I was looking at schools in Canada, Australia, and England. I have not applied to any yet but wanted to know if it would prove disadvantageous in the medical school application process. I am an American citizen, if that makes a difference.
HUGE disadvantage. In the “don’t do it” category. Except for Canada.
AMCAS (centralize application service for all US allopathic med schools–except TX), TMDSAS (centralized application service for all TX medical & dental Schools) and AACOMAS (centralized application service for all US osteopathic medical schools) will not accept degrees obtained outside the US or Canada, nor validate foreign transcripts. (No validated transcripts and your med school application is DOA. It won’t even get forwarded to med schools.)
Georgetown SOM and UVA are the only 2 US allopathic medical schools in the US that will “consider” a UK degree–but only on a “special case by case” basis. A literal handful (maybe 5 or 6) osteopathic med schools will consider international degrees, but also on a “special case by case”.
There’s basically an universal med school admission requirement to have at least 90 credits hours and ALL med school pre-reqs completed at US or Canadian college or university.
If you want to see policies at specific med schools (especially check your home state’s med schools), consult their admission webpage or MSAR.
@WayOutWestMom thanks for the information!! Would you say Canadian and US schools are on equal footing then?
Academically, yes. but overall, maybe not.
The disadvantage to a Canadian undergrad is subtle–mostly your recommenders won’t be familiar to US med school adcomms so your LORs may be viewed with a slightly more critical eye.
Also you may have more difficulty fulfilling the expected pre-med ECs in Canada since undergrad research, physician shadowing, clinical volunteering, etc. may be less available than it is in the US. (It’s my understanding that Canadian med schools don’t really consider ECs during admission like US med schools do–but I could be wrong about that…)
And regardless of your involvement in Canadian ECs, you’ll still be expected to do clinical volunteering and physician shadowing here in the US. Med schools really don’t consider clinical exposure to non-US medical systems as fulfilling the purpose of those activities–which is to observe and understand how the US system works.
Whether that is enough to say “don’t attend a Canadian college”–I don’t know.
Also…keep in mind that during the app cycle, you’ll have interviews (hopefully) from early fall thru maybe January. Being far away just means more cost and more missed classes