I am currently a freshman in the US. I am looking to apply to colleges in the UK including Oxford or Cambridge in Medicine. Can I apply as a first year student? I know I will waste 2 years of college but just wanted to know if it is possible.
I think this may be the kind of thing you need to ask each medical school about directly. It may be possible if you’ve already achieved the academic minimum requirements in HS; college level courses as a substitute for standardised tests will probably depend on the individual college’s policies and what competition you’re up against. An A student taking chem and bio at Harvard might get that accepted even if their HS experience was insufficient, for instance, while a lesser university might be regarded with more scepticism.
UK universities do often say that they will take US students without APs in HS after their first year at a university, but medicine is possibly the most competitive subject for admission. If you aren’t a UK or EU citizen (but are you? - your user name suggests you might be), the number of places for medicine is limited anyway, so you’re competing in a big pool for few places.
Yes you can. In fact you can’t “transfer” into a UK med school.
Be aware that very, very few non British students/whose parents don’t live in the EU will get in at any UK NHS-sponsored med school, and most of the non-British/living in Britain will be EU citizens so if you’re an American it may be tough.
Key factors will be A’s in science subjects and involvement with medicine (research AND shadowing).
Sorry to be negative, but as MYOS1634 notes, med school places for ‘overseas fee status’ students are severely limited by HEA rules. Citizenship is not the issue: tax residence is. Even if you were born and raised in the UK, if you/your parents haven’t been ordinarily / tax resident in the UK/EU you count as international (obviously, there are some exceptions- diplomatic assignment being one of the easiest, but believe it or not, even they have to jump through hoops).
Oxford is allowed a maximum of 14 overseas fee status students, but they rarely take even half that many (last year they took 5). From Oxford and Cambridge’s pov, they get beaten up in the press when super-talented UK resident nationals can’t get in to their own med schools b/c of places given to international students. An Oxford road show person said “if you don’t think you are one of the best one or two prospective students in the world don’t bother applying [as an international]”.
So, long answer to a short question: yes, you can, but the odds are not in your favor…