Has anyone applied to medical schools in Australia? If so, how is the application and interview process different from US schools?
medical schools in Australia
- Thread starter Monica D
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Here's the forum where you will find threads about Australian schools. Australasia and Oceania
There's also UQ/Ochsner in which you complete the first 2 years in Queensland and the clinical years in New Orleans, but your degree will be deemed a foreign medical degree at the end.
There's also UQ/Ochsner in which you complete the first 2 years in Queensland and the clinical years in New Orleans, but your degree will be deemed a foreign medical degree at the end.
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For the most part, Australian schools evaluate you on your GPA and MCAT only, with the exception of a few portfolio schools they do not care about anything else including extracurriculars or personal statement. If you meet their requirements, they will offer you an interview, and if you interview well you can generally be admitted. If you have a good MCAT, it is not difficult to get admitted to most Australian schools.
Why Australia though, what's your goal with this? If your primary goal is to come back to the US then Australia wouldn't be the best first choice. I'm a current student in the UQ-Ochsner program that wysdoc mentioned and also was accepted to several Australian schools. Happy to answer any specific questions you have.
Why Australia though, what's your goal with this? If your primary goal is to come back to the US then Australia wouldn't be the best first choice. I'm a current student in the UQ-Ochsner program that wysdoc mentioned and also was accepted to several Australian schools. Happy to answer any specific questions you have.
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I applied from North America. I'm now a consultant in Australia and a senior lecturer (like an associate professor) at one of medical schools here.
The application process is very different in the sense that it's criteria driven. If you meet the criteria, you will be offered a standardized interview. The criteria are oriented toward rankings based on GPA, MCAT, and then interview performance.
It's also easier to get into medical school and much harder to complete fellowship. For example, the emergency medicine fellowship exam has had a pass rate as low as 38%.
Overall, I think the training is more humane, and I'm so glad I trained here. It was one of the best decisions of my life.
Would you please clarify on the part "If your primary goal is to come back to the US then Australia wouldn't be the best first choice"? I'm trying to search for more infos for my son before we make a huge life changing decision to send him to Australia. We would love him to come back to Canada or US where it's close to home.
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Yeah sure! If he's a US citizen or green card holder, UQ-Ochsner is definitely the best option for returning to North America. If he's Canadian, UQ is probably one of the better schools for making it back to Canada or the US given the size of the Canadian cohort, so there's a lot of support. But it's still difficult, and going to an Australian school, you have to be aware that the only option available to you may be to remain in Australia (outside of UQ-Ochsner), at least for training.
UQ posts their international cohort outcomes here. You can see the Canadian match outcomes, and you can also see that nearly all but not all Canadians choose to remain in Australia for internship. International graduate employment outcomes - Medical School - University of Queensland
If he's considering other schools, I would strongly recommend reaching out to them and asking them to put you all in contact with a recent graduate who matched in the US or Canada. There tends to be less support for going off the beaten path at other schools, and he will need to navigate a lot by himself. It will help a lot to talk to someone who's gone through the process and tell you about what needs to be done.
