Any international MSTP applicants out there?

[sternum17]

---

Members do not see this ad.

Are you guys having as much trouble as I am getting spots? This NIH grant is great for all you Americans, but a curse for Canadians (and people of other non-American origins)!

 

[Jorje286]

I am international, but I didn't apply for this cycle. I'll be applying for the next one.

Which schools did you apply to? A few of them state that they treat foreign applicants and domestic applicants equally.

 

[Ariodant]

Depends on your visa status. If you have PR, you will be treated like a citizen; if you hold a student visa, things will be more complicated. UCs don't accept non-citizen/PRs for MSTP, and I'm sure many others have similar policies. But many private schools on the east coast don't seem to care, along with Texan schools. Non-NIH-funded MD/PhD programs don't discriminate against Canadians either. It might be a good idea to check with each school before applying.

 

[sternum17]

I'm very much not a permanent resident or citizen or anything. I applied mostly in the East (some midwest). Schools often say they accept international students, but it turns out they only have one or two spots. It's a little frustrating because the Canadian MD-PhD programs, with the exception of one or two, are not as good as the American ones, so our options are extremely limited.

 

[Jorje286]

Sternum, do you mind posting your stats (GPA, research..etc)? I'm still having second thoughts about applying cause I don't want to waste so much time, money and energy on something I might not have a chance of geting in, anyway. If you mind sharing them in public, you can PM them to me.

Just for the record, both AECOM and WUSTL mention that they treat foreign applicants equally with US citizens. I don't know if it's just talk on their websites or whether this is truly the case..

 

[MNIkid87]

Hey,

I am an international student (German) who will be applying to MD PhD programs next year. Regarding Canadian MD-PhD programs: McGill and UofT should be pretty much at least up to par education-wise to any US program, although this may be a little bit of a bias on my side (McGill undergrad student) 😉
The only issue I see with the McGill program in particular is the lack of funding. I talked to the MDPhD director here and she said that you will have at least a little bit of funding for the PhD years guaranteed. The med school years...depend on whether you are competitive enough to get one of these few merit based full ride scholarships ..

 

[sternum17]

The medical schools at Toronto and McGill are, I would say, just as good as pretty much any American school (excepting maybe a few). But the actual MD-PhD programs in Canada, especially at McGill, are not nearly as well-developed as the Americans. Also, the research at Canadian schools (except maybe U of T) just doesn't compare to the major American research universities. At McGill, we do have our Sonenbergs and our Gros's, but really, there are far more labs of this quality at many American schools. There's just plain more money. These are the consequences we face for choosing public-only education.

Also, I might add that as an Ontarian, it's very tough to get into McGill's MD-PhD program anyway, since the medical school only takes 5-7 total out-of-province Canadians.

 

[Brunette1981]

Generally private schools do accept international applicants (my class year has 1/16 student visa international and another Canadian who's been here since elementary school so a different situation) but it is harder because the money comes from the school directly. Not all programs are well-funded enough to be able to support many international students.

So, yeah, it's difficult but you can get a slot... you just have to be a much better applicant than a US citizen to do so. Both our Canadians are phenomenal students so that no doubt helped...

 

[MNIkid87]

At McGill, we do have our Sonenbergs and our Gros's, but really, there are far more labs of this quality at many American schools

I agree that at McGill not every department is equipped with all of the big stars in their respective fields. However, this is extremely department-dependent. For example the Psychology department at McGill (as an example) is really really strong (Petrides, Melzack, Levitin, Milner, Nader etc.). So yeah, the average research quality may not be as good as for example at the big Ivies or Stanford, but I think we have quite a few departments (e.g. Psych and Chem) who are fairly strong and definitely don't need to be afraid of the comparison to US schools.

I agree with you that the MD-PhD program itself may not be up to par yet, it's pretty young (as far as I know) and not as well developed (as you can probably already guess from the whole funding issue).
However, I think the quality of research that you are able to do here is definitely not bad 😉

 

[kpark5]

A short reply to give encouragements to all those international students out there, aspiring to be an MD/PhD.

I've heard many many times it is lot tougher for international students to get into MD programs and even more so for MD/PhD programs. First of all there are only 17 or so MSTP program that will consider international students, and even among those schools, some prefer U.S. students over international students.

I am an international student, but went to high school and college in the States. I applied to about.. 17 schools, got interviews from 4 including WashU, and got into one, (one of my two top choice schools). So I feel like if you are really passionate about doing research and going into medicine, and put time and effort into doing undergraduate research and show commitment, you WILL get in somewhere. My GPA and MCAT weren't at the top, but I did research for almost 3 years with independent project for about 2 years, and have a third author paper. Numbers are not always everything!! Good luck!

 

[kpark5]

I am also an international student (China), and plan to apply next year. How much clinical exposure is necessary for MD/PhD candidates? kpark5, thanks for the encouragement, can you also share with us the list of schools that accept internationals?

Oops, sorry haven't checked this for a while.

I had really minimal clinical exposure. I worked as nurses assistant in a nursing unit for one summer (2months), which was a great since I got to see different side of patient care. But, lack of clinical experience wasn't brought up during interviews, except one time at Emory. My interviewer wanted to know why I was interested in MD, because my CV showed lots and lots of research stuff, but basically no clinical. As far as I know though, for MD/PhD applicant, research is the most important criteria? (am I right?)

And for schools that accepts international students..... as far as I remember, (I might leave out some!!)
.

Emory SOM
Wash U
Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC)
Baylor
Albert Einstein
UPenn
Cornell
Columbia
Northwestern
Mayo
University of Minnesota
Duke
Harvard (I think 1 presidential scholarship or something like that)
U of Chicago
Vanderbilt
UVA
UCSF

I heard though, some schools they say that they consider international students, but not really. I think Mayo tend to be not so kind to international students? And state schools probably give less priority to international students as well.

Good luck!

 

[Fay]

Oops, sorry haven't checked this for a while.

I had really minimal clinical exposure. I worked as nurses assistant in a nursing unit for one summer (2months), which was a great since I got to see different side of patient care. But, lack of clinical experience wasn't brought up during interviews, except one time at Emory. My interviewer wanted to know why I was interested in MD, because my CV showed lots and lots of research stuff, but basically no clinical. As far as I know though, for MD/PhD applicant, research is the most important criteria? (am I right?)

And for schools that accepts international students..... as far as I remember, (I might leave out some!!)
.

Emory SOM
Wash U
Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC)
Baylor
Albert Einstein (I heard that all MD/PhD students at AECOM pay their first two year MD tuition, but I'm not sure.)
UPenn (higher bar for int'l students)
Cornell
Columbia
Northwestern (2 spots this year)
Mayo
University of Minnesota
Duke
Harvard (I think 1 presidential scholarship or something like that)
U of Chicago
Vanderbilt
UVA
UCSF
Dartmonth
U of Vermont (Their MD/PhD program is very new and not funded by NIH.)
UT southwestern (2-3 spots each year?)


I heard though, some schools they say that they consider international students, but not really. I think Mayo tend to be not so kind to international students? And state schools probably give less priority to international students as well.

Good luck!

Mayo has very low acceptance rate (2.4% or something like that). I'm not sure if Mayo tend to be not kind to int'l students, but it's definitely hard to get in.

I think it's useful to look at the MSAR and see how many int'l got interviewed and accepted to each school that claim to accept int'l students. If the schools interviewed very low percentage of their int'l applicants, it means they have much higher criteria for int'l students.