"Previous Matriculation" - a red flag?

[med18]

Hi, I am a first year medical student outside of US.

I have started preparing for my AMCAS application, hoping to get into some top-notch medical schools in the US in the 2014 application cycle. I think that while my current medical school will teach me medicine well, it is not a "world class" school that I dreamt of attending.

On the AMCAS application instructions PDF, I noticed that there is a section where I have to explain "previous matriculation" at any med school in the world.

Do you think the fact that I'm already attending a med school would be considered a "red flag" when applying to US schools?

I received a 4.0 GPA at a state university and was the top of the class. I have decent EC's with two middle author publications.
I obtained ~40 with 11 VR on the MCAT, but I don't have US citizenship/green card.

I perhaps should have applied to US schools before I enrolled here but I was quite preoccupied with applying to schools in my country...

I would appreciate your thoughts 🙂

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[khrisskhoras]

Hi, I am a first year medical student outside of US.

I have started preparing for my AMCAS application, hoping to get into some top-notch medical schools in the US in the 2014 application cycle. I think that while my current medical school will teach me medicine well, it is not a "world class" school that I dreamt of attending.

On the AMCAS application instructions PDF, I noticed that there is a section where I have to explain "previous matriculation" at any med school in the world.

Do you think the fact that I'm already attending a med school would be considered a "red flag" when applying to US schools?

I received a 4.0 GPA at a state university and was the top of the class. I have decent EC's with two middle author publications.
I obtained ~40 with 11 VR on the MCAT, but I don't have US citizenship/green card.

I perhaps should have applied to US schools before I enrolled here but I was quite preoccupied with applying to schools in my country...

I would appreciate your thoughts 🙂

if you got a 4.0 and a 40, why did you go out of country for medical school?

Edit: No green card...got it Never mind.

 

[mcloaf]

I'd imagine that it would be a huge red flag, but I don't have any personal experience with this. Waiting to see what an Adcom has to say.

 

[cerno]

Hi, I am a first year medical student outside of US.

I have started preparing for my AMCAS application, hoping to get into some top-notch medical schools in the US in the 2014 application cycle. I think that while my current medical school will teach me medicine well, it is not a "world class" school that I dreamt of attending.

On the AMCAS application instructions PDF, I noticed that there is a section where I have to explain "previous matriculation" at any med school in the world.

Do you think the fact that I'm already attending a med school would be considered a "red flag" when applying to US schools?

I received a 4.0 GPA at a state university and was the top of the class. I have decent EC's with two middle author publications.
I obtained ~40 with 11 VR on the MCAT, but I don't have US citizenship/green card.

I perhaps should have applied to US schools before I enrolled here but I was quite preoccupied with applying to schools in my country...

I would appreciate your thoughts 🙂

I think this is the big thing that would raise a red flag. I believe it's following the similar logic of choosing to turn down a medical school acceptance that you didn't really want to go to in order to re-apply to get into a "top" or better school. Adcoms definitely don't like that.

 

[syoung]

Not sure how you would apply this cycle without a green card?

 

[survivordo]

I actually don't think it would be a huge red flag... it's not like you matriculated and failed out, you just have decided you would be better served at a US school... now the green card thing, that there is a problem...

Survivor DO

 

[Planes2Doc]

Can they find out about it? There are a lot of medical schools around the world, and I doubt every single one is in a network where everyone can find out about everything. It's one thing to have been previously matriculated at a US or Canadian school and having to disclose it, but what bout halfway around the world?

 

[Planes2Doc]

Whether US or around the world, AMCAS has you sign that you include all info which follows into your actual medical school. If you exclude something that is then discovered, even after you matriculate, you can be dismissed. Imagine you do three years of medical school and somehow this exclusion is discovered and you get thrown out. Imagine you have 3 years of loans now to repay.

But the point is moot as the OP is not citizen or permanent US resident; most US medical schools will not consider the candidate nor would he/she be eligible for government loans

If you applied for career positions in the business world, you'll see that you're "required" to write in every single employment position that you've ever had. However, there is no such thing as a central database for jobs that people once had. So unless you leave a paper trail on the internet via the company website, Facebook, Linkedin, etc, no one will ever know that you worked there. That means that if you worked in a position that you were not proud of (stripper or other "less respected" lines of work) or were fired from a job, you can leave it out, and no one will ever know.

With medical schools, of course they will know if you attended a US MD/DO school, Canadian MD school (uses AMCAS as well if I'm not mistaken), and probably the big Caribbean schools. But what about the obscure Caribbean schools or other schools around the world? While I'm not 100% sure, I'm assuming that they have no connections at all to the system here in the US. Therefore, while dishonest, it isn't any different than leaving off an employment position even though it explicitly states to include all previous employment. I could be wrong, but this is my guess. There are a lot of medical schools that we've never heard of, and will probably never hear of them during our lifetime.

 

[TriagePreMed]

You won't get into a US school having matriculated at another school. You're much better off finishing med school in your home country and making it to residency here. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if it's "top notch" where you came from or not.

 

[Planes2Doc]

To me it isnt the wired internet world of small schools that I would worry about. It would be interacting on a daily basis with medical students, faculty and staff at any US med school that may accept the OP. It slips out, comes up in convo, not even thinking realizing, that mentioning your previous connection to another school. It piques someone's interest who may check on the student and lo and behold, discovers no mention on your application 3 years prior.

Like most misbehaving children and harden criminals, it will be a slip of the tongue that gets you caught

Oh yeah, good point! 👍

 

[ericksonj15]

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[Planes2Doc]

This is false. It's called the social security office. Unless you were getting paid off the books somewhere, there absolutely is a paper trail of every place you've ever worked. All my friends/family who have attended law school were required to go to the SS office and pay for a report of all prior employment in order to complete their bar application (and it does dig up jobs you won't even remember having). That being said, I understand that 99% of jobs don't require fetching a report this indepth. As an aside, does anyone know if this is required when applying for medical licensing?

Yeah going back to the government will yield anything if it's off the books. But in this case, licensing boards aren't employers. They aren't seeking out your past employment history to see if you've been fired or worked any less than desirable jobs. I don't see how this would be relevant to anything. In the case of employers though, it's reasonable to expect that you'd want to keep certain things off the application. Even though it's illegal for HR to ask a previous employer directly if you've been fired, it's fair game to ask if you're eligible for re-hire, which is a loophole tactic used by HR departments. But since the HR department will not have access to such detailed records, it's in your best interest to leave whatever can hurt you off the application.

I've never heard of such a thing for medical licensing though, checking for past employment. I know they conduct a very thorough background check, which will show even expunged criminal charges that were once on your record. Medical schools don't see those, but the licensing boards do.

 

[ericksonj15]

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[med18]

Thanks for your thoughts.

I don't plan on hiding my current matriculation. Well I don't want to lie on my application.