Prospective international applicant seeking advice

[discombobulated]

Hello everyone,

So, I'm new to the forum, and am looking for some input on this little situation of mine. Any advice is much appreciated- thanks in advance!

I'm currently a sophomore at an Ivy League school looking at MD/PhD programs in the US down the line. I'm a Canadian citizen, and from what I've read, the odds aren't great; only a handful of schools even consider international applications, and some of the top places to do research in my field admit between zero and one international applicant every year. In fact, my major advisor recently told me to "not count on it".

The good news is that I'm doing reasonably well: as a chemistry major, my GPA will be around ~4.1 after 3 semesters (A+ counts as 4.33 here), and I've taken 6-7 courses every term while doing lab work. All my pre-med requirements should also be done by the end of this term. I'm taking a couple classes in the grad school right now, with a few more next semester. Ideally, I would be reducing my coursework in my junior/senior years so I can do research close to full-time.

I'm currently working in a molecular biology lab. I joined first week of freshman year before deciding on the chem major, but it's something I enjoy and the project is going slowly but well. I do have plans, however, to transition into organic chemistry, something I want to pursue in graduate school.

I guess my main question is what I should do in the next couple of years to make my chances as good as they can be. Should I take just a couple classes and focus on lab work for 2 years? Take more grad courses? Double major in biology? (I'm actually only a few courses short)

And, if things are looking glum, what kind of back-up plans should I make?

I apologize for the long post, and I hope some of you will understand how this is somewhat frustrating to me. Again, any comments is greatly appreciated.

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[Neuronix]

There are those who know more about the specifics of international admissions more than me and I hope they will chime in. My brief thoughts:

Keep working hard and you stand a good chance. Keep the GPA around 4.0 and score very high on the MCAT.

The coursework doesn't explicitly matter as long as you remain a full-time student (even if minimally so), graduate in a typical amount of time (4 years give or take), and get mostly As in a typical science major cirriculum.

Don't worry about the double major in biology. It's not going to be helpful. MD/PhD adcoms respect chem majors and you are proposing to do research in a chemistry area.

Focus on chemistry as an undergrad, but plan to apply it to a more biomedical science related area in a MD/PhD program such as pharmacology. This is simply because it's usually easier to integrate your MD/PhD in a biomedical science department controlled by or closely aligned with the medical school as opposed to a basic science department such as chemistry. But you can use all the same techniques and often even join the same labs, so that's a non-issue.

 

[lxz]

International MD/PhD and MD applicant here. To answer your questions, YES, the odds aren't great. Most MSTP's will have concerns offering you admission since you are not eligible for NIH funding, and those have additional fundings for int'l students are extremely competitive. There are few non-NIH funded MD-PhD programs you can apply to. So, you need very high MCAT score and high GPA. Anything that could give you an edge over other applicants is great, eg. publications.......

 

[Maebea]

Of the 633 individuals entering MD-PhD programs this year, 14 were international students. Based on what I have seen over the years, the average MCAT and GPA of internationals accepted by MD-PhD programs is no higher than that of domestics & permanent residents. Double majors or insane course loads are a waste of time; admissions committees do not care about that. Assuming you have a decent GPA & MCAT, it will come down to the research, and more research is better than less. (Graduates of some Canadian colleges have almost no coursework outside of BCMP classes. This can be viewed as a negative by some admissions committees who want to see a glimmer of humanistic interests in applicants.)