Foreign degree as an US citizen. How does it all work?

[Alistar Overjam]

Hey there people, this is my first thread but I've been wondering about the whole process of going to medical school if you've done your bachelors degree in another country.

I'm 24 years old and live in Sacramento and I've been wondering about what exactly my options are. I do know that I need the prerequisites and that there are several ways of getting these. It's my understanding that you can either:
1) go to a community college and get them that way, which takes two years?
2) do a post bac which is also two years?
3) do another bachelor but in the US this time which would take four years.

Now I'm not sure if I got all of that right, but I've also been wondering what I should do about my foreign degree, do I send it over to WES to get it transcribed and then send it over to whatever college/university I'm doing either of the above mentioned options at? Do I just start looking into near my area and just see what they require, I'm honestly quite unfamiliar with how it all works, so some clarity would be really appreciated.

Sorry if this doesn't belong in this thread

Thanks in advance.

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[pinutzz]

Hello Alistar,

I am in a similar situation as you: I am a US citizen now, but all of my education was done abroad including my BSc before I immigrated to the States. I decided to do a DIY postbacc at a 4-year school in the US that covered all of the prereqs I still needed and also got a report from WES to show the equivalency of my foreign education.

You will be very limited in the number and kinds of schools you can apply to here with your foreign degree, which means mostly research-heavy private schools. I got an MSAR subscription, which was invaluable, and checked the website for EVERY medical school in the US (I applied MD only) to find out at which schools I am eligible to apply without needing a US bachelor's degree and/or 90 credit hours of prereqs from the US. Many schools are vague on their website or the information may be buried somewhere in the FAQs. Sometimes MSAR and the school website would even have contradicting information. I did not contact all schools to clarify, since many schools are terrible at getting back to you. I only contacted admissions of schools in my region to confirm and of those, most said no. For some schools, the criteria changed from one year to the next, so I would recommend you check the schools again when you are actually ready to apply.

I am in the application process right now and when I applied I had ~30-45 credit hours of prereqs from the US. Luckily I did well overall (LM 78), which helps tremendously considering that the kinds of schools you can apply to are typically highly ranked, which means you have to be a strong candidate. I am in the process of interviewing, so hopefully I will get in somewhere this season. I applied to ~20 schools out of ~30 that would let me apply.

So ultimately: Yes, a (DIY) postbacc is enough for some schools, but it is going to be an uphill battle and you will be limited in your choices. I was not prepared to do a master's degree in the US, but I think that would be another possible option for you. I hope that helps and good luck on your journey.

 

[willowedacorn]

Hello Alistar,

I am in a similar situation as you: I am a US citizen now, but all of my education was done abroad including my BSc before I immigrated to the States. I decided to do a DIY postbacc at a 4-year school in the US that covered all of the prereqs I still needed and also got a report from WES to show the equivalency of my foreign education.

You will be very limited in the number and kinds of schools you can apply to here with your foreign degree, which means mostly research-heavy private schools. I got an MSAR subscription, which was invaluable, and checked the website for EVERY medical school in the US (I applied MD only) to find out at which schools I am eligible to apply without needing a US bachelor's degree and/or 90 credit hours of prereqs from the US. Many schools are vague on their website or the information may be buried somewhere in the FAQs. Sometimes MSAR and the school website would even have contradicting information. I did not contact all schools to clarify, since many schools are terrible at getting back to you. I only contacted admissions of schools in my region to confirm and of those, most said no. For some schools, the criteria changed from one year to the next, so I would recommend you check the schools again when you are actually ready to apply.

I am in the application process right now and when I applied I had ~30-45 credit hours of prereqs from the US. Luckily I did well overall (LM 78), which helps tremendously considering that the kinds of schools you can apply to are typically highly ranked, which means you have to be a strong candidate. I am in the process of interviewing, so hopefully I will get in somewhere this season. I applied to ~20 schools out of ~30 that would let me apply.

So ultimately: Yes, a (DIY) postbacc is enough for some schools, but it is going to be an uphill battle and you will be limited in your choices. I was not prepared to do a master's degree in the US, but I think that would be another possible option for you. I hope that helps and good luck on your journey.

Hey what was your WES gpa? Did schools care more about your Postbaccalaureate or Foreign grades? Are there any schools that didn’t ask for your foreign grades at all?

 

[pinutzz]

Hello willowedacorn,
I don't think the schools cared about my foreign grades because they were from sooooo long ago. The postbacc grades from the US were important though. I entered the results from my WES eval into the AMCAS application, so all schools I applied to had access to them. You don't have to do that and it is optional, but I had nothing to hide. My WES GPA was ~3.7.