<p>QuantMech, you seem to be misinformed about a few things. Most undergraduate programs in the UK will provide a list of subjects/courses and the student’s scores on them. This is to all intents and purposes, a transcript.</p>
<p>It’s also not wholly true to say that medicine is an undergraduate course at Cambridge. Cambridge operates the old-style UK system, where first a BA is taken (normally in physiology or something similar), and then there’s the clinical component of another 3 or so years. The latter half is more akin to US medical school.</p>
<p>The list is a list of exam and paper scores, as far as I know, rather than a course list. To the best of my knowledge, exams are given only at the end of the year, not for individual courses (in the American/semester based sense).</p>
<p>I agree that there is a separate clinical component, but the undergrad degree covers subjects that are normally taught in the first year or two of medical school in the US.</p>
<p>Also, I have seen scores for British courses at the Master’s level. Since a 70 or 75 is often sufficient for a “distinction” in a subject (the top categorization), I think it makes it difficult for many American admissions committees to interpret the results realistically.</p>
<p>The undergrad programs have even more problematic “scoring.” In the past, it has been possible for the top scorer in the Maths Part II exam to receive 10 times as many marks as the lowest-scoring student who still receives a first-class honors degree . . . to say nothing of the seconds and thirds. The top scorer generally does not receive full marks–that would be really rare. The student who comes second may have half the marks of the top scorer, in some years. (This may have changed more recently.)</p>
<p>In traditional UK universities, it’s a list of exams taken. And there’s one exam per course. So it’s a list of courses with grades.</p>
<p>Exams may be taken at the end of the year, or at the end of four years (as in some Oxford courses), but it’s still a separate grade per course.</p>
<p>I’m afraid to say that you really seem not to know as much about the UK system as you seem to think you do.</p>
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<p>Not necessarily. A UK student could theoretically take their undergraduate component in something completely different, like English, once they had studied the basic physiology. This is rare but it does happen.</p>
<p>Top US universities are more than capable of interpreting these transcripts. US graduate programs in all fields are chock full of British students, often admitted partly on the basis of their UK undergrad performance.</p>
<p>Did you read the website? Here are some quotes:</p>
<p>“At Cambridge, you study the medical sciences first, before learning to apply that knowledge to medical practise as a clinical student.”</p>
<p>“Successful completion of the first three years leads to a BA degree and on successful completion of the Clinical Studies in Cambridge you are awarded two degrees, the Bachelor of Medicine and the Bachelor of Surgery (MB, BChir).”</p>
<p>(Practise… kind of an embarrassing spelling mistake eh.)</p>
<p>It is true that medical students are admitted as undergraduates, but not really true to say that it’s an undergraduate course.</p>
<p>Maybe you’d like to think that your experience at Cambridge was extremely exotic and hard for parochial Harvard to interpret, but they do it all the time. (I have a Cambridge BA, by the way.)</p>
<p>Well, if you study Medicine as an undergraduate, and you receive a BA in Medicine, that looks to me like an undergraduate course. There are higher-level Bachelor’s degrees in some subjects in Britain, and medicine is one.</p>
<p>“Practise” is not a spelling mistake–it is the preferred British spelling, I am pretty sure.</p>
<p>No, I don’t think that the experience is “exotic.” However, I think that a Harvard admissions committee probably has some subliminal reservations about a score of 71–even though they know it is viewed as excellent in the British system.</p>
<p>I don’t have any experience with Harvard med admissions, though. Perhaps they think, “Wow, 71 in Cambridge, that’s great!”</p>
<p>I think we might have a difference in terminology here. Which other higher-level bachelors did you have in mind? I can only think of one, and not at Cambridge.</p>
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<p>Nope. In UK English, ‘practise’ refers to the verb and ‘practice’ to the noun. They used the wrong one on the website. A spelling mistake.</p>
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<p>Here you’re pretty much guessing, as you admit. Any such bias can be overcome by thinking about class rank and other such measures. And a 71 in a natural science subject isn’t all that great. A very low First is hardly going to wow one of the top medical schools in the world.</p>
<p>The UK distinctions are interesting but having just watched a son apply to med school and Harvard was one of his schools the point of this was that one must use AMCAS to apply. AMCAS will not verify foreign transcripts. The verification process is a real pain. The transcripts must come from a US/Canadian undergrad, each course taken (yes, every college course EVER taken anywhere) must be put in the right category to satisfy all the pre-med requirements. Courses in progress along with future courses must also be entered by the applicant. AMCAS then verifies with certified transcripts each course.</p>
