Folks applying to UQ Med for 2009 entry

[Jatpot]

Since everyone is throwing their opinions around as fact...I'll play!

Jake, I disagree that most internationals in aus schools wouldn't be there if they could've gotten in in the states. I don't know how you could back this statement up, as I graduated from an australian school and hesitate to speak for any other program.

I do, however, see the trend for aus to be viewed as an alternative for people who couldn't get in at home emerging, and I'm not a fan. I agree that people who have a goal of returning to the states for residency and practice should exhaust all options in the US before looking abroad, and shouldn't view moving halfway around the world for med school lightly.

My def. of a diploma mill (the defintion of which is completely subjective) is a school in which a large percentage of students are not native to the country in which it is located; one that has multiple admission periods per year, one in which a large percentage of coursework/clinicals is completed elsewhere, and one from which most graduates attempt to complete post-grad training elsewhere. Carib schools=yes. Current australian schools=no. Again, totally subjective definition, but most of what you find on this forum is not backed up at all by hard science. I am now two cents poorer.

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[JoeNamaMD]

Not all international students are going to Australia to practice in the US/Canada, many want to stay in Australia, a few want to go to the UK. Some Singapore, HK, etc. not everyone is fixated on going to North America. Even a lot of North Americans who are here wind up staying, I know quite a few who were set on going back home after graduation but wound up staying after realizing the high quality of life that Australia provides.

Aussie schools are not diploma mills, the real issue here is that the Australian GPA system is very different from North America's and hence some North Americans can make up for low GPAs with strong MCAT scores.

 

[shan564]

Not all international students are going to Australia to practice in the US/Canada, many want to stay in Australia, a few want to go to the UK. Some Singapore, HK, etc. not everyone is fixated on going to North America. Even a lot of North Americans who are here wind up staying, I know quite a few who were set on going back home after graduation but wound up staying after realizing the high quality of life that Australia provides.

Thumbs up to that. I don't know where I'll end up practicing; the world is a big place. I might end up in the US or Oz, but I may also find myself in the Middle East. Who knows that the world will look like in 5 years?

 

[jaketheory]

be aware that given the current situation, by 2011 there are expected to be more med grads than internship positions. thus local aussies may find it difficult to get internships, much less internationals. and you cant get a permanent resident visa through skilled migration as a doctor until after you have completed an internship.

the states are saying its the fed govt's responsibility to ensure sufficient post grad training positions are available, while the fed govt says its the responsibility of the states.

and UK? really? they've already encounted the problem above. many brits in the past would go to aus for internship because they could not get jobs back home.

i would not suggest anyone go there expecting to be able to stay. if you go through it all and it then seems a real possibility, thats great, but you shouldnt plan on it, else you are likely to end up very dissappointed.

and obviously MOST internationals would not have ended up in aus due to not getting into a US school because most internationals are not americans. though, with the increasing # of canadians, its probably not too far off.

 

[shan564]

Yeah, I'm not specifically banking on staying in Oz or on coming back to the US; I just want to keep my options open. I usually do well on standardized tests (35 MCAT, 1440 GRE, 1560 SAT, 34 ACT, etc.), so I'm hoping that I'll do well enough on both the AMC and the USMLE so that I can choose where I want to do my internship/residency.

As far as permanent residency, I'm pretty sure that I have enough work experience so that I can get the visa after meeting the 2 yr study requirement (assuming that I can pass their proficiency test as an Urdu translator, which I think I can).

Anyway, I think we're just arguing over the semantics of the term "diploma mill". I always thought that "diploma mill" implies that the university "mills out diplomas" and that a degree from that university suggests a subpar educational standard. Therefore, a major international Parliament-sanctioned research university cannot possibly be in the same class as speedydegrees.com or Warnborough or even Ross/AUA/AUC/Saba.

 

[jaketheory]

Yeah, I'm not specifically banking on staying in Oz or on coming back to the US; I just want to keep my options open. I usually do well on standardized tests (35 MCAT, 1440 GRE, 1560 SAT, 34 ACT, etc.), so I'm hoping that I'll do well enough on both the AMC and the USMLE so that I can choose where I want to do my internship/residency.

