Hi everyone,
I am not even sure if foreigners can join this community but I am hopeless and this is the only source I could find. My story is kind of strange because until last few months, being a doctor never came to my mind. In the exam of university entrance, I got a very high score which was enough to go to best med school here in Turkey. Yes, we go to med school right after high school for a 6 years of med education. But as I said never thought of being a doctor altough my parents had encouraged me to do so. And I went to industrial engineering department and this year I am graduated with a gpa of 3,41. I am graduated from the best technical university in Turkey yet I am not happy. I realized that I feel no passion for my profession. I have always wanted to be academician but I don’t want to be researching something I don’t believe in. Medicine became more and more important as I thought about it and now, I want to study in med more than anything. I have taken chemistry and physics for 8 credits both. I have applied for masters program in my department before all this have started and I am accepted. I will also work as a research assistant. Now, is there any chance that I can be accepted to any med school in U.S.A.? My current plan is to finish my masters program and meanwhile be sure that it is not what I want. Then I will apply for doctora program in my department to U.S.A and when I go there, it would be easier to pass to med school? Am I right? I don’t know anything and I might be fully wrong. What is the best thing I can do that would increase my chance to become a doctor? I can take other required courses during my master I guess like biology and organic chemistry.
I hope my nation would not be a problem.
I look forward hearing anything from anyone.
Welcome.
I am certainly not an expert, but from what I have come across, most med schools require international applicants to have at least 1 year of undergrad course work at a US or Canadian university. In addition, you would have to get all your Turkish course work reviewed by one of the agencies in the US that the US med schools use.
Hope that helps a bit.
Good luck.
Lynda
Welcome, Anatolia! Ours is an open forum and we welcome everyone from all over.
Lynda (who is in Canada) is right - at a minimum, you will have to do at least a year of coursework in a U.S. college or university to be considered for admission to a U.S. medical school. I just randomly looked at admissions criteria for a few medical schools and many of them require either U.S. citizenship or permanent resident status. Some state on their websites that credits from institutions of higher learning outside the U.S. cannot be accepted. I have known a very few non-U.S. pre-meds and in many cases they had to do all or much of another bachelor’s degree of coursework before they could be considered for admission to a U.S. medical school.
Now, this sounds discouraging but that is not how I mean it. I want you to know this before you go spending more time and effort on advanced degrees in Turkey - because that is certainly not going to help you get into medical school in the U.S.
Getting into a U.S. medical school is probably going to require coming to the U.S. years before you plan to apply to medical school, taking necessary coursework here, and THEN applying. You will also need to research very carefully which schools are open to accepting students who do not have U.S. citizenship or residency status… or consider how you will be establishing residency status, if that is your goal.
It is not an easy task but I am confident that it can be done. I urge you to research what is required so that you can make the best possible decisions for now and for the future.
Again, welcome to OldPreMeds and I wish you all the best!
Mary
Anatolia,
Welcome to the group! I think Mary did a great job of laying things out. I’d like to add that you might want to consider getting in touch with Turkish physicians practicing in the U.S. They may have some information of which the rest of us are not aware, and undoubtedly they would be a great source of support for you in the process.
Best of luck!
Thanks a lot. It was really helpful because I didn’t know any of those necessities! I am graduated from a college that educates in English in all courses but I guess it is not enough. Besides being a U.S. citizen or get a permanent permission is not possible for me. So I will continue to search schools that doesn’t require citizenship and accept my B.S. degree. I just looked at UOF Med School’s page and I didn’t see something like that maybe I was not careful enough. I will check it again. From this point, it seems it is almost impossible for me to go to med school in U.S. and even if it is possible it will require more prep. years that I can give off.I know that your goal was only to help and not to discourage so thanks a lot again. I will search other countries maybe some Europe countries or Canada would have less strict rules, right? I will share here if I come up to something, bye.
Hi again
Don’t mean to be overly negative, but just to let you know that most med schools in Canada don’t accept international students - the only ones I know of are Memorial U in Newfoundland, McMaster U and U of Toronto in Ontario and McGill U in Montreal. And according to their stats, they don’t accept very many (on average 1 or 2 per year).
If you speak french fluently there are couple of other universities in Quebec that accept international students.
Lynda
McGill is awesome!!
Yes I did a little research and I learned that it is really hard to be accepted in US, Canada and England for a foreign student. But there are few countires in Europe such as Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia in which people go to med school right after high school and criterias are less hard. Also the fees are not so high and they say the medicine degree is valuable in both EU countries and also US. Yet I am not sure about the quality of the education there! Prague University is a very old one and it seems nice but I don’t know these are all new findings for me and I don’t know if it is worth it. Maybe I should start again in my country against all the judgements of people around. I won’t be able to run away and do this peacefully. Yet thank you all very much, you have shown me how impossible it was before I have gone too far. If anyone has any question about education in Turkey ever I would be more than happy to help. Goodbye.
