Advice for International Student Wishing to Do MD/PhD

[Sammylicious]

Hi;

I am a Biomedical Engineering Graduate and was hoping to apply to the MD/PhD program.Kindly can anybody inform me on how bright chances are for an international student to get into MD/PhD program with a full funding .I would also appreciate if i get a list of universities who discriminate less in U.S or International students while the whole admission process.

Thank you

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[Ombret]

Your chances are unfortunately modest at best. The MSTP programs are built around NIH funding that is designated for U.S. citizens and permanent residents. This is not discrimination; American taxpayers are funding this. All MSTPs, and by definition all non-MSTP MD/PhD programs, pour some of their own institutional funds into the programs, so you do see occasional international students, all Canadian in my experience. From being peripherally involved in this stuff as an MD/PhD student I got the feeling that it just wasn't worth the hassle for the university. But ask around; start with the largest programs where the funding situation is bound to be more fluid; you may even find this information on some of their websites.

 

[echod]

Hi;

I am a Biomedical Engineering Graduate and was hoping to apply to the MD/PhD program.Kindly can anybody inform me on how bright chances are for an international student to get into MD/PhD program with a full funding .I would also appreciate if i get a list of universities who discriminate less in U.S or International students while the whole admission process.

Thank you

Percentage wise, there's a higher proportion of international students in MD/PhD programs than straight MD programs. I was surprised to see this data when I saw it, but it's true.

MD/PhD International students=19 out of 611

https://www.aamc.org/download/161874/data/table34-mdphd-raceeth-state-2010.pdf.pdf

MD international students = 1309 out of 79070

https://www.aamc.org/download/160146/data/table31-new-enrll-raceeth-sch-2010-web.pdf.pdf

My guess is that MD/PhD programs are more receptive than straight MD programs in admitting international students.

 

[StIGMA]

You can't use data from one year of MD/PhD admissions and draw reliable conclusions. An international student is at a significant disadvantage compared to US citizens in MD/PhD admissions, especially if they did not do undergrad in the states. If the student is as competitive as a typical US applicant, then it is reasonable to go ahead and apply- but it would be very prudent to have a backup plan. A lot of the programs that accept international students are among the more competitive programs (eg; top 20), but some programs do and some dont. It is something you will need to figure out yourself. Even if we told you which programs did accept students, and I could only tell you of a handful that I know off the top of my head, you would still need to do the research yourself. Other threads on this topic are years old, so get to work!

 

[pswannabe]

My son was admitted to Mayo MSTP and Northwestern MSTP as an international student with full funding. However he had a masters degree in applied mathematics from JHu and 4 yrs of research in the same lab in JHu.
If you have obtained your UG degree from the US and completed all pre-med requirements in a US university, and have significant research experience, it is definitely possible to get into a MSTP. but as others have mentioned, better to have a back up plan also, because this is a competitive process for all applicants, regardless of citizenship.
Med schools which accept int'l students are NW, Emory, WashU, Vanderbilt, UTSW, Baylor, and Mayo.

 

[Neuronix]

MD/PhD admissions typically require English fluency, which is not demonstrated in the op's post.

Also, I think it bears repeating that almost all such students performed their undergrad studies in America or a closely related country such as Canada.

I hope the op can give us more information about the particulars of their situation. Based on their writing, I don't think this is someone who meets the first two criteria.

 

[mynameistoolong]

The numbers are correct, but I think it has more to do with the fact that top schools are more receptive to international students AND have larger MSTP programs, rather than MD/PhD programs being more receptive to internationals. Furthermore, lower-ranked schools that don't take internationals, have small/no MD/PhD programs, and have large class sizes skew the statistics to produce such an impression. So I don't think it's true that MD/PhD programs are more receptive to internationals.

It is true that MD/PhD programs will help with the funding situation (since you are not required to put 4 years of tuition into an escrow, like many MD programs require), since you cannot take out private loans in the U.S. without a U.S. citizen cosigner, which is not an option for most (non-Canadian) internationals. But going through an MD/PhD program when you don't have a passion for science is difficult and in the long run a poor financial decision (of course, if you can't afford straight MD because loans are unavailable to you it is a different situation).