Shan, i find it hard to believe you couldn't get in to a US school with a 35 MCAT. your gpa would have to be pretty low. you must be canadian. if you showed a vast improvement in your last years of study (straight A's), you could probably get in to a US state school so long as your gpa was around a 3.0. i know some have gotten in with sub 3.0 gpa's. if you are canadian, that is unlikely to help, but you could move, spend a year gaining additional experience, and pay a lot less than international fees.

And graduates of australian med schools do not take the amc exam. it is only for grads of overseas med schools to ensure their training was comparable to that at australian med schools.

As far as permanent residency, I'm pretty sure that I have enough work experience so that I can get the visa after meeting the 2 yr study requirement (assuming that I can pass their proficiency test as an Urdu translator, which I think I can).

interesting plan...

you would have to time this very well, which may be up to chance given visa processing times can fluctuate and every app is different. you would have to ensure you receive the visa early enough to be eligible for internship allocation during 4th year, but also late enough so that you dont lose your place in 4th year for becoming a PR. may work. may not.

 

[shan564]

Shan, i find it hard to believe you couldn't get in to a US school with a 35 MCAT. your gpa would have to be pretty low. you must be canadian. if you showed a vast improvement in your last years of study (straight A's), you could probably get in to a US state school so long as your gpa was around a 3.0. i know some have gotten in with sub 3.0 gpa's. if you are canadian, that is unlikely to help, but you could move, spend a year gaining additional experience, and pay a lot less than international fees.

I graduated with a 2.88, and it's pretty consistent over the course of the 4 years. Do you know anything about those people who got in with sub-3.0 GPA's? I have plenty of additional experience (published clinical research, etc.), but my local state school told me that the only way to make up for my crappy GPA is by taking more classes and getting the GPA up. It seems to me that it'll just be a longshot... take a year of classes, apply with the new GPA, take another year of classes, apply with the new GPA (by this time I'd have a Master's), etc. The adviser actually said that it doesn't matter what score I get on the MCAT; they'll just think I'm a lazy genius.

Unfortunately, Missouri only has one postgraduate medical school (Univ. of Missouri), and they only accept 100 students a year. I'm competing with all of the WashU undergrads, since they want to come to MU for the cheaper tuition. I have a friend who graduated from WashU with a 3.6, had a lot of research/clinical experience already, took a year off to do more clinical research, got a 38 on the MCAT, and still wasn't too sure about his chances at MU.

And graduates of australian med schools do not take the amc exam. it is only for grads of overseas med schools to ensure their training was comparable to that at australian med schools.

Oops, my mistake.

interesting plan...

you would have to time this very well, which may be up to chance given visa processing times can fluctuate and every app is different. you would have to ensure you receive the visa early enough to be eligible for internship allocation during 4th year, but also late enough so that you dont lose your place in 4th year for becoming a PR. may work. may not.

Yeah, I'm not sure if it'll work or not... worst-case scenario is that I'll have to wait an extra year to start my internship (and go through the PR process in that year). At this point, I don't even know if I want to stay in Australia, so I wouldn't quite call it a "plan". We'll see what happens when the time comes... I always have the option to take the USMLE and come back to the US.

 

[jaketheory]

I graduated with a 2.88, and it's pretty consistent over the course of the 4 years. Do you know anything about those people who got in with sub-3.0 GPA's? I have plenty of additional experience (published clinical research, etc.), but my local state school told me that the only way to make up for my crappy GPA is by taking more classes and getting the GPA up. It seems to me that it'll just be a longshot... take a year of classes, apply with the new GPA, take another year of classes, apply with the new GPA (by this time I'd have a Master's), etc. The adviser actually said that it doesn't matter what score I get on the MCAT; they'll just think I'm a lazy genius.

