Any national awards/competitions for international students?

Pre-Med & Medical School Pre-Med Topics
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<p>I noticed that international students do not have very many opportunities to compete for many of the prestigious national awards and scholarships(AMGEN/Goldwater/Rhodes/Marshall/Truman/etc). Furthermore, international students are not eligible to apply for most of the summer research opportunities that are available to permanent residents/citizens.</p>

<p>Are there any scholarships or awards or something of the sort that have the potential to set an individual apart from his/her peers that international students are actually eligible to compete for? I tried searching already but there is a huge lack of information for international students regarding medical school admissions on the internet. It seems like the process of medical school admissions is not very international-friendly. </p>

<p>NOTE: By international student I mean a student in an U.S institution on a F-1 or similar visa.</p>

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<p>The reason for the dearth of opportunities are because most of the programs (all except AMGEN) you mentioned are funded by the US federal government which mandates as a condition of funding them that these program slots go to US citizens.</p>

<p>(BTW, check if there is a citizenship requirement for HHMI. IIRC, D2 said that there was one international student who was a HHMI fellow at her Amgen site.)</p>

<p>For the same reason, MSTP programs are only open to US citizen or green card holders. These are funded by the NIH.</p>

<p>State medical schools are largely funded by taxes paid by state residents–and thus admission to these schools is generally not open to non-US citizens.</p>

<p>Fewer than 200 international students are accepted into US medicals school each year.</p>

<p><a href=“https://www.aamc.org/download/159428/data/table3.pdf[/url]”>https://www.aamc.org/download/159428/data/table3.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>In part this is because only ~50 US medical school will consider internationals for admission and only 5 of those offer financial aid to internationals.</p>

<p>[Medical</a> School Admissions Policies Towards Non-US Citizens](<a href=“Home - NAAHP”>Home - NAAHP)</p>

<p>For more complete information, please read this:</p>

<p>[Internat’l</a> Students & Medical Education](<a href=“Home - NAAHP”>Home - NAAHP)</p>

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<p>Thank you for the informative response. </p>

<p>However, MSTP are not open to ONLY U.S Citizens/Permanent residents. There are medical schools that allow international students into their MSTP, WashU for example ([Medical</a> Scientist Training Program](<a href=“http://mstp.wustl.edu/admissions/Pages/International-Students.aspx]Medical”>International Students - Medical Scientist Training Program)). Likewise, some state schools also allow international students, Penn State Medical School for example ([For</a> International Students - Penn State MD Program](<a href=“MD Program - Penn State College of Medicine”>MD Program - Penn State College of Medicine)). Just wanted to get that out there so that when an international student searches something like this and reads this thread, he/she is not completely discouraged.</p>

<p>I guess your response explains why there are not many funded summer research opportunities for internationals, but I am still curious as to why there are no awards or competitions available. Perhaps there are awards offered by private corporations to which international are eligible? I am more interested in knowing what an international student can have to set his/her application apart rather than just financial gain.</p>

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<p>Penn State is not a public state medical school despite its name. It’s actually a private school which receives some funding from the state of Pennsylvania for the support of in-state students. (Temple and Pitt do also, but not at the same level as Penn State. Jefferson receives funding from Delaware to support students from that state.) </p>

<p>WashU accepts internationals into its MD/PhD program (but not, strictly speaking, into the MSTP which is a specific NIH funded program not open to internationals) because it has access to non-federal funding.</p>

<p>From the WashU MSTP page you referenced:</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>MD/PhD programs are open to internationals so long as the funding supporting the international does not come from the federal government.</p>

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<p>HHMI does accept internationals. AMGEN has a European program (but it’s only open to students attending a European university).</p>

<p>You may want to research some of non-federal summer programs like SURF, SMART, etc</p>

<p><a href=“https://www.aamc.org/members/great/61052/great_summerlinks.html[/url]”>https://www.aamc.org/members/great/61052/great_summerlinks.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>most of the scholarships are only given to international students once they are part of an american university…</p>