have statistics for this. You might be able to find it somewhere. I doubt there's a data that is grouped based on east vs west vs central vs north.

6) Highest/Lowest schools where getting a good (3.4+) GPA is slightly easier than others?

What do you mean by this? Are you asking for schools with most grade deflation and schools with most grade inflation?

7) Do most students get 100% tuition free scholarships, like I heard?

Not at all. I don't know who told you this, but that sounds like something all American medical students would dream of.

8) What is the normal living conditions for students there? I mean, do most colleges have dorms where students live or do they rent a place or what?

Very different depending on which school you end up at. I do believe most of them do have dorms, which can be more expensive or cheaper than living off campus depending on which school it is. Some schools offer nice, spacious rooms while some others pack students into tiny rooms like sardines. It is generally not difficult for the students to find an apartment to rent around the school campuses.

9) How important/ how much weight is placed in the college I attended when I apply to med school? If they see that my college isn't the best or is basically mid-tier, will that really hurt me?

It helps, but it's not hugely important. Going to a "mid-tier" university will not hurt you if you do well in your courses, which you'll also have to do even if you went to the "best" university.