Unfortunately, Missouri only has one postgraduate medical school (Univ. of Missouri), and they only accept 100 students a year. I'm competing with all of the WashU undergrads, since they want to come to MU for the cheaper tuition. I have a friend who graduated from WashU with a 3.6, had a lot of research/clinical experience already, took a year off to do more clinical research, got a 38 on the MCAT, and still wasn't too sure about his chances at MU.

i certainly wouldn't let one person's opinion determine your future. anything is possible.

unfortunately, your prospects dont seem great in missouri. many times i've seriously considered returning to my home state of south carolina. they have 2 public med schools with a total intake of 225 among the 2. their average mcat's are 29 or less. the percentage of sc resident appicants getting accepted is high. currently i live in MA and the only public school here is UMass, but they only accept 100 students and have a higher average mcat (31.5), so i am not as confident a good mcat will overshadow my low gpa enough for UMass. i do however think i could get in to a US school as does my alma mater’s (Uni of GA) premed advisor and my rec letter writers, despite that i graduated with a 3.0 (3.27 with 2 years of postbac). It’s just a matter of application strategy.

search mdapplicants for people getting in with less than a 3.0. there definitely are some getting into state schools. i know there are some caucasians listed for SC schools.

nothing is certain but doing some postbac work would definitely help. i think it would be a complete waste of time and money to do more than one year of postbac work with your mcat score and publications. A 2nd year would improve your gpa, but the gpa is just an indicator of how well you do in course work. Earning a 4.0 taking advanced courses for one year should be sufficient. the postbac work may not influence your chances much until after you have completed it. Thus, you may have to cope with a glide year or whatever they call it. so yes, it might mean 2 years. 2 years you could get a masters. but why would you want a masters? you sure dont need a masters to go to med school, and frankly i think undergrad coursework would help a lot more than a masters because admissions focus primarily on undergrad gpa. More importantly, a masters is not a very useful degree. its not a phd. its not close. most masters are also not funded and thus require accruing debt. in fact you can get more out of working in a lab with a bachelors than getting a masters. I work in a lab at Harvard and have thus far sat in 20 hours of the first year MD students’ classes, and i only thought to start doing it this past semester. I was even invited to one of their social events.

But you wouldn’t necessarily have to consume 2 years in the process of pursuing a postbac. You could apply this year AND start a postbac year. That would waste no time as youd have to wait a year til matriculation anyway. If you don’t get in then you reapply next year. By then you would have finished the postbac year. Assuming you have 120 hours now, earning a 4.0 in 32 more hours of courses would bring your gpa up to a 3.12.

I think your main problem with the postbac route is what you said about your state’s med school situation. Staying there for the postbac might not be so useful. However if you moved to a state with a more favorable chance of getting an acceptance to do a postbac, you’d have to pay out of state tuition. More importantly you could not establish residency for med school admissions while being a full-time student so you would have to work the year following to have a good chance for an acceptance. and thus you would in-fact have to wait 2 years to get a good return on doing the postbac. or you could move and do the postbac part time. i know in sc, if you work full time, you immediately qualify for in-state tuition, so there one could establish residency for med school admissions and do postbac part time at in-state tuition. unfortunately, there are no real evening postbac programs there. you could likely find something favorable in other states with a little elbow grease.

but then again, it sounds like youve already made up your mind about australia.

 

[shan564]

Well, my biggest issue with a postbac is the fact that it's still just a shot in the dark. I don't have any guarantees of admission after I do a postbac... I'll apply in the US after this year, but if I don't get in, it'll just make my decision easier. Plus, if nothing else, I'm looking forward to Oz just because it'll be something different.

 

[JoeNamaMD]

Shan, i find it hard to believe you couldn't get in to a US school with a 35 MCAT. your gpa would have to be pretty low. you must be canadian. if you showed a vast improvement in your last years of study (straight A's), you could probably get in to a US state school so long as your gpa was around a 3.0. i know some have gotten in with sub 3.0 gpa's. if you are canadian, that is unlikely to help, but you could move, spend a year gaining additional experience, and pay a lot less than international fees.

And graduates of australian med schools do not take the amc exam. it is only for grads of overseas med schools to ensure their training was comparable to that at australian med schools.



interesting plan...

you would have to time this very well, which may be up to chance given visa processing times can fluctuate and every app is different. you would have to ensure you receive the visa early enough to be eligible for internship allocation during 4th year, but also late enough so that you dont lose your place in 4th year for becoming a PR. may work. may not.

