Best path into the United States?

College Search & Selection
1

Hello ladies and gentlemen,
I’m a 16 year old middle eastern student, living in Sweden.
I know this sounds kind of cheesy, but my goal in life is to work as a doctor in the US.

Some of you might not believe in me able to achieve my goals, but please keep it to yourself.

A little about my academic life:

Time left in school: Around 3 and 1/2 years
Grades: 1/180th percentile
extracurricular activities: Not in any club

I’ve thought about some paths but I’m a little ignorant.
After summer break I’ll start “upper high school”(15-18) so things will get real, and I’ll really have to decide on which school I’d want to aim for, because they have vastly different application processes/requirements

My considerations:

Karolinska Insitutet:
Swedish Medical School. Highly ranked in international medical school rankings but relatively unknown. 6 year program, no pre-med. Only max grades required. Like a 4.0 GPA but more difficult in the current Swedish grading system.

Oxbridge:
Excellent grades as well as national tests and English tests.

Harvard/Stanford :
Excellent grades as well as national tests and English tests + extracurricular.

I can’t study for three national tests simultaneously and expect to get great scores on all of them, so it would be better to focus.

Which school is best for being able to obtain a visa and be able to work in the United States?
Obviously Karolinska Institutet will give me a couple of years of free time. I know you’ll have to take some medical tests so your Swedish education is usable in the US.

Please give me a path!
Easiest and best.

Sorry for bad English in this post, I’m exhausted, had a couple of tests today so I’m half a sleep and I’m typing on my phone.

2

If you are not a US citizen, it is very very difficult to apply and be accepted into Medical school here. Here is a link to get you started.

Getting into Harvard/Stanford can be equated to a lottery and that is for US applicants. It is even more difficult as an International so you do have your work cut out for you.

http://www.usnews.com/education/blogs/medical-school-admissions-doctor/2012/07/16/3-tips-for-international-students-applying-to-us-medical-schools

http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2015/04/the-match-2015-a-grim-prognosis-for-international-medical-graduates.html

http://www.biology.howard.edu/undergraduate.careers/international.MD.programs.pdf

3

I’m not thinking of applying to the Medical Schools in the US directly. I’m not sure but I think it’s impossible with a Swedish High School Degree.
If I apply to Karolinska there is no undergraduate, only Medical School.

If I apply to Oxbridge/Harvard/Stanford I’ll have to apply for an undergraduate degree.

Does that mean I have extremely slim chances still?
I know it’s really hard for people from India/China to get in because there are so many applicants, but I’m Swedish/Iraqi

4

@Flashinglights,
I think what Gumbymom was saying is that even with an undergraduate degree from an American college it’s very hard for international students to be admitted to American medical schools. The articles she linked are good reading.

5

There are many universities in the the US that you can go to for undergrad that are much easier to get into. You don’t have to go to Harvard or Stanford.

6

Is your goal to go to university in the US? Or is it to go to university in the US only if you can go to Harvard or Stanford? It is definitely possible for you to get into a good university here if you continue to do well in school, but that university may not be Harvard or Stanford.

And if your goal is simply to become a physician, it will be easier and cheaper for you to do this in Sweden. Plenty of foreign doctors come to the US to do training so that they can practice medicine here.

7

My goal is to live in and work in the US, and I would assume that would be a lot easier with a prestigious degree.

8

I don’t know about that, I’ve read somewhere that some 20% of undergraduates are international students.
The articles s/he linked are indeed good reads, but focus on medical schools without an undergraduate degree.
I once emailed HMS and they told me that they only accept students with a undergraduate degree from Canada or the US so those statistics don’t really say much.

9

You are confusing things.

Assuming you are qualified, it is not difficult to get into a good undergrad school in the US. I’m not talking about Harvard or Stanford which are essentially lottery tickets for everyone, but your standard good undergrad is a realistic possibility.

You said you wanted to go to medical school. That is why you were linked an article about medical school. The article is talking about international students that have an undergraduate degree and are then applying to medical school. The article is not about applying to medical schools without an undergraduate degree.

10

Look into medical specialties that are understaffed in the US. Don’t discount a well regarded Swedish medical school. Just because it’s not well known to the general public, it may be highly respected by people in the medical field. As far as getting permanent US work / residency, I don’t think the people processing immigration requests know or care about the reputation of where you went to school …having a hospital or residency program that specifically wants to hire you will be what they want to see. (Not absolutely sure about this. I’m in the tech industry and this is my experience in our field though.) So focus on choosing an attainable educational program that’s respected within the worldwide medical community. You don’t have to go Harvard or Oxbridge to reach this goal.

11

That is unfortunate :confused:

12

@Otterma What about the English universities? I have a couple of relatives that graduated from Oxford, but they work in the middle east so they can’t help me much.

