Medical Schools - International Admissions

<p>I’m a little surprised to see WOWM list intent to stay in #17. So far as I know nobody cares about that. Most schools will simply refuse to accept an international applicant. The remainder will evaluate you as a normal academic applicant. Once they admit you, they will demand all four years of living expenses and tuition up-front to put into your bursar account. If you can’t do that, they won’t let you matriculate.</p>

<p>I don’t think they’ll care about applying for a greencard or investing in a property. Paying full tuition will be required (your chances are 0% without it) once you matriculate.</p>

<p>I’m a little surprised to see WOWM list intent to stay in #17. So far as I know nobody cares about that. Most schools will simply refuse to accept an international applicant. The remainder will evaluate you as a normal academic applicant.* Once they admit you, they will demand all four years of living expenses and tuition up-front to put into your bursar account. If you can’t do that, they won’t let you matriculate**.*</p>

<p>Wow…and considering that any med school for an int’l would either be private or OOS publics, that means about $75-100k+ per year times 4 years…that’s a lot of money to deposit upfront. I imagine that the schools that are being applied to would also want to “see” that huge sum in some way before they would even give an interview invite. </p>

<p>So, how many med school **seats **for int’ls do you think there are **total **in the US every year? 50? more? less?</p>

<p>I don’t really know. I would have guessed something like thirty, but that’s really just off the top of my head.</p>

<p>EDIT: Oh SEATS! Sorry, I misread. Hang on.</p>

<p>EDIT2: I still don’t really know, but I’m guessing we’re looking at something like five per school for about thirty schools or something like that. Obviously a lot of those (half?) will be going to Canadians. So if I really had to guess, I’d say something on the order of eighty.</p>

<p>On the other hand you could tell me it’s four hundred and I wouldn’t be shocked. You could tell me it’s twenty and I wouldn’t be shocked. I really don’t have a good way of estimating.</p>

<p>Well, is there a list of med schools that do accept int’l (non Canadian/Mexican) applicants somewhere?</p>

<p>Frankly, I would be surprised if there are 30 such schools…but I could be totally wrong. It seems to me that only the elites might take a few int’ls (non C/M) students…which would be like 12 med schools or so. (but that is just a guess)</p>

<p>Off topic, but somehow related…where is that link that tells you how many OOS students are accepted for each med school?</p>

<p>I use the MSAR for IS/OOS breakdowns – but the old MSAR which I use (2005) only has matriculants, not admittees. Don’t know if newer ones include this data or not.</p>

<p>mom2–the link I gave earlier in this discussion leads to Duke’s pre med advising’s compilation of schools and their admission policies towards internationals. The list tells which schools accept internationals, and how many (broken down into Canadian and “everyone else” categories) have been accepted at each school in the past 3 years.</p>

<p>And you’d be surprised at which schools have taken internationals. UNM–which has a very, very tight policy about not accepting OOS applicants–currently has one (1) Chinese national attending med school here. (Apparently he’s lived in NM since high school and went to college here in town. I suspect, but cannot confirm, that his parents are in the US as visiting scientists, who have special visas but not green cards.) But this is first and only international student UNM has even accepted.</p>

<p>Brunox:</p>

<p>Forget medical school. It is extremely difficult to get a job in the US if you are an international. Period. There are a limited number of work visas allowed every years. Attending a US college is meaningless to the immigration rules.</p>

<p>Wowmom…thanks…sorry I overlooked that before. </p>

<p>The outlook is daunting. Of the schools that said that they will accept an int’l application, many also say that none have been accepted over the last 3 years.</p>

<p>This is a VERY rough estimate based on WOWM’s link above, but it LOOKS to me like there are roughly 90 seats per year or so, including Canadians.</p>

<p>This is complicated by (1) Some schools report admissions, so the same kid might be showing up on multiple reports; (2) Most schools don’t report precise numbers.</p>

<h1>27 doesn’t make any sense. If somehow you get admitted to a medical school AND can pay your tuition in whatever manner that school requires, you’ll be granted the relevant visas (F-1 and J-1) for your schooling and residency training. J-1 waivers are granted to states precisely for this purpose, since they would typically require you to return to your home country for two years but in the case of physicians the states apply to DHS for waivers or that requirement and the waivers are typically granted. From that point forward, a hospital or practice group usually won’t have a problem finding the right visas to permit you to stay.</h1>

