University Jagiellonski/ Jagiellonian

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biscuitbitty

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Does anyone have any insight into the difficulty of getting into a residency program in the US/Canada after attending there?
Ive read a couple of different forums who said that the program there is weak compared to the polish speaking program and that english students are basically laughed at because everything is dumbed down for them.

I am a non traditional applicant, Ive been working in the environmental health/occupational health (OSHA stuff not medical) field for about 4 years, I am a volunteer firefighter and my BS GPA is a 3.0. I took my pre reqs like 6 years ago and I dont expect my mcat grade to be stellar. My mother immigrated from Poland when she was 24 from a small farming village near Bialystok. I speak Polish, but not fluently.

Im interested in studying in Poland to learn more about my heritage, the low cost of tuition (I want to volunteer abroad after residency) and quite frankly, Im not sure I would get into a decent US/Canada school.

I am concerned about the quality of the program, I dont want to waste my time at a school where Im not going to learn anything and wont get matched anywhere. Is it better to apply to low tier medical schools in the US than a good medical school in eastern europe?

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Does anyone have any insight into the difficulty of getting into a residency program in the US/Canada after attending there?
Ive read a couple of different forums who said that the program there is weak compared to the polish speaking program and that english students are basically laughed at because everything is dumbed down for them.

I am a non traditional applicant, Ive been working in the environmental health/occupational health (OSHA stuff not medical) field for about 4 years, I am a volunteer firefighter and my BS GPA is a 3.0. I took my pre reqs like 6 years ago and I dont expect my mcat grade to be stellar. My mother immigrated from Poland when she was 24 from a small farming village near Bialystok. I speak Polish, but not fluently.

Im interested in studying in Poland to learn more about my heritage, the low cost of tuition (I want to volunteer abroad after residency) and quite frankly, Im not sure I would get into a decent US/Canada school.

I am concerned about the quality of the program, I dont want to waste my time at a school where Im not going to learn anything and wont get matched anywhere. Is it better to apply to low tier medical schools in the US than a good medical school in eastern europe?

Definitely. I'll be straight up honest with you any medical school in the US, MD or DO is better than any medical school in Eastern Europe.

Jagiellonian is a great school, if you are from Poland because clearly they take only the best in their country. However, if you go to Jagiellonian, there won't be the same respect for you just because people know that Jagiellonian is a lot easier for foreigners than for their domestic students. The good thing is that perhaps some PDs won't know this is the case. If Harvard took people with 3.0 GPAs, the very next day the Harvard name won't mean anything on a job app. The whole prestige thing its all based on the quality of students, not on teaching or anything.

In my opinion, I don't think you have much of a shot in the US for MD schools, you might have a shot for DO schools if your MCAT is decent maybe 28 or 29+ although i'm not too sure on that.

If you go to Jagiellonian you can still do well, people still match for sure. Your chances of matching will be lower than if you went to a DO school but if you work really hard and bust your ass you can still get a residency in the US without a doubt. You also have slightly more "reason" to go to Poland considering you are of Polish descent. Saying you decided to go to Poland for medical school to discover your roots in a residency interview sounds better than to say I went there because I couldn't get in here.

If you can get EU citizenship it'll help you a lot because you may be able to get a job in Europe after graduation as a backup.
 
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Matching is going to be really tight in the coming years, and Poland doesn't exactly have the greatest of US match rates as a whole (though I hear Jag students tend to get spots in Europe if they can't land them in the US). I wouldn't risk it.
 
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