Canadian citizen taking undergrad in US wanting to go to Canadian Med School

[MB12]

Hey guys,  I have a daughter who has been offered an athletic scholarship to a D1 school in the US.  She is a great well rounded student who’s average is consistently around 96/97 percent.  She is interested in Bio/Chem studies.  Over the last year or so she has been leaning towards being a physician.  Question: is she going to have trouble coming back to Canada for med school upon graduating from US institution?  Is it near impossible to get into Canadian med school with US undergrad degree?  Are there things she can do throughout her university years that can boost her chances of acceptance such as volunteer work or would she be limited to US med schools?  Thanks in advance

[Bambi]

I am far from an expert and have no specific knowledge and presumably others will chime in, but I see no problem by obtaining an undergrad degree in the US. You do realize that in addition to having a competitive GPA and doing the MCAT, she will need to demonstrate CanMED competencies from her ECs, volunteering and work.

On the other hand, undergrad studies in Canada are no that expensive and why bother with the short term gain of the scholarship if your daughter wants med in Canada. 

[indefatigable]

It's not so much the division Canada/US, it's more that Canadian medical schools are very GPA focused which might be harder for your daughter to obtain while on a demanding athletic scholarship in the US.

 I had friends a while back who accepted such scholarships and would need to practice many hours a day while not leaving time for much else.  Plus, obtaining a good GPA in a US can depend even more than in Canada on the school/program (although graduates of Mac and Queen's health sci will make up an increasing proportion of Canadian med students).

In theory, though, US undegrad would be treated exactly the same as Canadian undergrad - so notwithstanding those caveats she would be able to apply to Canadian med schools.  

[shikimate]

I am not sure if this is true or not but I heard some US institutions are notoriously tough and hardly give out any A+. That's going to put her at a huge disadvantage when applying to Canada compared to someone who graduated from noname state university who have all A+ from easy courses. But if she wants to apply to US medical schools a big name might offer some benefit.

[zoxy]

On 6/26/2021 at 3:20 AM, MB12 said:

Question: is she going to have trouble coming back to Canada for med school upon graduating from US institution?  Is it near impossible to get into Canadian med school with US undergrad degree?

I did my undergrad in the US on a scholarship as well(though not athletic) and I'm in med-school in Canada now. I would personally recommend against doing undergrad in the US, even on a scholarship, if her main goal is to come back to Canada for medical school, even though it would save money in the short term. This would be especially true if the student is an IP applicant from Ontario, Manitoba or British Columbia. Less so if they were IP in Alberta, Saskatchewan, the Maritimes, or Newfoundland. There a few reasons for this.

1)Grading: Medical School admissions in Canada is very GPA focused in its admission process. Particularly, there is a premium on having A+'s on your transcript. However, the majority of American schools don't have A+ grading and grades are capped at A. This would mean that a perfect 4.0/4.0 GPA from an American school would only be a 92 percent at UBC and a 4.0/4.5 at Manitoba. Additionally, most American schools have different percentage to letter grade conversion charts than those used in Canada. Generally, an A is for 93+ work while 90-93 would result in an A-, and 87-90 would be a B+. However in Canada, 90+ would result in an A+, 85-90 in an A, and A- would be 80-85. In addition, I was curved down in a couple of courses that had high averages. For example, I got a B+ for a class in which I had 90 percent as my final grade.  The class average was around an 86 and the Chem department set the average of each class at a B. Mind you this was at an Ivy-Plus institution with an admission rate of well under 10 percent and an SAT middle 50 of 1500-1570.

Harsher grading is the main reason that the average matriculant GPA for American schools is 3.73 overall and 3.66 for science courses, it's not that Americans are dumber. Canadian and American matriculants have similar MCAT scores which further supports the notion of tougher American grading. You'd get your application tossed out in most places in Canada with a 3.73 while approximately half of American matriculants have GPAs lower than that. Additionally, there are no programs in the US that churns out 4.0 GPAs like Mac or Queens Health Science.

However, a few American universities like the University of Oregon, do have A+ grading so your daughter should enquire about the grading system at the the school. As I said before, the disadvantage for harsher grading and lack of A+ would be dependent on each IP school's admission criteria. The Alberta schools, Newfoundland, and the Maritimes are less GPA obsessed than other places, while Saskatchewan is very generous when converting letter grades into percentages when compared to UBC.

2)IP status: When you study in the US, you will not gain IP status for any province beyond your own. In addition, you may lose your IP status if you stay in the US after finishing your degree as the requirement for maintaining IP status while studying somewhere else is usually being a full time student. Of course, this would depend on which province your daughter lives in as each school/province has its own criteria for maintaining IP status.

3) The demands of being a DI athlete: In the US, college athletics is a big thing at DI schools. Coaches care a lot about winning and their employment hinges on their performance. They don't care about their students grades or their future career prospects. And since your daughter's athletic scholarship would hinge on her coach, she'd have to please the coach to maintain her scholarship. Being a DI athlete and maintaining a high GPA would be very impressive. While American schools would definitely give extra points for this, many Canadian schools wouldn't care one lick.

Considering how relatively cheap undergraduate school is in Canada, I would highly recommend staying in Canada if her main goal in life is attending medical school.

[MB12]

Thanks so much for all of your replies! Really appreciate you taking the time to give your opinions.  Will take it all in and continue to make Educated decision.  Thanks again and any others ant to chime in your opinions are always welcome.

[Medman35]

There are many D1 athletes that end up in medical school both in the US and Canada. Despite what other people are posting, the experience of playing D1 sports in the US is not something I would turn down for your daughter.