<p>LORs are either sent to the committees (pre-med admission committees) for each respective undergrad school to generate 1 LOR from the school or each individual LOR is uploaded to the AMCAS website. There are then pages and pages on AMCAS to be filled in for all volunteer activities, clinical work, research, publications, clubs, hours shadowing (years preferably) leadership activities, employment and all other ECs.</p>
<p>The transcript is just 1 small portion of the application. I just don’t see how without international connections it would be as smooth a process as an undergrad school in the US, with pre-med advising and ECs already in place…with highly successful placement in US med schools. As WOWM mentioned the residency process for those with foreign med school degrees is harrowing and slim.</p>
<p>HMS has the pick of the very best students. Many already have grad school degrees as many of the med schools have seen, again why put oneself at such a disadvantage? Son’s interview at HMS didn’t even touch on any classes or his undergrad degrees but rather on all his EC stuff, mainly college football since he was a D1 athlete. Other posters on CC have mentioned the same thing, their interviews were not about coursework rather their ECs. </p>
<p>A med school might get 20,000 applicants interview 500 and for a class of 100.</p>
<p>The OP’s son has an ivy acceptance. </p>
<p>Applying to med school is not like applying for other grad school programs. They are looking for physicians. There maybe more of an allowance on ECs for MD/Phds but then they need YEARS of research.</p>
<p>It is a lot harder to get into Cambridge than to get into a decent medical school in the US. We can assume that if he behaves normally, has some relevant experience, and does a year of study in the US (anyway the Cambridge degree is 3 years?) he can go on to get an MD.</p>
<p>Then the issue is whether Cambridge vs generic Ivy is better for admission to Harvard or other top-few medical schools, if that’s what he is aiming at. When there are 20,000 applicants, it may well be better to look different, unusual, or interesting in some way. Maybe Cambridge will get him out of the pile and selected for interview, and generic Ivy won’t.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for your input. I have been reading the information that @kat provided and also have gone to various Med schools’ web sites (son is in the middle of finals but said he wanted to independently research and then compare notes with me at a later time).</p>
<p>I am glad I asked this question. After combing through the information, it does appear that for what he wants to do in the long run, studying UG overseas may not be the best route, or at the minimum, like what @kat said, would not be a smooth process. Yes he is committed to the medical route and has completed a few pre-med required courses at our state flagship (orgo 1 &2, Bio (post AP), MV/Diff Equations). He really loved the science courses. </p>
<p>I’ve also received PMs about the cultural aspect of studying in Europe, which was not something we even thought about before but definitely worth considering.</p>
<p>^^@Sorghum, yes that’s our experience, especially for an international student. The Cambridge acceptance meant so much to him. </p>
<p>We am glad that he has great options across the pond . I am particularly thankful for the resourceful CC community!</p>
<p>I was thinking of BPhil and BDiv–both at Oxford, admittedly.</p>
<p>If Harvard understands the British system, then I assume that they would exempt Cambridge and Oxford students from the requirement to “train” in the US or Canada for a year before enrolling. If they don’t, I think that is ipso facto evidence that they don’t understand the British system.</p>
<p>I have known a few people who just scraped out a first. Stephen Hawking was one. He had a viva-ed first, and it wasn’t a congratulatory viva. Apparently, I have a much higher estimation of Cambridge and a much lower estimation of Harvard med than you do, keepittoyourself. That’s probably not going to change with further discussion.</p>
<p>Just to add with regard to the transcript issue for UK universities: A friend of mine who graduated from Oxford in the late 1970s was recently asked for his undergraduate transcript, and had none. The university will maintain records of degree classification and (I presume) undergraduate prizes as well, essentially in perpetuity.</p>
<p>When I have seen records of American students who have done junior year abroad at Oxford or Cambridge, the student’s tutor (general equivalent to the Director of Undergraduate Studies) will provide a list of exam marks and usually an interpretation. This is done on a college-by-college basis within Oxford or Cambridge, in my experience. I doubt that any central university record is kept, on an exam-by-exam basis. I am not sure what happens to the records when a person’s college tutor leaves/retires/dies (as could easily be the case 30 years on). </p>
<p>Also, the typical list I have seen has 4 classes, for the year. A student who is doing Part IB Natural Sciences typically takes 3 classes for the year, according to the NatSci web site, although there may also be laboratory (practical) components. There might be more than 3 exams for Part IB NatSci–but I am not sure whether that is the case at present. </p>
<p>A few things have clearly changed since I was in Cambridge. Then, only mathematicians and theoretical physicists did Part III in their subjects. Now most of the NatSci subjects have a Part III, which is in the 4th year, and may have a significant research component.</p>
