Admission to medical/graduate school for American Oxford Undergraduate w/3 yr degree

<p>I want to know what kind of graduate degree American Oxford undergraduates go to? I have looked at several medical schools and they require that your undergraduate degree has to be from US or Canada college. So even after studying at Oxford you cannot get admission to US medical college. Anyone has any information on this?</p>

<p>There are some medical schools that will accept an undergraduate degree from the UK. Some random examples: UVa requires at least part of the undergraduate work to have been done in the US, Canada or the UK (so Oxford is fine), but international students are allowed. Georgetown med school is explicit that admissions do not consider nationality. Tufts gives a ‘strong preference’ to applicants who have done their undergraduate in the US, but otherwise is agnostic on nationality. There are medical schools that require you to be a citizen or permanent resident (such as Eastern Virginia), but it is by no means an absolute.</p>

<p>collegemom is conflating 2 different issues somewhat: non-US/Canada undergrad degrees and international student admission.</p>

<p>International students can be admitted to a approx 1/3 of US med schools (principally private med schools, but some state schools will consider international applicants if they meet certain residency criteria). International applicants need to have completed all their med school pre-reqs at an accredited US or Canadian college or university. Only a handful of US medical school offer financial aid to internationals.</p>

<p>Non-US/Canada degrees are more problematic. Except for UVA** and 3 or 4 osteopathic medical schools, all US med schools require a minimum number of academic credits (typically 90 credits, including all science pre-reqs, but the exact number varies by program) to be earned at a US or Canadian college or university. The reason for this is that AMCAS (the application clearinghouse for all US allopathic medical schools) will not verify foreign transcripts. They don’t have the time, personnel or expertise to do so. Without transcript verification, your application cannot be processed and forwarded to medical schools for consideration. </p>

<p>**UVA has not admitted a student who did not complete a minimum number of credits in the US for very long time</p>

<p>If you want to earn an Oxford degree and then enroll at US med school, you will need to come back to the US and take/retake all required science, math and writing classes. (There are specialized programs for this called pre-med post-baccs.)</p>

<p>The other issue w/r/t to an Oxford degree is medical school applicants are expected to have a number of ECs that you will not be able to do in the UK. (Specifically, shadowing US physicians and doing clinical volunteering at US healthcare sites.)</p>

<p>My son is US born and US citizen. So it is not question of nationality but that his undergraduate degree from non US/Canada university and it will be 3 years vs. 4 years.</p>

<p>Thanks for all the feedback. It seems like if you are interested in medical school then going to Oxford is not a good option. </p>

<p>@Pinkesh</p>

<p>There is one other option: attend Oxford and then enroll in a UK medical degree program to complete his medical education. Upon completion of his MD, he could return to the US, take the USMLE examinations and apply for US medical residencies (required for medical licensing in the US).</p>

<p>This would be the more risky option for 2 reasons: </p>

<p>1) it is quite difficult for a non-UK/non-EU residents to be admitted to UK medical programs</p>

<p>2) IMGs (International Medical Graduates) are disadvantaged in the residency match. IMGs have poorer match results than do US medical grads. (Less likely to match at all and less likely to match into competitive specialties.) </p>

<p><a href=“http://b83c73bcf0e7ca356c80-e8560f466940e4ec38ed51af32994bc6.r6.cf1.rackcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/resultsanddata2013.pdf”>http://b83c73bcf0e7ca356c80-e8560f466940e4ec38ed51af32994bc6.r6.cf1.rackcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/resultsanddata2013.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Matching for IMGs will become increasingly difficult except for exceptional candidates in the near term future. The overall number US med grads (MD and DO) has increased (and still is increasing as more new med schools come online) while the number of residency slots has been fixed since the late 1990s. </p>

<p>

It’s still going to get harder for the exceptional ones too. Look at the graphs the NRMP puts out where they plot match rates vs. step 1 scores for domestic vs. foreign MDs. <a href=“http://b83c73bcf0e7ca356c80-e8560f466940e4ec38ed51af32994bc6.r6.cf1.rackcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/chartingoutcomes2011.pdf”>http://b83c73bcf0e7ca356c80-e8560f466940e4ec38ed51af32994bc6.r6.cf1.rackcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/chartingoutcomes2011.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Let’s pick Derm for a competitive specialty, the independent applicants top out at 60% chance of matching with a Step 1 of what looks like roughly 262-263 (which I believe is the 99th percentile). A 60% chance for a US MD is what people with a 222-223 (which is about the 50th percentile).</p>

<p>Let’s go less competitive: Internal Medicine. A US MD grad with a step 1 score of BARELY PASSING has the same odds of landing an IM spot as a foreign MD grad with a 99th percentile Step 1.</p>

<p>Depending on the committment the student could use the Long Vac (aka summer holidays) from Oxford undergrad to build up some of the required pre-med courses, then use what would be year four to finish them. That way, all of the pre-med courses would be from a US/Canadian uni. </p>

<p>Still doesn’t solve the problem entirely since the student wouldn’t have earned 90 credits ( or ~30 courses, the minimum required by most med schools for admission consideration) from US/Canadian schools.</p>

<p>Pre reqs are only ~39 credits.</p>

<p>I know someone who went through this…four years at Oxford completing undergrad and a Masters in Biochem. They were told by admissions people at a number of highly regarded US med schools that their best bet was to do another Masters program in the US in just about anything and then apply. This was five years ago. I don’t know if the rules have changed in any way but at the time it didn’t matter if you were a top science student from one of the best schools in the UK, you needed to have a certain amount of coursework from a school in the US to be considered. The powers that be were seemingly confident that this particular student’s science background was fine and they just wanted the US course work. </p>