<p>I am thinking about getting a masters degree after I graduate. However I was wondering:</p>
<p>1) How will this impact the medical school admissions process?</p>
<p>2) What if I chose to get my masters at a foreign university (like Oxbridge)?</p>
<p>thanks.</p>
<p>1) Well the grades won’t be as heavily weighted, but depending on what you do and if you are passionate about it you might get a significant boost.</p>
<p>2) That will make it a little more unique, but once again you need to be really doing something you love and are getting something out of.</p>
<p>I was planning on doing a masters in cancer research since that is what I am really passionate about. However if I chose to apply from Oxford (assuming that I was good enough to get in the first place) would that put me at a disadvantage when I applied to U.S. medical schools since I am applying from a foreign university?</p>
<p>thanks.</p>
<p>No, it would not.</p>
<p>The Master’s will likely have a negligible effect on your application. Grades from grad programs (except SMP’s) are practically meaningless because they are so grade-inflated. In general, a master’s is not hard to accomplish. Anything that is easy to do will generally not be valued by an adcom. But, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it if you have other reasons. Just don’t make an admissions boost your primary reason because you likely will not receive one.</p>
<p>yes i understand that, and the primary reason that I want to do a masters is because I really like to do cancer research.</p>
<p>the admissions to U.S. uni’s for masters programs are fairly straight forward, I was wondering if anyone had any idea on the admissions process for U.S. applicants to do a masters at either Oxford or Cambridge (their website is very confusing)?</p>
<p>thanks.</p>
<p>I am just curious: Since there are many many cancer research programs in US already, is there really a need to go to an overseas school to do it? Of course, if it is sponsored by a well-known scholarship, it is another story.</p>
<p>I heard that a very high percentage of premeds are doing research in the area of cancer (and maybe HIV as well?) It is a very crowded research area from what I heard. (I wonder whether It is because this is where the research money is in US.)</p>
<p>For an undergraduate, I heard that some would like to go to a college overseas mostly due to the financial reason, as the colleges in Europe tend to cost less. (and not so many general education requirements there, as the college education in US is “broader.”)</p>
<p>There are probably a lot of reasons why pre-meds tend to crowd around cancer research. For one, it is heavily funded and many of those funds require outreach programs like getting undergrads into labs. For two, I think a lot of pre-meds like to fancy that they might help cure cancer ;).</p>
<p>I personally did social insect research. No cancers involved (I’d be pretty interested to see ant cancer though).</p>
<p>If you want to go to a research school and focus on research in your career, then a master’s MIGHT be able to help convince them (and provide you with some decent training in the process), but it’s not gonna be a HOLY **** HE’S GOT AN M.S.!!! WE NEED HIM BAD!!!</p>
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<p>I guess the life span of an ant is not long enough to get cancer :)</p>
<p>Seriously, it sounds like an interesting topic. My child is toying about taking a class related to anthropod. I just look it up at wiki: [Arthropod</a> - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthropod]Arthropod”>Arthropod - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>At least the ant looks much cuter than some antropods (like centipede) shown at this link - Yuck! (Isn’t there a movie for young kids about a very cute ant from Disney?) I hope he only needs to deal with a sample rather than a live one. The professor of that class is rumored to love any bugs, and to believe that even **** roaches are harmless to human species. (I even wonder whether a course exclusively about anthropod would be considered as a bio course. He took a class exclusively about birds a year ago. It was a blast for him. After that class, he talked obsessively about it for a while. His future research topic is likely about something wierd also: ticks or something like that. Except for the fact that he dutifully took the pre-reqs that are taken by a typical pre-med, he seems to take classes all over the places as he wishes.)</p>