13

I remembered reading an article a few years ago about how difficult it is for foreign-trained doctors to practice medicine here in the U.S. It was in the New York Times and I found it:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/12/business/economy/long-slog-for-foreign-doctors-to-practice-in-us.html?_r=0

Here’s what it says about the process:

*The process usually starts with an application to a private nonprofit organization that verifies medical school transcripts and diplomas. Among other requirements, foreign doctors must prove they speak English; pass three separate steps of the United States Medical Licensing Examination; get American recommendation letters, usually obtained after volunteering or working in a hospital, clinic or research organization; and be permanent residents or receive a work visa (which often requires them to return to their home country after their training).

The biggest challenge is that an immigrant physician must win one of the coveted slots in America’s medical residency system, the step that seems to be the tightest bottleneck. That residency, which typically involves grueling 80-hour workweeks, is required even if a doctor previously did a residency in a country with an advanced medical system, like Britain or Japan. The only exception is for doctors who did their residencies in Canada.

The whole process can consume upward of a decade — for those lucky few who make it through.*

So, it seems like there are three ways that a foreign student can become a doctor in the U.S.:

  1. Get a U.S. undergraduate and then U.S. medical degree. Going to a U.S. college as an undergrad isn’t that difficult if you have the money, but getting into a U.S. medical school can be very difficult as an international student - even if you do have the money in cash or liquid assets, and especially if you don’t.

  2. Get an undergraduate degree at home in Sweden or in Britain, and then go to med school in the U.S. See above, but even harder.

  3. Get medical training at home - which has its own challenges depending on the country you do it in - and then move to the U.S. and attempt to become qualified here. As you can see from the above, that’s no walk in the park either - you have to pass the USMLE, then volunteer or work in a hospital in a non-physician role for who knows how long so you can get American recommendation letters. In order to do that, you need a work visa - so basically some hospital or clinic has to hire you knowing that you want to go to medical school and won’t be a permanent employee of the company. Or you have to have connections. After you get the recommendations, then you need to get a residency slot. There are lots of great articles about how competitive residency slots are for new graduates of U.S. medical schools and Caribbean schools that participate in the match - so it’s probably even worse for immigrant doctors who are retraining.

And then you have to actually do the residency.

A natural question is…why do you want to live in and practice medicine in the U.S.? Why not in Sweden or another European Union country?

14

@juillet I’ll have to face the truth, it’s next to impossible for me to live and work in the US.

And I want to say that I really appreciate your reply, extremely helpful.

To answer your question, I want to practice medicine in the US, because I want to live in the US.
I want to live in the US, or more specifically the larger cities because I really like how the culture, or should I say the multi-culture. I also really enjoy the architectural design of for instance New York.

There isn’t a city like New York.

It just sucks how I can’t live there, no matter how hard I try.
Maybe London is something to look into, but the condominiums are incredibly expensive compared to the yearly salary of a typical doctor.

15

Another possibility is to seek your college degree and MD training in Canada.
Do you want to be an MD or do you just want to go to medical school because you hear it will provide a good income? There are many internationals in NY who aren’t MDs but who make good livings.

16

Too be quite honest, I’m not sure what I want to be just yet, but I’ll have to decide soon so I can focus on it.

I just really enjoy biology/chemistry aswell as the human anatomy.
My mother is an MD and two of my sisters are in Medical School. I watch surgeries sometimes and I find them very fascinating, but I don’t have a burning passion for it, or anything else really.

Note: I’m not great compared to my other subjects in Biology/Chemistry, but I still have the highest grades.

If I peruse a MD degree in Canada, would I get the possibility of working in the US? And would I get a job.

Karolinska Institute is ranked nr. 9 of all medical schools in the world according to topuniversites, but that isn’t saying much because it has very little prestige outside of Sweden.

17

The Karonlinska Institue is pretty famous. Surely, it will definitely be more affordable. It is very respected. If yiu can get in there, do. Become a doctor, then get certified to practice medicine in the US. It will be easier to do that than any of your other ideas.

18

@Lindagaf but isn’t that also extremely difficult? the Swedish Medical Education is a couple of years shorter, which might compensate for the extra time spent on getting cirtified.
Won’t I compete with for instance, Yale Graduates?

19

Compete for what? A place in medical school? You will compete with any other medical student. Have you thought about how to pay for your education, should you get inot,colleges in the US? Int’l students often do not qualify for any aid. One year of college at Yale costs over $60,000 US, for one year. It’s good,that you are planning your future, but please be realistic. IF you could get in, do you have $240,000 to pay for the first four years of college? Medical school costs at least $50,000 a year, for four years. Add $200,000. Then you have to do residency before you can actually practice medicine. Residency lasts about 3-5 years. Your pay during that time might be $50,000 a year, not sure? Anyway, think about the money before you get too invested in your dreams to study medicine in the US.

20

Sorry I meant, would I be able to get a job, or would just someone from an Ivy take the job. For the economical situation, My have a pretty big income. Sweden has also got financial aid which works outside of sweden to, but I’d still have to take a loan, but still, very expensive