Medical school in Australia or Dentistry in America?

[hakuna_matata73]

A bit about myself. I graduated in May 2015 from a college in the U.S. as an international student. I wanted to do medicine but at the same time have been told numerous times how hard it is for international students to get in. Hence I got discouraged and slacked off during junior and senior year and had a bad downward trend in GPA in senior year (which I really regret). I eventually finished all the premed requirement with an overall GPA of 3.60, but my sGPA is probably somewhere around 3.3. I have really weak EC and clinical experiences.

I wasn't aware of the option of going to Australia until I graduated and hence decided to sit for the MCAT and give it a try. I got 511 (no section below 125) and also signed up for DAT just because I considered dentistry as a backup for medicine. Two days before I wrote the DAT I got admitted to UQ(not UQ-Os), but since I couldn't get a refund with such a late cancellation, I sat for the DAT anyway and surprisingly got a 24AA (TS24, RC25, PAT21, QR24). It's a really high score that I don't want to waste, but at the same time I know I might not be going into dentistry with the right mindset (backup for medicine) and I still have a lot to make up for (EC and shadowing, possibly a postbac to bring up sGPA as well, recommendation letters from professors that I didn't interact much with..) if I want to apply to dental school in the States. My visa expires in two weeks so I'm leaving the country soon. If I were to start over and switch to dent I need to apply for another visa and get things done before my DAT score expires.

I am hoping to complete my residency in the U.S./Canada but am also completely okay with staying in Australia or even going to Singapore. I'm not a green card holder or Canadian citizen so I'm going to considered foreign in any of these countries.

Can someone please share with me your thoughts on this? I would greatly appreciate it!

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[drvfedorov]

If you really want to become a physician, then shoot for doing just that. Although you got a competitive score on the DAT that doesn't mean you will enjoy dentistry.

That being said, your GPA and MCAT are competitive for DO schools, so I would apply for that this cycle. Alternatively to be even more competitive, you could re-take the classes you did poorly in, raise your sGPA, work on your ECs and then be extremely competitive for the next cycle. But in all honesty you shouldn't consider Australia with those stats. Check out the pre-DO section, lots of helpful advice on there.