There is a parallel MD program at George Washington University that is designed specifically for non-US citizens. But, you must have completed 90 credit hours at an accredited US or Canadian college or university and foreign credits are not accepted. You will essentially have to duplicate your entire undergraduate degree; probably not what you were hoping for though.
http://www.gwumc.edu/edu/admis/html/academ ics/inte…
Well thanks any way dear TicDocDoh because altough it is at the end of a hard road, still you gave me hope! I am planning to come to U.S. for PhD program in my profession with a scholarship as many of friends are doing. And when I come, I maybe able to finish another B.S. in the college I will attend and then at the end of four years, if I find no peace in industrial engineering, I apply to med school and continue there! Yet I will be a student like forever but I like being a student and having something to accomplish or a hard goal like this=) Meanwhile I have searched other countries for medical education and in many Europe countries, it is really easier to enter a med school! I am still searching but since I will be the one who pays for fees, I need to work for a while and save money but if any other is interested in studying medicine abroad, I sincerely recommend to have a look at the admission criterias in Europe countries. Once more thanks again for GW’s link. Bye.
Please, see below comments from University of Cincinnati Medical School’s admission home page (and, I believe it must be the same for all others):
http://www.med.uc.edu/admissions/requiremen ts.cfm
…
REQUIREMENTS FOR ADMISSIONS
To be admitted, a student must be a United States citizen or permanent resident (with a permanent residency visa) and have completed a minimum of 90 semester hours at a U.S. accredited four-year degree-granting institution of higher education. For students who have received a degree or are enrolled in an undergraduate college outside of the United States, a graduate degree or a minimum of 20 hours of science coursework from a U.S. college or university is required.
…
…
Therefore, as an international student:
- first, you have to get your green-card (better off, the US citizenship)
- then, to satisfy one of the following options:
2-1) a graduate degree (masters or PhD)
2-2) 20 hours of science coursework from US college / university
I hope it helps,
Good luck in your future endeavors,
The requirements are NOT the same for all other med schools. Most, probably, have similar requirements, but it is all over the map. Someone who does not have a degree from a U.S. institution has to be extremely diligent and check into every single school to find those that might be suitable.
Mary
- Mary Renard Said:
Mary
I don't get it. Those are the MINIMUM requirements for an INTERNATIONAL student, aren't they?
Are there schools who does accept less? Which items do you think are not needed below?
1) first, you have to get your green-card (better off, the US citizenship)
2) then, to satisfy one of the following options:
2-1) a graduate degree (masters or PhD)
2-2) 20 hours of science coursework from US college / university
Actually, on top of the above requirements for an applicant with an INTERNATIONAL degree, one may need to have high level science, English composition, humanities and social sciences course work up to the limits requested by medical schools, regarding to "academic requirements" (I don't talk here about how much extra curricular activities one needs to do).
Do I overlook anything, or what do you mean by saying "The requirements are NOT the same for all other med schools". It's not a mystery, nor is it a dark road to walk on.
- ceng2doc Said:
.
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I don't get it. Those are the MINIMUM requirements for an INTERNATIONAL student, aren't they?
Are there schools who does accept less? Which items do you think are not needed below?
1) first, you have to get your green-card (better off, the US citizenship)
2) then, to satisfy one of the following options:
2-1) a graduate degree (masters or PhD)
2-2) 20 hours of science coursework from US college / university
CEng, when you wrote "and I believe it must be the same for all others" if you were saying that the list is a rock-bottom minimum everywhere, and that all schools will want something more than this rock-bottom minimum list, you're probably right. I've not seen any school posting minimum requirements that are less than 20 hours of coursework from a US institution. I suppose you did not mean that the minimum requirements at other schools are identical to this list (if you did, that would be incorrect.)
Anyway, Cincinnati's minimum requirements seem very generous to folks with undergrad degrees not from the US. I'll have to place UC on my list.
By the way, just for fun, I will point out that there are plenty of schools who will consider F-1 students, meaning #1 in that list is not a "minimum" requirement. But the number of such students offered admission each year is miniscule.
OK I realize that not everyone here is aspiring to go to Harvard, but I invite you to visit their School of Medicine’s website and read their requirements. I don’t have time to post the link but my recollection is that they were far, far more willing to consider international students than many other schools I checked when Anatolia first raised this question.
Bottom line is that EVERY SCHOOL will have a different set of criteria for international students and those criteria do not necessarily encompass green card status etc. Those who are not U.S. citizens, and/or have degrees from schools outside the U.S., will have to check carefully with every. single. school. that they might be interested in.
Mary
- Mary Renard Said:
Bottom line is that EVERY SCHOOL will have a different set of criteria for international students and those criteria do not necessarily encompass green card status etc. Those who are not U.S. citizens, and/or have degrees from schools outside the U.S., will have to check carefully with every. single. school. that they might be interested in.
Mary
Let's check what's all about Harvard Medial School's admission for INTERNATIONAL students.
Below is an excerpt from Harvard Medical School's admission web page.
Although, you said that green-card / citizenship was not required at Harvard, if you go ahead and check their Financial Aid Program's website, you can quickly realize that they direct the applicants to FAFSA in order to calculate the expected family contribution of the student, which, in turn, requires one be a permanent resident (green-card holder), or a citizen. Total cost of attendance seems to be $66,000 for the first year medical student at Harvard.
