A lot of people have been PM about what I had to do in order to transfer from SGU to an LCME US school. I've decided it would be a lot easier to just post all my thoughts here rather than have to re-write everything every single time I get an inquiry.
A little bit about my background:
great undergrad institution: obvioulsy UC berkeley from my name
not so great overall GPA: 3.19
an even lower science GPA: 2.875
MCAT 30
I DID NOT apply to US schools because I didn't think I was competitive enough. I applied directly to SGU while in college and matriculated 1 month after I graduated. This is a decision I do not regret since I was highly motivated at the time and in addition, I am very impatient and hate waiting.
I know everyone has a different path to take to get into med school and I respect that....I just can't sit around and wait for things to happen.
First, I always had it in the back of my mind that I wanted to give transferring a shot and I knew that having good grades in medical school and a high step 1 score would def. give me the best shot of doing just that. I went down to SGU not with the mentality that I was def. going to transfer, I went down there knowing that in order for me to have a chance at attaining a decent residency I would have to crush my boards. If in the end I got to transfer than I could have icing on my cake.
I tried to get as many A's as possible as well as tried my best to get involved. I ended up teaching 2 DES classes: physiology and biochemistry while down there. I taught the classes only part time with a friend so it really didn't take too much time. I enjoyed teaching and it was something I could write about in my personal statement and put on my CV. Other than that, I studied hard EVERYDAY mostly skipping lecture and just reading the syllabus on my own. I partied hard after exams, explored the other islands and had a great time on the beaches and my overall experience on the islands was fantastic.
When 2nd year came, I started asking for LORs. I had established a good relationship with one of the anatomy proffesors by chance actually (we were stranded on one of the neighboring islands together b/c we both missed our flights to come back to Grenada, enabling us to spend several hours to talk about nothing). I had done well in anatomy and got a great letter from him.
For my second LOR, I asked one of the pathophysiology prof's at vinnies who I didn't know so well but still ended up getting a great letter since he was such a nice guy.
I asked for letters early since I knew it would be a biatch to get them once I left the islands. I had all the letters (including a dean's letter-which at SGU is a generic letter printed out by the secretary using your class rank and a premade template) sent to my undergrads mail service so I could store them and send them out to whatever schools I was planning to apply to in the future.
Now, you can transfer in 2 different ways:
after 1st year: you complete all the first year classes and apply without a USMLE step 1 score and enter the 2nd year (much more limited to find open spots) can happen, but I didn't bother with it. I was in the groove of studying, doing well at SGU and wanted to get a high step 1 score before I attempted to transfer.
after 2nd year: this is what I did, I did well in the two years I spent in Grenada and st. vincent, I didn't have a 4.0 but I was close with a 3.83. I've seen people transfer with as low of a 3.5 or 3.3 but I figured I would just study my ass off and give myself the best possible shot.
A note about board scores, I have heard of an extremely wide variation in board scores of those who have transferred to a US school. of course most of them were pretty high (I got a 240/97).
And the rest in my class who transferred were all up there, of those who I know who transferred to any US medical school over the past few years
213(ross) --> yes, 213!
218 (europe)
226 (SGU)
230(ross)
260(ross)
240(SGU)
248(SGU)
256(SGU)
242 (SGU)
236 (SGU)
as you can see the there is wide variation with most scores being very competitive. I know for a fact there isn't any one score that can get you in, and I have heard of people with even higher scores or similar scores not even getting an interview because there were not enough spots available that year.
Next: what schools to apply to? I actually took my time and contacted every single LCME accreditted school (either by website, email, phone) to determine whether the school:
1. accepted foriegn medical students as a transfer
2. and if they anticipated having spots for 2nd or 3rd year
Some places fit the above criteria but they required you to be a resident of that state and being a california resident, I quickly crossed those schools off my list.
Now at this point, I didn't know if I was really willing to do 2nd year over. But I just wanted to know all my options and I'd figure out later what I would finally decide to do.
I ended up finding about 12 schools that accepts transfer students from WHO accreditted foriegn medical schools into either 2nd or 3rd year.
I followed up with 6 schools which told me they might had a possibility of anticipating spots for the next year. Now that I think about it, there was one school that told me that they had no spots (NYmed) and later that year I found out that a buddy of mine was able to transfer there. What I think happenned is that despite the fact that the school said they didn't anticipate any spots he still put in his application. When a spot opened up, his was one of the few applications in the pile and he got in!
off the top of my head (granted policies might have changed) schools that accept foriegn students irregardless of state residency:
Darthmouth
Columbia
UMDNJ robert wood johnson
drexel
temple
tulane
suny upstate syracuse
suny upstate stonybrook
NEOUCOM
George Washington
NY med
University of virginia
I ended up applying to Drexel, temple, tulane, suny syracuse, NEOUCOM, and GW. Even though Univ. of Virginia had spots I decided against applying there because they wanted 7 letters of rec. 3 from undergrad, 3 from med school, 1 med school deans letter. AND, they would only let you transfer into the 2nd year meaning I would have to repeat a year. F that....too much work, plus I didn't have that many LORs.
oh yes, the requirements for 3rd year transfer:
1. you need an mcat score (so if you went to a caribbean school that doens't require an mcat score-sorry bud, and they actually want to see a decent mcat score because they don't want to drop the stats of the school)
2. fulfill all the 1st year med pre-requisites of the medical school (ochem, gchem, bio...etc..)
3. Med school courses
4. USMLE step1
5. LORs: 2 med school LORs, 1 med school deans letter, 2 undergrad LORs
6. US citizen or Permanent residents (sorry canadians!)
7. application fees were about 50-100 bucks per application.
8. personal statement
I heard back and was invited for interview at 3/6 schools I had applied to.
GW, Drexel, and NEOUCOM.
Check this out, the year I applied there were a ton of transfer spots. Drexel had 11. NEOUCOM had, get this: a whopping 22 spots and they gave out like 24 interviews so getting the interview (which cost 650 dollars to attend a 3 day interview) was basically like getting into the school. To this day, I have never heard of anything as ridiculous as that and even this current year they anticipate only 2 spots into the M3 year for transfer.
To make a long story short, I ended up hearing from Drexel about a week after I interviewed and the rest is history. I spent about 2000 + dollars on the entire transfer application process, this including in airfare, application fees, and hotels and it was worth every penny.
I was fortunate enough to start at SGU right after I graduated undergrad and did not have to repeat any of my medical school career....but I did not plan it out this way, I seriously just went down to SGU willing to give it the best shot as I possibly could and things just worked out. I would have been 100% happy with a degree from St. George's and have made some of my closest friends down there in Grenada. I've always been thankful to SGU for giving me a chance to become a doctor and my loyalty has always been towards SGU. I will forever be partial to Both Drexel and SGU for allowing me to receive my medical degree.
I hoped this helped all of you starting down in Grenada or any caribbean medical school who are thinking about transferring. Its difficult but not impossible by any means. Think about this, you'll never know if you don't apply. and there are a lot of competitve applicants that weed themselves out by not even throwing in an application.
final words: lets take one school SGU: if there are 250 per semester and lets say that 50 have grades competitive enough to transfer and only about 20 apply. double the 250 b/c of 2 semesters of incoming classes and you have about 40 people form SGU applying for transfer any one year.
if all the schools I listed took 1-2 each per year (heck maybe more), thats about 10-15 spots available that 40 st. george's and maybe another 20 from Ross are applying for.
10-15 for 60 people aren't that bad odds. Its def. not the 5% thats quoted on the SGU website that takes into account all the students who don't even attempt to transfer.
take care and good luck.
Berk
