hi.
I am an international student heading to temple for the spring as a bio major.
I’m having a hard time grasping the difficulty level of classes and their role during grad school admissions.
I am yet to give my placement test.
but, most med-schools state the pre-reqs as One year of Biology with lab.
One year of General Chemistry with lab.
One year of Organic Chemistry with lab.
One year of Physics with lab.
One year of English.
and math and bio chem along with humanities and English.
no one speaks about the rigor of the courses though.
does it matter if its an honors class or lower or upper division ?what’s the difference and how does choosing them work?
What if someone who is placed in the lower division classes wants to join honors or upper division classes?
how can one do that?
and do grad schools care whether the student too an upper or lower division class
I know that as an international student my odds are not as favorable.
I’ll answer your questions in a moment, but first I want to make sure that you understand how extraordinarily difficult it is for international students to attend med school in the US. There are 2 barriers for internationals.
First, less than half of all US med school will even consider internationals for admission, and only about a dozen regularly accept internationals. According to AMCAS, less than 200 internationals were accepted to all US med schools last year and ~85% of those 200 were Canadians. So maybe 20-30 true internationals matriculated into all US med schools combined.
Second, there is no financial aid for internationals to help pay for med school. Med schools require internationals to demonstrate the ability to pay for their medical education by placing anywhere from $100,000 to $500,000 into a US escrow account before they are allowed to matriculate.
Now to answer your questions--
With the exception of biochem, all med school pre-reqs are lower division classes. This is true at all US colleges & universities. You can't take "upper division" general chemistry, for example, because it doesn't exist. Lower division classes are introductory-level classes that cover a large variety of topics within a discipline and give the student a broad grounding in the subject area. Upper division class are very specialized classes that cover only 1 topic in great depth. One must first complete the introductory level class before one can move onto the specialized classes. (IOW, you can't jump straight into biochem, you first must take & pass OChem. In order to enroll in OChem, one must take & pass Gen Chem. Etc. Etc.)
Med school adcomms generally do not care if one enrolls in honors gen chem vs. regular gen chem. (Or bio or physics or psych or calc...) This is because there are so many other things that get considered when making admission decisions. Med school admissions are holistic. The decisions aren't formulaic or strictly numbers-driven and consider a wide range of factors besides GPA/MCAT score, including things like US residency status, emotional maturity, altruism, compassion, interpersonal communications skills, leadership ability, etc.
To enroll in a honors introductory level class (if it's offered by the college--and not all colleges offer honors classes), one must be able to show they have fulfilled certain requirements. Those requirements will vary from college to college. But if you want an example, at D2's undergrad, to enroll in honors intro bio, one had to have an AP or IB score of 5 on the bio exam.
FYI, In the US, grad school refers to post-graduate education that leads to a PhD. Medicine doesn't grant a PhD so med school is referred to as professional school. <<<<
First, less than half of all US med school will even consider internationals for admission, and only about a dozen regularly accept internationals. According to AMCAS, less than 200 internationals were accepted to all US med schools last year and ~85% of those 200 were Canadians. So maybe 20-30 true internationals matriculated into all US med schools combined.
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I don’t think non-Canadians realize this. And I’ve seen some int’l premeds posts that suggest that they think that some med schools don’t differentiate between citizen and int’l apps!
I suspect that the non-Canadian int’ls that are accepted have extremely exceptional stats/resumes.
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Second, there is no financial aid for internationals to help pay for med school. Med schools require internationals to demonstrate the ability to pay for their medical education by placing anywhere from $100,000 to $500,000 into a US escrow account before they are allowed to matriculate.
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This is a biggie. I’ve noticed that more med schools (who accept int’ls) are now demanding all 4 years escrowed, rather than just one year (which some formerly required). I’ve read some older posts on that “other forum” where some int’ls had funds for one year, but then couldn’t continue after that. I’m sure that annoyed those med schools as those students “took a seat” from a domestic student. Probably that’s why more med schools are now demanding 4 years escrowed.
May I add that as an international, even if you can graduate from an US Med School, you have a problem to get into a Residency program because the immigration restrictions. You need some hospital to sponsor your application for an US resident status (green card) in order to stay in the USA and that is not easy. And since medical Residency only last for few years and a green card application some times take as much as 10 years, your prospect of practice medicine in the USA will be hampered. Unlike even 10 years ago, today the US immigration policy is tougher than ever for professionals to gain permanent residency status.
@artloversplus , I understand but that is what they have the HB1,J1 visa for. don’t they ? I am not necessarily looking to settle in the US.Its just that there is better quality education, in the US in terms of access to educational resources.
Yes those visas are increasing difficult to get, that is the challenge.
You should study medicine in the country you wish to practice, an US educated doctor won’t be able to practice in most countries in Asia and Europe, not sure about Latin America.
Ok after reading this thread and your other thread you have a few problems. But nothing is insurmountable if you really want to try hard and you have some luck.
If you go to a US Medical school you wouldnt leave to practice elsewhere. So if you want to complete your undergrad here and attend med school / practice in your country you should research whether an undergrad degree here would even be helpful. If you want to attend med school and settle here you have options. This is complicated by your starting in spring and may mean that you will have to go home during an inevitable gap year.
If you want to give it a shot. Do amazing in your classes. Maintain a 3.8 or higher gpa. Kill undergrad. Then kill the mcat. Dont take the MCAT until you are sure you will do just that. While attending college look to shadow, volunteer, research, etc. You will need to be at the very top of your class becasue the schools that typically take internationals are the top schools. Make sure that you really connect with your professors and advisors so you will have amazing letters of recommendation.
Once accepted you will need to figure out the financial end. Private loans in your own country. Parents. Maybe even private loans here, but unfortunately US federal aid is not available. And schools will ask for some or all up front in an escrow.
It can be done. Ive seen it done. But you have to go all in 100%.
Good luck!
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understand but that is what they have the HB1,J1 visa for. don’t they ? I am not necessarily looking to settle in the US.Its just that there is better quality education, in the US in terms of access to educational resources.
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I’m not sure that Visa’s are granted for residencies because of the source of the money for residency payments.
You seem to miss the point. The mission of our med schools and residencies is to educate doctors who will practice in the US. We’re not really interested in spending very limited resources on folks who’ll grab the education and leave.
A portion of a resident’s pay comes from the US Gov’t. For that reason, I suspect that a resident may need to be a citizen or green card holder.
They’re all lower level classes, covering the basics if what ou’lk need in Mediterranean school. The goal is to ensure you’re in the top 10% of the class for each one of them.
I would advise another major than bio though, as your path is complicated and adding a major with lower odds of opt will make it even harder.
This isn’t quite true. While a major portion of residency funding comes from medicare, those in residency are not required to be citizens or PRs. (Because the resident’s salary doesn’t come directly from the government, but from general training funds given to the hospital/clinic which then use a portion of those funds, plus additional funds from revenues to pay for residents’ salaries & education.)
However, if you look at FRIEDA–the overwhelming majority of residency programs simply will not consider non-citizens/non-PRs or require internationals to obtain their own J1 visa without any assistance from the program in advance of their application. (Basically impossible to do)
It’s very easy for PDs to filter out applications from internationals --there’s a checkbox on the ERAS software that allows the PD to exclude any application that requires a visa from downloading.
And mom2 is right–the main purpose of the US government funding residency program is to train doctors who will serve the US population, not take their education and leave.