Hello! I am a high school senior in NY who is planning on applying to med school later on. I would love to study abroad in college. I have heard that studying abroad is not easy though for pre-med students. That being said, are there any particular colleges that are good for pre-med and make studying abroad easier for pre-meds to do?
Thanks
Consider doing a summer abroad instead of a semester or year abroad.
You need to complete all of your pre-reqs at a US or Canadian college for med schools to accept them as fulfilling admission requirements.
Going abroad means needing to schedule your pre-req classes around your study abroad. It can be done but will require very careful planning from Day 1 of college. At smaller colleges, for example, where the first class in a sequence is not offered every semester, a semester or year abroad may throw your course sequencing off and delay your MCAT prep and med school application by a full year. Or time abroad may mean you’ll need to take summer classes to catch up.
You will need to be in the US your senior if you plan to matriculate directly into med school from undergrad. The med school interview season lasts from August through March. Interviews often come with little advanced notice and often come with a limited selection of available interview dates. (And there are no interviews held over holiday breaks.)
Even if a university offers the same course at study abroad using their own faculty in summer, it is too risky because A. Short semester B. Since you are abroad, you end of spending time in enjoying the new place at weekend. Do the summer term abroad but do some courses which are not hard core science courses like BioChem, OChem or Physics etc. That do it during a regular full semester in US.
Students enjoy and plan for study abroad but for summer if you have pre-med interest.
Many schools offer month or summer long study abroad opportunities.
Not unusual at one of my kids’ schools. However… Premed counseling there begins before registration during orientation week and students who are planning to do SA rough out a plan that assures they will be able to do all the things WOWM mentions, including volunteering and research (FWIW, the college does recommend that ALL premeds take at least one or two gap years so they weren’t trying to also cram MCAT/apps into their 4 years). My kid actually went with 6 other premeds on a SA program that was designed to mesh with their major - and all 7 of them are now in med school. (Just to complicate things my kid was also an athlete who ended up playing overseas after the semester ended - wasn’t easy but it was good fodder for med school interviews). So, it’s definitely possible, but it does take some planning and a proactive pre-med advising office.
My kid is in her junior year, finishing up biochem this semester, and will study abroad this spring. She is forced to take physics 2 abroad as it is only offered spring semester at her college. All other premed courses are completed. She is insistent on going, even though the physics course will be more challenging than it would be at her home school. She can always drop it and take it senior year as she will be taking a gap year anyway. At her college study abroad is common for pre-meds.
Will your D Physics 2 class be listed on your D’s home college transcript with full credit awarded by her home college?
AMCAS, AACOMAS and TMDSAS will not accept or verify coursework taken at overseas colleges. Individual medical schools may not accept the physics 2 credit either. (Individual policies vary.)
Your d should contact the admissions offices of the medical schools she is most interested in attending (or at least all her in-state public med schools) and ask if they will accept study abroad credit. Some will; some won’t.
(BTW, medical schools do not verify the acceptability of coursework until AFTER a student has been accepted and AFTER a final post-graduation transcript has been sent from her college.)
Hi! I am premed currently studying abroad in Argentina! It’s totally doable, I would defiantly recommend it. Most schools recommend students who want to go abroad so so in their junior year. My advice is to plan ahead. Once you’re at school and have an advisor, try to make a 4 year plan by listing all the classes you need to a take to graduate and when you plan to take them. Most science classes don’t transfer (at least at my school) so its a good time to take other classes I need to graduate (CORE). Ultimately, it’s a really good experience, and taking more difficult semester and summer courses will be worth it if you really want to go abroad. It can be done, but you need to plan ahead and might need to take some summer classes to make it happen. Meet with your school study abroad advisor your freshman or sophomore to find out your school’s policy on accepting credits from international schools. You have plenty of time between then and now, so I wouldn’t stress about it yet. Just know it’s perfectly doable.
Hope that helps.