Turns out, what I've previously written about the minimums for INTERNATIONAL students applies to Harvard, as well.
One only needs to ask/check their website of each medical school s/he wants to apply to learn what additional courses apart from those required ones, how much extra curricular activities/shadowing/volu nteering/etc., and what average MCAT scores are supposed to be gotten in order to become a competent applicant before those medical schools' admission committees.
Medical school application shouldn't be a dark road to walk on, at all.
I hope it clears things a bit more.
...
INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS
I am a foreign student. Will that affect my chances of getting in to HMS?
Foreign students who have studied for at least one year at an accredited institution in the United States or Canada, and have completed the requirements, are eligible to apply at HMS. International applicants should make every effort to take the majority of required courses at an accredited college or university in the United States or Canada. Foreign students who do not have a baccalaureate or advanced degree from an institution in the U.S. or Canada are rarely offered admission.
Do I need to take the TOEFL to test my English fluency?
You do not need to take the TOEFL. However, we do require, at minimum, one year of previous education taught in the United States or Canada as a prerequisite to admission. Fluency in English is expected.
My undergrad degree is from an institution outside of the United States and Canada. Can I still apply to HMS?
A limited number of required courses taken outside the U.S. or Canada may be used to fulfill requirements, to be determined on a case-by-case basis. Every effort should be made to take the majority of required courses at an accredited college or university in the U.S. or Canada. In any case, at least one year of full-time academic work in the U.S. or Canada is required. Foreign students who do not have a baccalaureate or advanced degree from an institution in the United States or Canada are rarely offered admission.
Are international students eligible for financial aid?
International Students are eligible to apply for need-based financial institutional scholarships and loans. More information can be found at the HMS Financial Aid Office website.
Ceng2doc,
There are students in every school who don’t take loans and pay for their education ‘out of pocket’. Thus, not having a permanent residence status or citizenship does not have to prevent them from attending Harvard, if they are able to afford to pay their bills.
Anatolia!
I was wondering why you are not considering a possibility to attend medical school in Turkey?
By the time you are done with your master degree and ready to do you PhD, or even done with your PhD things might change or you might find yourself in different circumstances and maybe attending U.S. medical school won’t be nearly as ‘impossible’ as it seems now.
From my own experience… I did my undergrad studies in Poland before emigrating to U.S. After I came here, and realized that I’d be staying, I came back to school and got another undergrad degree so I had better chances to get accepted to med school. I was a permanent resident at that time (for purpose of admission to a medical school permanent residents are treated equally with U.S. citizens).
Finally, I met several doctors in here who are Americans, and for variety of reasons couldn’t and/ or didn’t want to attend U.S. med school and they ended up going to a 4-year-track Medical School in Poland. I know these programs are available in several Polish schools… I met people who went to one in Krakow at Jagiellionian University… The program is in English, they accept MCATs (exactly like American schools do) and you have an option of doing your 3rd and 4th year rotations in US (if you choose so), which the doctors I know did. I know that medical school in Prague and one in Vilnus also offer 4-year track in English, but I don’t have details on either of them.
Anyway, good luck with your endeavors!
Kasia
- madkasia Said:
There are students in every school who don't take loans and pay for their education 'out of pocket'. Thus, not having a permanent residence status or citizenship does not have to prevent them from attending Harvard, if they are able to afford to pay their bills.
Due to its nature, studying at medical schools is EXPENSIVE in the States. Period... This is why schools would like to see that they're gonna be paid by the government in case the student won't be able to do so. I heard some schools request strong proofs (like bank letters, etc.) that the student has enough sources to afford it. I don't know its details, cause I'm nowhere into that. But, I guess, that way would be tough to negotiate with the school. And, I strongly believe that the schools must have met with bad experiences/conflicts when it came to school tuition payments that most of them refrain from admitting students without a federal loan guarantee. My fifty cents...
- madkasia Said:
Anatolia!
I was wondering why you are not considering a possibility to attend medical school in Turkey?
I agree with that. Turkey has a very strong medical school system, too. Many of the Europeans, Arabs, etc. nations now have been seeking quality medical / dental treatment in Turkey.
I've heard great things about the following medical schools in Turkey, whose language of education are in pure English and have great connections with other international medical schools all over the world including the States:
You don't need to bother with MCAT to matriculate in them, as far as I learned from their web sites, but to take a SAT like exam and do good (no volunteering, no shadowing, no extra curricular activities, no pre-req courses, etc. were required to be matriculated... great!!!). After being admitted to any of those programs, you may take the USMLE exams (steps 1,2,3) one by one while you're progressing through your course of studies, as all of the medical school students do the same here at the United States. You can then apply for a match for residency in the States, as most of the Caribbean medical school graduate do. Yes, the chances to hit a spot is less than a US graduate, but hey, you'll be a medical doctor already in your home country, which is a great place to practice medicine, with a possibility to practice in the States, as well.
Hope you'll choose the best route for yourself, with minimum hassles,
Quest for the victory!