<p>With regard to higher-level bachelor’s degrees in UK universities: I think the BLitt may still be around, as a post-BA degree, but perhaps it has been converted to an MPhil or some other designation.</p>
<p>Not necessarily. Cambridge NatSci is probably the only English degree that is going to give the students the general background in science that entering US students will have. Someone with a degree in maths from Cambridge (to pick an example out of thin air…) is highly unlikely to have a comparable chemistry and biology background.</p>
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<p>Now you’re just being silly. Just because someone scrapes a first and then goes on to do well, doesn’t mean that the scraped first itself was all that impressive. What do you think a low first corresponds to in terms of American GPA – maybe 3.7? I’m sure we can find a lot of famous people who had about a 3.7. But that doesn’t mean that a 3.7 is itself particularly impressive.</p>
<p>As a matter of fact, I think that the Cambridge undergraduate system is far superior to the American one. But Harvard and other American universities are swarming with grad students who did their undergrads at Cambridge and other UK universities. It’s just not that unusual or special. And there are pretty good reasons why American medical schools are reluctant to take students from such a different system.</p>
<p>You have consistently shown that your information about the UK system (and even British spellings) is either outdated, misleading, or just plain wrong. For example:</p>
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<p>Here you are just plain guessing, and as you must admit there is a huge difference between an American doing a study abroad and an actual Cambridge student. My own Cambridge college has several times over the years provided me with a list of finals taken, along with my score on each and my overall degree classification, on headed college paper. I don’t know what records the central university keeps, but the colleges (at least my own) keep excellent ones. Every time I have needed to use this in America for some reason (at least 3 times that I can recall), it has been without fuss accepted as a transcript.</p>
<p>You guys can all argue this until the cows come home but IMHO here’s the question- this is a kid who is certain he wants to go to Med school in the US AND has a fantastic spot waiting for him at a US university. Why on earth would he tinker with that by doing a non-US undergrad- even if it’s at Cambridge? This is not a kid at a US Prep school who needs to find an overseas U to save face when he gets into zero colleges in the US. This is not (presumably) someone with dual citizenship who is deciding between Princeton to be near Mom in NJ or Cambridge to be near Dad who now lives in London.</p>
<p>If the question is, “My kid wants to study science and only science, and doesn’t want to spend a year taking philosophy and French literature and art history to satisfy the arbitrary US distribution requirements” then we can all debate the merits and flexibility (or the lack therof) of the UK educational system. And if the question is “My kid may want to eventually practice medicine in the UK” that’s worthy of debate.</p>
<p>But to add another variable to the pile of variables inherent in the med school admissions sweepstakes? Sounds nuts to me for an American kid who wants to go to med school in the US and end up a practicing physician in the US.</p>
<p>Adding the possible PhD to the mix makes it even crazier, IMHO. More time in grade (or at the trough, so to speak); why not have the advantage of a 4 year, broad based undergraduate degree with room for history and art and philosophy and anthropology and econ before heading into the very long tunnel of an MD/PhD? Plus residency, completing a dissertation, etc???</p>
<p>For an American premd student with an excellent acceptance to a US undergrad to consider going abroad for undergrad seems wrong-headed (even if it is Cambridge). </p>
<p>Aside from all the excellent points made by Katwkittens and WOWmom (these moms knows the whole premed/med school process so LISTEN to them), another concern would be the app process itself. I’m guessing that the only way to do that would be to do a glide year once back home. A student going to school abroad certainly couldn’t jet back and forth for interviews. </p>
<p>But the primary reasons are the ones that Kat and WOWM mention. The med school app process is like no other (what a relief that it’s over!!!), that I can’t imagine going thru it while doing undergrad abroad. The admission rates are already teeny-tiny…why give yourself a disadvantage from the get-go?</p>
<p>Kat, Wow, and I have all been thru this with our kids. Wow is going thru this a second time. Others here may also have had the “turn my hair gray” experience. don’t give yourself unnecessary hurdles.</p>
<p>Why on earth would he tinker with that by doing a non-US undergrad- even if it’s at Cambridge?</p>
<p>Just to add with regard to the transcript issue for UK universities: A friend of mine who graduated from Oxford in the late 1970s was recently asked for his undergraduate transcript, and had none. The university will maintain records of degree classification and (I presume) undergraduate prizes as well, essentially in perpetuity.</p>
<p>well that would be a nightmare. </p>
<p>On the AMCAS app, you have to perfectly input every class you took - and write it EXACTLY like it appears on the transcript…including perfectly matching crazy abbreviations.</p>