International Student Seeking Help

[kelpy]

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[yipeee]

I have never met anyone to get admitted to a US medical school that was not a US resident or citizen. Although I have met many that tried.

 

[Apollyon]

Private schools are much more likely than public medical schools to take non-US/nonresident students. Many state schools are restricted by law to US Citizens and permanent residents. However, if you are non-resident and non-citizen (even at a private school), you may have to pay your tuition up-front, or put the money in an account.

The best way to get in, is you have to be better than what is here. As good the grades as you can get (like, aim for 4.0), a great MCAT, and GREAT recommendations - these are all things US students do, but you need to do it better. For MD/PhD, research would help, but I'm not the expert on MD/PhD.

For each school, you'll have to check their website or contact them to see if you're eligible.

 

[stinky]

Also, you should have chosen mcgill over uchicago. sorry dude.

 

[ayo79]

I'm an international student and did get into medical school. The challenge for me is naturally paying for it. Aim to get a really good GPA, get experiences in the hospital as a volunteer and naturally as someone mentioned up there, great recommendation letters are a plus. You have to do your best to stand out as you are competing with the citizens.

Do your research early to check out various med schools online and see what their requirements are and if they accept international students without a green card. They might require you to have either a co-signer or if you've had excellent credit for three years and above, Access Group can give you that loan to attend school. I only know of one international student who managed to get a loan that way without a co-signer.

Good Luck to you!!!

 

[virtualrain]

MD/PhD students are normally supported with a monthly stipend and the tuition is covered by the school during their 7 year program but u have to be motivated to do research.

 

[Renovar]

Originally posted by kelpy
Hi! I'm an international student from Turkey (student visa, no green card) and I'm going to be a freshman at University of Chicago next year. I also desperately want to go to a medical school in the U.S. or get an MD/PHD but I don't know if I'll be able to get into one and pay for one. Are there any international students who went through this hard process like me? Could those students answer these questions for me? For example when and where did you apply, what was your GPA and major, which college did you attend, what was your MCAT score, how were your ECs, volunteering and research experiences? Also, how were you able to pay for a medical education? Did you take any loans or were you offered partial grants? Also would it be wiser to get a master's degree or phd before applying to medical schools? (it would also help me make some money) Is it possible to work while attending medical school? What about schools in Australia and Ireland or Canada? (I was accepted for McGill undergrad but chose to go to Uchicago instead) Would they be cheaper and easier to get into? I heard that some Australian schools actually offer some half-tuition scholarships for intl students. I know that it is too early to be thinking about med schools now but it never hurts to star early. I also have a question about choosing majors, would a double major in computer science and biology look better than a singe major in biology when applying to med schools? I'm also thinking of diving straight into the ecs, volunteering and jobs as soon as I start college. Does anyone have any insight to which activities I can do to look impressive for med school. Basically any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you...

Yes I was in your shoes 7 years ago. I was a foreign student holding student visa, attended an Ivy for college and end up at a pretty good medical school. Every year there are thousands of foreigners who try to apply to the US medical schools, but only approximately 100 fortunate individuals were able to attend. (My research 7 years ago worked out to about 8% acceptance rate from the data available.) I only went for the MD degree but I am quite familiar with the MD/PhD (MSTP) as well. First of all, i must say, if you are accepted at MSTP which is very difficult for foreigners as it is a government-funded program, you dont have to pay tuition, otherwise if you are just going for MD part you will get ZERO financial aid and ZERO loans, except for a handful of schools (I believe Northwestern is one of them, but check on that). Some schools will even tell you to put in all 4 years of tuition money in an escrew account before they will issue you acceptance and visa.

Secondly, it will be reasonably hard as a student visa foreigner to get accepted to a US med school, as unlike other American students (except Californians whose state school is very hard to get in), we dont have a safety net state school to apply to, and have to apply to a lot of private schools and hope one will overlook your foreign status and take you. That will be offset somewhat by you attending an American college but still that FR (foreign) will appear on your AMCAS application. Again, money is a big consideration too as most of these schools will make you pay every penny of their mass tuition out of your pocket.

Thirdly, wrong college!!! University of Chicago is a hard premed school, it is really hard to jack up your GPAs there. It is a good college for intellectual pursuit and rigorous training, but not a good place to inflate your GPAs and stuff. Forget about 4.0 or anywhere close to it, especially considering a 3.5 from that school is considered top 5% of their extremely capable class. This may be crushing because many of the best schools are very number-oriented and although U of C's difficult reputation is well know, it is difficult for them to accept a 3.5 GPA considering there are a boatload of otherwise similar applicants from Princeton or Stanford with 3.9 waiting in line, even though in reality a 3.5 from U of C maybe the superior student. Operating from this kind of numerical disadvantage can screw you up royally because you are already disadvantaged as a foreigner. Nothing you can do about it now, just study as hard as you can, do as well as you can, and pray that MCAT will be your savior in the number crunching game of chance.

