US Schools that accept Canadian students

[Guest Jazzey]

Hi,

I'm considering applying to the States for med school, but it seems that a lot of them require that you have American residency or lived in the States for some years before applying. Does anyone know which schools, if any, accept and interview Canadian students who have NOT lived in the States at all?

 

Thanks!

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hi there,

 

I did a good bit of this type of legwork last year and ended up applying to the majority of those schools that accept Canadian applicants who have no other connection to the US other than that they are applying from the US' northernly neighbour. Here's the list of schools to which I applied which do accept applications from Canadian citizens (I believe there are a few more to which I did not apply):

 

Harvard Med. School

Baylor College of Med.

Chicago Medical/Finch U. of HS

Dartmouth Med. School

David Geffen School of Med. at UCLA

Duke U. School of Med.

Emory U. School of Med.

George Washington U. School of Med. & HS

Georgetown U. School of Med.

Johns Hopkins U. School of Med.

Keck School of Med. USC

Michigan State U.

Mount Sinai School of Med.

Northwestern U. Feinberg School of Med.

Saint Louis U. School of Med.

Tulane U. School of Med.

U. Connecticut School of Med.

U. of Chicago-Pritzker

U. Penn. School of Med.

Vanderbilt U. School of Med.

Weill Med. College of Cornell U.

Yale U.

Albany

UNC Chapel Hill School of Med.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Guest moo]

Check the FAQ at the top of this board.

[Guest Nops]

Kirsteen,

 

Did you really apply to all those US schools AND a bunch of Canadian ones too? Yikes, what did that cost you (in cash and in time and effort?!)

 

And after all that, you get accepted in Canada?!

 

Worth it in the end, I guess.

 

Bil

[Guest kakashifan]

kirsteen,

are all the schools you listed, all part of AMCAS? (so ONE app only?) (i'm so lazy)

=0. kakashifan

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hi there,

 

Yep, I did apply to all of those schools, and yes, they are all affiliated with AMCAS. It did cost a fair amount of money, but I felt it was worth it. Ah, that 20/20 hindsight, eh?

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Guest Jazzey]

Thanks for the list Kirsteen! That's a phenomenal amount of energy you put into your applications - it's great that it all worked out for you in the end! If I may ask - how many of the American schools did you end up interviewing/getting accepted at?

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hi there Jazzey,

 

Yep, the application process took a great section of my time last year. Out of all those US schools I received one interview invitation out of that pile--at Chicago/Finch. I received the invitation after I'd heard of my Canadian interview invitations and I had already completed two of the interviews. After estimating how I'd fared on the intervews and doing a little calculation of the probablity of staying within Canada, I thought it better to decline their interview offer.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Guest Gem2005]

Hi Kirsteen,

 

I wanted to ask, I am thinking of applying to the US b/c I heard that Can schools are harder to get in. And yet you got more interviews from Canada. Do you think it depends on the years, or other factors come into play.

 

Thanks

[Guest moo]

Kirsteen got more interviews in Canada because she applied mostly to top 20-30 schools in the US. I would say these schools are just as hard, if not harder to get into than Canadian schools. Also, different schools (in Canada and the US) in general tend to look for different things. The "easier" schools you are referring to are also known as the "backup" schools, to both Canadians and Americans, i.e., Finch, NYMC, most osteopathic schools etc. A lot of Canadians who get into these top schools opt to go to these top schools, over Canadian acceptances. One guy in my class got into UT and got off the waitlist here, and he chose to come here, even after he had started at UT. I know several other Canadians who got into UT, UBC and other Canadian schools but opted to go to Vanderbilt, Hopkins, Duke and Columbia.

 

If you want to apply to US schools, apply to a range of them--some dream schools, some middle tier schools, and some lower tier schools--and you should be safe.

[Guest Kirsteen]

Hi there Gem2005,

 

moo's right on the ball. I chose to apply primarily to the higher-tier US schools, as well as some schools within some cities in which I thought I'd be comfortable living. I'd also add that my MCAT scores were okay, but the US schools to which I applied (as well as most US schools) relied on the MCAT quite heavily in the selection process relative to the selection processes of the Canadian schools. Thus, for US schools to which I applied, in hindsight I probably would have benefitted by having much higher scores. Up here, I think I won a whole lot of pre-interview points due to my employment experience, extracurriculars, research and how I presented them.

 

Cheers,

Kirsteen

[Guest studentz]

I wanted to ask, I am thinking of applying to the US b/c I heard that Can schools are harder to get in.

 

Find a copy of the MSAR from AMCAS or go to studentdoctor.net and search for 2004 US News rankings. You'll see that the top US schools generally have avg GPAs equal to or higher than nearly all Canadian schools, and they aren't weighted. The MCAT requirements at a top 20 are way higher in most cases and they get WAY more applications (stanford gets something like 6000 for 90 spots)! Plus, there aren't THAT many Canadians in US med schools. You may get one or two at in each class at some of the private schools that accept foreigners.

 

I think the myth about easy access to the American schools comes from the stats of lower-ranked state schools that Canadians can't even apply to anyway.

 

There are a lot of places in the States I couldn't see myself going to. Interestingly, I know of someone who did the opposite of Moo's buddies--he got into Duke and came to Toronto instead. I don't know why anyone who got into Toronto, McGill or the like would go anywhere in the US outside of the really, really big names like Harvard, Wash., Hopkins etc.

[Guest studentz]

With respect to Canadian schools being harder to get into vs American schools (for Canadian citizens) i got confirmation that this is not the case when I bought the Premium Online edition of the US News rankings. It shows the number of international applicants, interviews and acceptances at nearly all of the top 60 US schools. I don't think I say any school over 4.5% international, most were around 1% if that, and the competition was severe.

 

I think at Case Western (top 25), 360 int'l applicants resulted in 1 interview and 1 acceptance.

 

It's not encouraging, but the $15 US was well worth it because I now have a bit more info to use when deciding which schools I'm going to allow to rip me off with their ridiculous secondary fees.

[Guest thatuvicguy]

hi studentz,

 

Does this document perchance give info on the stats for osteopathic schools? i'm particularly interested in University of New England COM.

 

Cheers,

thatuvicguy

[Guest studentz]

didn't see any DO schools