This will be an issue in NSW, Victoria, and Queensland. Still, there will be enough positions in Western Australia, South Australia, and Tasmania. So graduates who want to stay in Australia after this point should consider those states. I am in my final year, and people in my year who want to stay have gotten the internship. I think even in 2010, from a friend of mine at Sydney, he is going to stay for internship too. Its a strange bottleneck in the system, they have not increased internship spots as much as other post grad training programs. A lot of residency programs are wide open after that point. I think the Surgery, Orthopedics, ENT, and Dermatology will be the difficult ones. Its easy to become a GP, but they are bottom of the barrell paywise(even if the average Australian GP makes over 250k a year, specialists earn a lot more).

 

[jaketheory]

This will be an issue in NSW, Victoria, and Queensland. Still, there will be enough positions in Western Australia, South Australia, and Tasmania. So graduates who want to stay in Australia after this point should consider those states. I am in my final year, and people in my year who want to stay have gotten the internship. I think even in 2010, from a friend of mine at Sydney, he is going to stay for internship too. Its a strange bottleneck in the system, they have not increased internship spots as much as other post grad training programs. A lot of residency programs are wide open after that point. I think the Surgery, Orthopedics, ENT, and Dermatology will be the difficult ones. Its easy to become a GP, but they are bottom of the barrell paywise(even if the average Australian GP makes over 250k a year, specialists earn a lot more).

yes, but people should be aware that internship allocation priority goes to in-staters, then local australians of other states, with internationals last. if there are positions remaining after all the in-staters have been placed, which seems possible in the states you mentioned (though UWA's website does warn of the recent increase in student intakes changing this), all the out-of-staters will be competing for those remaining places. it should not be assumed that there will be places after this for internationals.

 

[JoeNamaMD]

There is also a good chance that the state governments in NSW, Victoria, and Queensland will increase the number of internship spots, there has already been an increase in registrar training spots and many actually go unfilled, they actually did this in all three states, particularly in NSW, a few years back some people were saying it would be hard for USyd internationals to stay after graduation, but the people I know who are finishing this year got internship spots, and in reality they had to pay a bond to guarantee that they would not run away to the US or Canada if they matched into residencies there.

 

[jaketheory]

There is also a good chance that the state governments in NSW, Victoria, and Queensland will increase the number of internship spots, there has already been an increase in registrar training spots and many actually go unfilled, they actually did this in all three states, particularly in NSW, a few years back some people were saying it would be hard for USyd internationals to stay after graduation, but the people I know who are finishing this year got internship spots, and in reality they had to pay a bond to guarantee that they would not run away to the US or Canada if they matched into residencies there.

yes, there are likely exceptions. i just dont feel someone should be going in thinking they will be the exception. many probably do and since not all can actually become the exception plenty are bound for dissappointment.

these things historically have been cyclical in nature but the key is that you simply cannot know how things will pan out.

 

[Jatpot]

actually in NSW this past year grads from my school (international or local) were on equal ground for intern spots. some of the internationals who stayed got really great hospitals that were high on their rank lists.

 

[shan564]

yes, there are likely exceptions. i just dont feel someone should be going in thinking they will be the exception. many probably do and since not all can actually become the exception plenty are bound for dissappointment.

these things historically have been cyclical in nature but the key is that you simply cannot know how things will pan out.

I don't think anybody expects to be the "exception"... but honestly, I've read a lot about the restriction on internship places, but I rarely ever hear about a significant number of people who couldn't get an internship in the end. It seems that plenty of spots end up going unfilled, which means that there are still enough places for everybody.

But that's a side point... I'm not going to Australia with the intention of staying there or with the intention of coming back. I'm going there with the intention of getting a medical degree; after that, I'll decide where to go based on the situation at the time. I don't see why everybody wants to limit themselves to a specific country... the world is becoming smaller and smaller every day.

 

[JoeNamaMD]

NSW Health is randomly allocating internship spots to new graduates. Its a bit different from the previous system. When you get to Australia and see what the rest of the planet is like, Australia would easily be among the best places on Earth.