<p>I understand that the medicine course in UK uni's are extremely competitive, esp. for international applicant and I frankly don't have the stats to stand a chance. Would it possible for me to complete an undergrad degree in something like biology or a more general science, and then return to the US to gain an MD? Would US medical schools accept a degree from a UK university? </p>
<p>Almost all US med schools will only accept undergrad degrees from the US or Canada</p>
<p>dang</p>
<p>jazzcatastrophe is essentially correct…but, there are exceptions. UVa, for example, accepts degrees from the UK. There is a list of med schools that accept international applicants w/o a US undergrad here: <a href=“US Medical Schools for International Students: US and Canadian Medical Schools Accepting International Students, Full Statistics”>http://premedusa.blogspot.com/2014/06/US-Medical-Schools-for-Internationals-Updated.html</a></p>
<p>You need to do your homework, though, and it could be helpful to do summer courses in the US to fulfill pre-reqs that aren’t covered exactly in your undergrad program. Fwiw, I think that it is unlikely to make it any easier to get in.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t guess it would make it easier, but would you say it would make it any more difficult? Like, if I had the same stats and everything of a student who had attended a US college for undergrad, would a medical school prioritize the us applicant over me?</p>
<p>/do you have any idea, I suppose that’s a pretty specific question.</p>
<p>don’t really know, but would guess that if you had an undergrad degree in biological sciences or biochem or something from a name uni- oxbridge, imperial, maybe kcl- you would have has at least as good a chance as a US applicant. After unless the admissions team were familiar with the university you would probably be at a disadvantage. </p>
<p>However the reality is, if you are good enough to get into oxbridge or imperial you are good enough to get into at least a decent US university, and then do exceptionally well. </p>
<p>If the reason that your stats aren’t great is that you are a really asymmetrical student, and only thrive in lab sciencey classes to the exclusion of all else, you might be happier & do better in the UK- because that is all that you would be taking. Biological sciences at a top tier UK uni will be a lot more intense than doing a US pre-med course.</p>
If you are going to study in the UK and want to optimize your med school admissions chances, you should probably study biochemistry. US premeds use class choice to take the classes that med schools are looking for and which prepare them for the MCAT. If you study straight biology, you will not get the best preparation for med school.
I don’t know much about getting into US med schools. However, there are many US citizens who couldn’t get into US medical schools and practice with foreign medical school degrees.
You would avoid all the crazy cutthroat US premed atmosphere and study with people who were almost all not planning on going to medical school.
I don’t think you’d be able to do the premed core at a UK university -ie., 2 semester of biology, chemistry, physics, English + 1 semester each of calculus, statistics, biochemistry, a diversity-focused class, sociology, and psychology.
(noting that the OP has not returned to this old thread)
The pre-med core is not required for admission to medical school, and many many successful applicants just do the required sciences.
There is an inherent bias for US / Canadian-educated students. The med schools have worked with the universities and there is a pretty standard ‘core’ that the med schools know will have been covered in the undergraduate work (medicine is not the only grad school for which that is true, btw- physics is the same).
Thanks everyone for the advice, in the end I decided not to go the UK route (largely because of the fin aid avaliable for international students).