Going to college abroad

[csmart526]

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Hi all,
I am going to be senior in high school this fall and intend to eventually go to med school. However, the possibility of going to college overseas, specifically to Trinity College in Dublin was recently brought up by some family friends of mine from Ireland. The school seems great and I've been to Ireland several times and love it there, however I have a few questions as to how an education entirely abroad would look on medical school applications.

First of all, the European grade system is know for being much less inflated than the American system, with students averaging B's and C's as opposed to high B's and A's. Will med schools take this in to account when looking at applications?

Additionally, doing summer research would be difficult since I would likely be without housing in Ireland over the summer and so would hav to come home where I would have no connections with professors. What would be your advice for dealing with this situation?

Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

 

[QrtrLifeCrisis]

From my understanding, many medical schools do not look favorably on non-Canadian international schools, unless it is associated with an American school like some of the satellite campuses. They have a hard evaluating grades abroad so they simply don't do it. However, some schools make exceptions for UK-based schools, so I would do a little research on medical schools you'd like to apply to.

 

[romanjetfighter]

Just go to an American school and study abroad for fun.

 

[boboyahoo]

If I am correct, one of my friends has gone over to this school that is pretty closely modeled after the Canadian med school (which means that it's probably good with US med committees as well). I don't know how that person might be doing but I'm sure it was a struggle. Canadian HSers usually go there and then they come back to do their residency because a) it's faster b) it's cheaper and lastly their system has very few and largely selective med schools that there is no hard and fast guarantee that they might get in within their first 2-3 years after graduation from undergrad given a 3.5 gpa. Yet, they still have to go through the difficult process of clearing for a residency spot in Canada.

Having said this, I would highly rule this option out because in the coming years you do not know how residency matches for IMGs will be like (they are already closing up due to more medical graduates at home). More importantly, you do not know what specialty you want to go into yet and being an IMG could put you at a disadvantage when so many other IMGs might be vying for the same specialty as you (perhaps let's put derm into consideration). There is also no gaurantee that you will be that good with USMLE exams and if your scores aren't good...you don't even want to even think about going out of Ireland. Take baby steps. At most, you are saving just 2 years and that isn't all that much when considering that the extra buffer years could be a present in disguise. If you weren't good in high school, college is a different game and you can definitely do well if you concentrate and choose the right school.

 

[bambi]

Stay in the US. Study abroad for a semester/year. Best of both worlds.