IMG medical school or reapplication to the U.S. schools?

[s.nd]

Hi,

I'm an international student who applied straight through and got only 1 interview invite from a T3 school and was waitlisted (I thought the interviews went pretty well. Maybe it didn't go as well as I thought or maybe my MCAT held me back since this school loves high stats). I also recently got into a medical school located outside the U.S. who has a strong U.S. match list every year (mostly IM). I'm weighing my options and don't know what to do. My goal is to do residency in the U.S. so I'm thinking maybe I should take 2 gap years and reapply to U.S. schools but I also wonder what if I turn down this offer and don't get into medical school after gap years?

I would really appreciate any insight

Some info about me:

GPA: >3.8
MCAT between 510 and 515
School: HYP Ivy

activities:

• I'm the first person from my high school to pursue an education outside my country, and I have been mentoring students from my country through a mentoring organization. I am also an outreach coordinator for the same org (400hr)
• work as a course assistant and tutor students on organic chemistry, general chemistry, biochemistry, and biology (300 hr)
• volunteer at a nursing home that also has some patients on hospice care (I do room visits, play card games with them, sing, and just listen to their stories!): around 200hr by the time I apply
• volunteer at a hospital doing patient transport (200)
• volunteer at a homeless shelter playing with kids (180)
• blood donor ambassador at Red Cross and volunteering coordinator (150 hr )
• Shadowing (50 hr)
• events coordinator for my country's society at my school (100hr)
• English tutor for PhD students from my country who apply to U.S. universities and needed help with learning English
• music and dance (hobbies)

- Research:

• I haven't calculated my hours but I have been doing research in the same lab consistently since I came to the U.S around 6-16 hr/week (25 hr/week during the summer), and got some funding/fellowship for the research too.

- Letters of Rec:

• my PI (he knows me pretty well and also the PI and his assistant reached out to me to join the lab after I took an intro bio class with him (had around 400 students)
• the nursing home volunteering director
• my biochem professor (I'm a course assistant for this class)
• my chemistry professor (I'm a course assistant for this class)
• a non-science LOR

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[Faha]

Which schools did you apply to ?

 

[gyngyn]

Here's the old WAMC: I am an international student with a complete app in August and have not heard from a single schoo. Do I prep for a reapp?

 

[Mr.Smile12]

Isn't your interview or waitlist with Hopkins???

What followup have you done? When did you send a Letter of Intent?

What have you been doing over the cycle to improve your app and better prepare for medical school?

If you want our advice to be helpful, you need to be consistent and honest with the details of your profile. Not being forthcoming limits our ability to help you.

 

[s.nd]

Isn't your interview or waitlist with Hopkins???

What followup have you done? When did you send a Letter of Intent?

What have you been doing over the cycle to improve your app and better prepare for medical school?

If you want our advice to be helpful, you need to be consistent and honest with the details of your profile. Not being forthcoming limits our ability to help you.

Yes, my interview and waitlist is with Hopkins. I wrote an update letter after my interview and sent it to them in late February

I have been doing the same activities, finished my senior thesis, and picking up some new activities that are not medical school related (learning new dance styles, getting more involved with the my country's community in the U.S., TAing for orgo and other classes, etc)


here is my school list:

Cornell

Columbia

UIC
TCU
Case Western
Sidney Kimmel
HMS
SUNY Norton
UVA
Tulane
Uconn
Dartmouth
Yale
JHU
UNC
Stanford
Emory
Colorado
coumbia
Mount Sinai
LSU
Northwestern
stonry brook

NYU

Vanderbilt

 

[s.nd]

Which schools did you apply to ?

Cornell

Columbia

UIC
TCU
Case Western
Sidney Kimmel
HMS
SUNY Norton
UVA
Tulane
Uconn
Dartmouth
Yale
JHU
UNC
Stanford
Emory
Colorado
coumbia
Mount Sinai
LSU
Northwestern
stonry brook

NYU

Vanderbilt

 

[Faha]

Cornell

Columbia

UIC
TCU
Case Western
Sidney Kimmel
HMS
SUNY Norton
UVA
Tulane
Uconn
Dartmouth
Yale
JHU
UNC
Stanford
Emory
Colorado
coumbia
Mount Sinai
LSU
Northwestern
stonry brook

NYU

Vanderbilt

Your MCAT of 512 is not competitive for the majority of those schools even if you were a US citizen. If you are not accepted this cycle concentrate on DO schools in the next cycle and I suggest these:
AZCOM
CCOM
KCU-COM
LUCOM
MSUCOM
MU-COM
NSU-KPCOM
UNECOM
WCU-COM
Touro-NY
WESTERN
Also contact the newer DO schools and see if they accept applications from internationals.

 

[AJS59]

If your goal is a US residency the best way to accomplish that is attend a US med school; I'd recommend giving another gap year or two a go

 

[Alejandro]

Im not too familiar with which schools will accept international students but I think the biggest challenge in this cycle is your mcat and the schools selected, as Faha mentioned. Its almost as if you are like, T30 schools or IMG, and yet there are DO schools and other MD schools too in between. I agree with what was said earlier that if you want to practice in the US, you really need to attend a US med school, going IMG is adding many additional steps of unnecessary complexity.

I feel that you didn't do a good enough analysis with your stats and the schools you applied to. It makes me worried as a physician that you cannot interpret data and apply them for patient care.

 

[s.nd]

Im not too familiar with which schools will accept international students but I think the biggest challenge in this cycle is your mcat and the schools selected, as Faha mentioned. Its almost as if you are like, T30 schools or IMG, and yet there are DO schools and other MD schools too in between. I agree with what was said earlier that if you want to practice in the US, you really need to attend a US med school, going IMG is adding many additional steps of unnecessary complexity.

I feel that you didn't do a good enough analysis with your stats and the schools you applied to. It makes me worried as a physician that you cannot interpret data and apply them for patient care.

Thank you for your advice!
The school I got into is Cornell in Doha, Qatar.
I understand that you are not familiar with the schools that accept international students: there are a limited number of schools we can apply to, most of which are the top 20 schools. I agree that doing IMG will make matching much more difficult for me. Right now, I am planning on taking at least two years off, retake the MCAT, and gain more experiences before applying. The only issue is that I can't really change my school list since I didn't have many choices to begin with. Hopefully gaining more experiences and having higher stats will lead in more success.