<p>Yeah I was just curious if it was possible to study biology at a uk university like cambrigde, oxford, st andrews, or university of manchester BUT come back to the us to study medicine because i know if i apply as a medical student I probably will not get in so I was wondering maybe this would be a better route since Im going to come back anyways.</p>
<p>In order for this to be worthwhile you will need to contact any US medical schools you would consider applying to in the future. Show them the course description for the places you are considering in the UK and ask them if it meets their pre-requisites for admission to their medicine program. UK unis won’t be able to help you with this as medicine is an undergraduate course here so high school is enough for them. It may be possible but you might be forced to pick specific courses (eg specific options within Cambridge Natural Sciences course, should you be admitted to that). What you don’t want to do is get 2 years into a course in the UK and then find out this will not be acceptable to your preferred medical school. So it’s good you are asking this question now.</p>
<p>Good luck</p>
<p>US medical schools require a list of undergraduate courses from different disciplines (typically 4 semesters of chemistry, two semesters of biology, two of physics etc.) along with Math, English, and now, Psych and Sociology. The way the UK system is set up, undergraduates there only study one subject. So if you studied biology there, you’d probably have to do some kind of post-baccalaureate pre-med program in the US to fulfill all the coursework requirements for US medical school before applying.</p>
<p>There are degrees in the UK that would satisfy those requirements NJSue, for example human sciences.</p>
<p>I agree that the OP should contact medical schools in the US to find out what they would accept before making this decision.</p>
<p>I googled the Human Sciences program and Magdalen College came up; apparently they only accept two or three students per year into this program. I realize it is only one Oxford college, but still…the odds do not seem very good for acceptance.</p>
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<p>It is possible to study at a UK and eventually come back and matriculate at a US medical school, but there is one major issue. Foreign course-work is not considered by almost all US medical schools. The national application service AMCAS for example does not even see any foreign transcripts, and while the Texas application service TMDSAS does require submission of foreign transcripts the coursework does not count toward requirements or toward the GPA calculation.</p>
<p>Essentially this means that you would need to complete your degree in the UK, and then come back to the US to re-take all of the pre-med requirements at a US institution which would require an absolute minimum of two years full-time.</p>
<p>Not to mention volunteer, research, and clinical volunteer opportunities are harder to find in the UK than at US schools and you would not have some of the resources that pre-medical students do in the US.</p>
<p>In short, don’t do it. If you plan to go to medical school in the US, then you should stay in the US and perhaps do a study abroad program (where credits are awarded by your home US institution) if you really want to spend some time in the UK.</p>