Dont even think about Canadian schools. Most will reject you outright because of your nationality. Even the few Canadian schools that do accept foreigners accept Americans. I am not sure on Australian schools though.

It's not too early to look into these kind of details, and considering your disadvantage as a foreigner, you should start your preparation as soon as you step on campus. If you have any questions, feel free to PM me.

 

[coastal]

Another reason to forget Canadian schools is that they're harder to get into than American schools. McGill does have a number of spots every year for foreigners, and I would guess that the University of Toronto might allow a few internationals in a year. The rest of the Ontario schools I would say probably no foreigners, and outside of Ontario and McGill I would bet on no international students. <edit> just read another post which said that McMaster also takes international students.

 

[Thewonderer]

If you were so concerned about money, you should have gone to McGill for undergrad.

McGill med not only accepts quite a few Americans, it also appears to accept a couple internationals (i.e. non-Canadian, non-American) every year. You can also consider Memorial in Newfoundland later. Those are cheaper alternatives for med school later on.

 

[kelpy]

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[grouptherapy]

u of c undergrad is hard as hell. keep your head in the books and don't screw around.

 

[kelpy]

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[grouptherapy]

Yes, you probably should have chosen the mickey mouse school, but it's too late now. Chicago can be an awesome place to go to school if you take advantage of what it has to offer, namely student science research opportunities, humanities, paleontology, economics and writing courses. For your premed studies, I would suggest you take the mid level or lower level courses to ensure that you have a shot an A grade. Counselors and your pride might try to sucker you into taking a class like Honors Calculus, but don't do it. An A in a mid level course looks better than a B on an upper level course. The only med school that might know and wonder why you are taking "slacker" courses is Pritzker, but other schools just want to see an A grade in a subject no matter the purported level of difficulty. Another obstacle that you will find is 99% of the exams are written, ie short answer or essay instead of multiple choice. Your way of thinking will be an impediment in taking standardized tests like the MCAT.

Another thing, make your connections to the Health Professions Office and Sylvia Robertson of Pritzker NOW. Pritzker gives a fairly large number of spots to second years (direct entry). For those lucky individuals, it's easy street so it behooves you to have perfect grades and extracurricular activities in the first 1.5 years. Since they might pull your scholarship if your grades dip, I firmly believe that you'll do well at Chicago. Just keep the GPA above 3.65 and the world is your oyster.

 

[kelpy]

Groundtherapy, thanks for the advice. The direct-entry program sounds like a great way to ensure admission to the Pritzker medical school. But isn't it extremely competitive to get in? I heard that nearly 1/3 of freshmen come to Chicago as pre-meds, so the competition must be extremely rigorous with so many people and so few spaces. What does it take to get into this program, do they look at only your grades or are ecs and research experiences important too? Also, do they provide financial aid for med school to direct entry applicants?

I'm assuming that you are a graduate of the University of chicago. If I'm right, would you recommend me to take honors chem before starting o-chem? (I got a 5 on the AP chem exam, so I have credit for general chem.) Or, should I go straight on to o-chem?

 

[grouptherapy]

thanks for butchering my nick.

i say use the first year to take general bio or general physics.
o-chem is the weedout class and it's full of gunners so you won't be able to handle it as a first year. yes a lot of students start out as premeds, but after a few B's and C's, many turn away from the medicine path. Competition for direct entry is quirky; grades may get you an interview, but if Sylvia and your HP advisor don't like you, you're not going to get in no matter what your gpa and ecs are. Dunno anything about financial aid. Research and hospital experience are always important. get hooked up with volunteer services at Bernard Mitchell right away. you'll probably dishwash at a lab before you get to do any experiments, but that's the hierarchy.

O-chem is the class in which most students get C's and D's in. If you get an A in that class, everything except P-chem and Statistics will be "easy." I don't know how you are going to handle it if you don't take an appreciably difficult class like u of c gen chem, but i wouldn't recommend taking honors gen chem either since there's a good chance you'll end up with a B or worse.

One more warning-there are some cutthroat mofos in that O-chem
class. I remember a morning where a friend and I spent the night cramming for an o-chem midterm and rushing down the dorm stairs to our bikes to find that our tires had been slashed. We had to run 4 blocks.

Best of luck. Welcome to the University of limited grade-inflation.
And you didn't choose Darthmouth? Tsk Tsk
🙁

 

[kelpy]

Sorry for misspelling your nick....

I'll definitely avoid taking o-chem my first year since it's extremely cut-throat, as you stated. I'll probably take calc, ap 5 biology sequence, the humanity sequence and elementary German my first year. I already contacted one of the professors about an ongoing research project and he said that I would be welcome in his lab as a volunteer research assistant. I'll also contact the hospital and UCSC straight away when I arrive on campus. Thanks again for the valuable feedback you've provided!