Hi,
I’m an international transfer student, currently living in Spain and studying Medicine in the second best Spanish University. My college grades are mostly B+, and I have an unweighted high school GPA of 3.8, ranking second of my class. I have been in the Spanish Synchronized Swimming Team (Olympic Team) during my last 2 years of High School and the year after, training an average of 9h/day during high school and 11h/day after that. With my team I’ve won several international medals, such as a bronze at a World Championship or a silver at a European competition.
It’s been almost 2 years since I quit sports, but I am currently a coach at 3 different clubs, I’m doing a surgical internship 1 day/week, I’ve created a synchro competition project accepted by the 2 biggest clubs in Catalonia (currently working on the development of it), I’m starting a project for the integration of disabled people and transsexual minors through sports, and I’ve been living on my own for a couple of months now.
I know my grades aren’t exactly brilliant, but considering all the rest, do you think I have any chances of getting into Stanford, or is it a completely lost cause?
Thank you
It’s almost impossible to get in as a transfer student, and especially difficult as an international transfer student. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t apply, though. Not applying is a sure way not to get in. Why only Stanford? Are there other US schools that interest you? If your goal is to come to the US for uni, you should look at other schools with higher acceptance rates.
What @Massmomm said. You should also know the medicine works a little differently in the U.S. . Unlike in most other countries in the world, medicine isn’t a 6-year undergraduate course you do straight out of high-school. Instead you need to finish a 4-year undergraduate degree, and then apply for medical school(which is also 4 years long). Medical school in the US, even for Americans, is insanely expensive- truly out of this world. I can’t even imagine what it’d be for an international student.
It seems you’re very much interested in that field, so what I’d recommend is perhaps finishing your degree there, and taking the USMLE. We’re never going to have an “abundance” of doctors here, particularly in rural areas. You could relatively easily immigrate here under those conditions. What do you think?