Hi everyone, I read on an old thread that US Med Schools won’t accept US students who have gone to foreign schools. Is this true? Why? We were thinking about St. Andrews or Trinity Dublin as undergraduate options since my child would otherwise be full pay ($60-$70k/year!) in the US and she doesn’t want to go to our state school. She might want to go to Med School, so we want to keep that option open.
Yes. As you see on page 29 (https://aamc-orange.global.ssl.fastly.net/production/media/filer_public/54/3c/543c5531-29ce-4049-b278-2edb3998a216/amcas_instruction_manual.pdf), you will need to get a transcript exception for coursework completed at a foreign institution and not transferred to a US institution. Transcript exceptions are not guaranteed.
Because they only accept coursework from schools that have been accredited by one of the accrediting bodies in the USA and neither of those have been accredited by any of those. Given that there are some foreign schools that AMCAS does not consider foreign, I imagine if St. Andrews or Trinity wanted to be accredited they could.
I’m not sure whether or not your child is a US citizen (you say state school but you also say they would be full pay in the US). I’m leaning towards no. It’s hard enough to get in as an international. Every international I’ve met has come from an american school. I wouldn’t make things any harder. Is your child’s goal to be a physician in the USA? If not, there’s no reason to subject yourself to all this.
Canadian universities are NOT considered foreign for medical school admission.
^Sorry, yes I was unclear there - and indeed there were Canadians from Canadian schools in my med school class.
Sorry I was unclear! US citizen living in the US.
@i-wanna-be-brown (sorry, my iPhone doesn’t have underscores), thank you so much for this information. That’s very enlightening!
Why she does not want to go to IS colleges? Which state school are you talking about? A 60k state school?
If she can get into St. Andrews she should be able to get into a US school that is affordable and has good premed advisory. Can you post her stats and ecs? Lots of us here are willing to help.
The road to med school is VERY long and VERY demanding, she doesn’t need any road blocks in her way. Bluntly, tell her to suck it up and go to her state school.
@artloversplus we moved from the North to AL several years ago and she does not want to stay in the South. She would have free in state tuition because she has a 34 ACT. She has good grades (I think a 3.8 unscaled). Right now she doesn’t know if she wants to be a MD doing research or a computer scientist, so it’s important that whatever college she goes to will allow her to explore these interests and discover what she’d like to do. I’m very grateful to this forum for giving me the information about the problems with foreign schools and US med schools; foreign schools (other than Canadian) are now off the table.
And thank you for your offer of help!
MDs are for people who want to practice clinical medicine.
If she wants a research-based career, then a PhD is probably the more optimal route.
@WayOutWestMom she has an aunt and uncles who are MDs involved in the research world who have reviewed with her the MD vs PhD route, and she’d prefer MD.
Her options are not “state school” or $60k schools or abroad.
there’s a whole bunch in between.
also…how the heck would she be able to interview at US med schools if she’s going to college abroad?? Are you going to fly her back to the states several times within a few months time?
Anyway, as mentioned, US med schools won’t accept nonUS, nonCanadian schools’ credits. AMCAS doesn’t know what to do with foreign classes, doesn’t know if they meet req’ts because they’re not accredited by the acceptable American accrediting agencies.
What year is your DD?
With an ACT 34, there are a number of schools that will give her generous merit scholarships.
How much do YOU want to pay each year? (Isn’t Trinity Dublin expensive for Americans??)
There are a number of privates that would give her generous merit for those stats. Are Catholic schools ok?
Before your DD gives up on southern schools, has she visited any? If so, which ones?
Sounds like you’re instate for Alabama. Being instate for UAB med school is a big plus.
avoid Calif schools as an OOS premed.
UPitt has research but merit can be elusive.
Maybe try Case Western…URoch …for good sized merit.
Maybe she does not like stay in the south. But for med schools UAB is her best choice.
Where she wants to be? Is she thinking of California? Yes, it’s going to be expensive here, ucb and ucla will cost a few pennies, but you have some other options. I hope she is not thinking Stanford, that is not for her with 34ACT.
Please post her stats, location and type of school choices so we can help.
an OOS premed should not go to a Calif school. Period.
As for “staying in the south.” A person doesn’t have to stay in the south just because they went to undergrad or even med school in the south.
When they apply for residencies and fellowships, apply all over the country.
