<p>Hi all. So my story is somewhat strange and I'd hugely appreciate advice. I'm from Pakistan, 23 yrs old. I was studying medicine purely because of family pressure (I hated it), but managed to quit just before the annual exam in 3rd year (here, the Bachelor of Medicine & Bachelor of Surgery degree is five years long and considered an undergraduate degree). I got a BSc degree after I finished second year. But I want to change paths and study comparative literature here at U of T at Austin. I've loved literature since forever, got a 98% on my Lit O Level. Obviously I'll need to start my undergrad again with literature this time. Preferably with some awesome physics and IR courses, because I enjoy studying across different disciplines. I want to know what sort of position my history puts me in before the admissions committee, whether I've a decent shot at getting in, whether this is the best course of action for getting into a Comp Lit Masters program, and just general advice of all kinds. Btw since I quit, I've studied one semester of French and done a summer course in Persian at a local university. Because I love foreign languages. But I'm afraid that with my age and scattered education and being international and needing financial aid- that all these things make an acceptance unlikely. I need to make the right choice because I'm too old to keep wasting time. The other option is to stay in Pakistan and just do an MSc in International Relations. But I want to try for a good Literature program, and there aren't any here.</p>
<p>It’s really hard to get financial aid from UT, so I wouldn’t count on that. My son had excellent stats and got $1,000 total in merit aid.</p>
<p>Your first step should really be to get all of your transcripts evaluated to find out if you would be considered to have the equivalent of a US bachelor degree - especially since your degree was conferred at the end of your second year. If not, you may be able to approach UT as a transfer student rather than a graduate school applicant. Graduate programs usually do not have much flexibility to take classes in other disciplines but an undergraduate liberal arts degree would. </p>
<p>Thank you. Actually I don’t mind having to do a BA, esp because I need undergraduate literature and foreign language courses for the masters. But will I get admission for a BA here? It’s a lengthy and expensive procedure for an international, I just wanted to know how good my chances are. I’ve read that universities prefer fresh-out-of-high school applicants.</p>
<p>The other thing is, they say for that for a transfer student, transcripts from the previous university matter a lot. I don’t know how they’ll judge mine. In my college, we were promoted on the basis of the annual exams, so my annual exam results are all that count, right? Not the random and unimportant hundreds of tests we had every other day? Because you could flunk them all as long as you had full attendance and had passed the annual. It was completely different, there were no semsters or GPAs. I just wonder what all they’ll judge from my transcripts, besides transfer credits. My subpar performance in med school should not be an indicator of how well I’ll do in a BA program. Sorry for the long posts and thank you all for the guidance.</p>