<p>To me, that link suggests that some of those med schools that accept int’l applicants then put a few of those on their WLs and then may go to them if they can’t fill all seats with domestic students.</p>

<p>WL’s wouldn’t be counted as admissions unless subsequently admitted.</p>

<p>Have you looked at any MD/PhD programs? That may be a way that someone without a green card can get into the system.</p>

<p>bdm:</p>

<p>It made sense to me when I wrote it. :)</p>

<p>The OP was complaining that few Internationals are accepted to US med schools and he seemed to think that attending a US college should help in that regard (at least that is the way I read his post). “that’s just sick…” “my American undergraduate education wouldn’t make sense…”</p>

<p>The point I was trying to make was that attending a US college is of little value to even finding a job in the US as an International, much less giving one a leg up on admissions to med school.</p>

<p>For an international student, there’s only four ways to get a green card.</p>

<p>Other than marrying (#1), you can get a green card by having your parents make a big investment in the US (#2). I don’t remember the amount of money needed, but it’s substantial. The final way is through lottery (#3), which is a lottery.</p>

<p>The fourth way is to work for a few years after college and hope that your employer would think you are valuable enough to help you immigrate (#4).</p>

<p>“The U.S. tends to give green cards more easily to Western Europeans than it does to Asians or Latinos.”</p>

<p>You have no idea of what you are talking about. There are quotas for each country, and only India and China are restrained by the quota due to the number of applicants (it just means you have to wait longer if you are from India or China).</p>

<p>I’m pretty sure that nation-based quotas were held unconstitutional something like thirty years ago. If there’s disagreement on this I can try to look it up, but I don’t think they exist anymore.</p>

<p>WL’s wouldn’t be counted as admissions unless subsequently admitted.</p>

<p>I probably wasn’t too clear in my post. I know that WL wouldn’t be counted unless admitted.</p>

<p>What I meant to say, but wasn’t clear about…There are a number of med schools that say that they will accept int’l applications, but in reality, they haven’t accepted an int’l student in the last 3 years. </p>

<p>So, it seems to me, that these are schools that put a few int’ls on their WLs - JUST IN CASE - their domestic numbers don’t pan out (after going thru the WL and picking domestics first). At this point, school is about to start and they have an empty seat or two. At that point, they can go to their int’ls on their WL who they know have the money and are desperate to get into any US MD school.</p>

<p>I look at U South Alabama’s med school. It’s good, but not ranked. It has been known to take an int’l or two. It has to dig deep into its waitlist because it is often a “safety” school (especially for Alabama students who prefer UAB, Vandy, Emory, Tulane, or Duke, etc.). So, I imagine that there have been times that USA has gone thru its domestic apps on WL and then goes to the Int’ls on the WL.</p>

<p>I can totally see that USA would have an unwritten rule to take domestic students first, but if school is about to start and they still have an empty seat, then it’s ok to give it to a (full paying) int’l. </p>

<p>That’s why I’m guessing that the schools that periodically have accepted int’ls are taking them from their WLs.</p>

<p>Of course, the only way to know if my theory is somewhat true is if I knew when int’ls received their acceptances…with everyone else…or later/last minute.</p>

<p>For lack of anything better to do, I counted the International matriculants in last year’s msar. Total = 240 (although I might have missed a couple).</p>

<p>Three med schools had 11 International matriculants each: Howard, Rosalind Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson. Most had zero.</p>

<p>South Alabama reported 1 thru ED. That applicant was the only international interviewed of the 62 who applied.</p>

<p>Wow…really 240…and does that include Canadians? If so, then the number that OP would be concerned about would be different.</p>

<p>How many domestic students matriculated?</p>

<p>*South Alabama reported 1 thru ED. That applicant was the only international interviewed of the 62 who applied. *</p>

<p>Well there goes my theory that the student was on the WL. That said, I wonder if this was a child of a NATO family. There are NATO families living in Alabama, so I could see some preference/allowance for such a student. The fact that the student was ED makes me think he lives in the state…but that is just a guess.</p>

<p>I just wonder if the int’ls that are given seats have some hook…like their families are here for some diplomatic reason or their parents are MDs/PhDs on staff at the med schools or something.</p>

<p>sry, mom, dunno what msar considers “International”. (I didn’t find a definitions page, but then I only skimmed thru it looking.)</p>