My son’s residency app list took him to the NE, SE, SW, NW and the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, and the South. He matched to the NE. I imagine he’ll do his residency in another part of the country.
Seconding the fact one should not go to California for premed (CA med schools only take california residents and even foe them there aren’t enough spaces so California Premeds must apply oos.)
She can get merit aid at many colleges.
Look at the top CTCL colleges in particular (Rhodes and St Olaf would be excellent for Premeds and offer merit), plus public universities such as Temple or UMN Twin Cities.
She’d also likely get significant merit at schools such as Whitman, Lewis and Clark, UPuget Sound as well as the seven sisters if she wants a different cultural environment.
Would she be interested in an LAC?
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My son’s residency app list took him to the NE, SE, SW, NW and the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic, and the South. He matched to the NE. I imagine he’ll do his residency in another part of the country.
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Oops…that should say…I imagine he’ll do his fellowship in another part of the country.
Thank you guys so much for your interest and comments. That’s so nice of you! She’s a HS Junior, so we are in high gear about this.
I’m curious why @mom2collegekids and @MYOS1634 say don’t go OOS to Cal schools for premed? Is it because of the money, or is there grade deflation, or something else? I think @MYOS1634 was really talking about going to med school in Cal rather than undergrad, right?
My child won’t qualify for financial aid, but if she decides to go to med school and ends up going to a private one because she doesn’t get into UAB, then I’d be paying more in tuition than I’d be OK with. So I’m trying to look at the whole picture here and what my alternatives are to an undergrad cost of attendance of $65k+/year. I’m bummed the foreign college situation won’t work out because I think she would have really enjoyed living with such cultural diversity, she would have gotten a wonderful education, and the cost would have been substantially less for me. But it’s good to know this won’t work.
My daughter has found several reach schools that she really likes (isn’t this always the case?), but she is short on alternatives. A couple of the schools seem to be true Goldilocks schools, such as Berkeley and Brown. She loved how the kids interacted with each other, loved how interdisciplinary the schools are, and loved all of the types of events going on at the schools. When we were at Berkeley and Brown and were reading the flyers on a bulletin board, almost all of the lectures, activities etc were right up her alley. If she gets in, I’ll suck it up and pay (but now is there an issue about Berkeley??) because I think she’d be truly happy there and would thrive.
She needs other alternatives to these Goldilocks reach schools, and it’s important to me that finances be taken into account for these schools. It’s also really important that she would feel good about going to these schools. She values an inclusive environment with diverse students and sincerely likes to learn for the sake of learning. She would not be happy at a party school where the kids don’t care about their studies, but she is social and wouldn’t be happy at a pure grind school either. She also feels uncomfortable when people noticeably segregate themselves according to race; it’s important to her that people try to get along and mix with each other. She does not want to go to a school with a big Greek life. A Catholic school would be fine as we are Catholic. @mom2collegekids, she hasn’t visited any Southern schools.
@artloversplus, I don’t understand your comment about Stanford and the 34. She wasn’t going to apply to Stanford anyway (campus seemed vacant, kids were by themselves, no real vibe going on so she didn’t love it and she doesn’t need another reach school) so that’s not an issue, but are you saying a 34 isn’t good enough? I thought it was. She only took the ACT once and I thought from reading some other threads on CC that she was better off using her time to do other things than studying more for the ACT.
About her other stats, she is only taking the APs now so we don’t have scores, but she’s been getting 5s on the practice Chem , CS and APUSH tests and her teachers have told her they think this is what she’ll get; fingers crossed because you don’t know until you know. She will take the AP next year in Calc, another CS, Bio and Econ. She’s taking 2 Subject Matter tests (Chem & History) in June. For her ECs, she tutors extensively, works a minimum wage job on Saturdays, does a sport she is just OK at, did a community service capstone project, and is Pres of one of the school clubs. She received gold on national language exams every year, a regional award for photography, an honorable mention for a state CS award, and a costume award at a comicon. This summer she is splitting her time between learning an esoteric language for fun, and working at a biotech company. I’m proud of the fact that she got the biotech job due to her being a nice person; she spent a lot of time tutoring another kid at school for free, and out of the blue that kid’s parents offered her the job since they know she is interested in learning more about that area. Good karma.
@mom2collegekids , she wasn’t originally interested in LACs because she thought they wouldn’t have as many research opportunities. I think she is now open to them because they afford smaller classes and great discussions.