Help me to follow my dreams ! #Bangladeshi_Student

I am a Bangladeshi student and will sit for SSC next year.I go to a bangla medium school.I have a plan to complete my HSC here and then attend medical school in USA.Meanwhile, I have looked up on many universities and the tuition fees really scared me because medical studies are actually way too costly (I wonder why ) So ,I wanna know ,How do the Bangladeshi students who are studying medicine in USA afford all these fees ?My parents won’t be agreed to pay more than tk:20lakhs a year ! And, Do I need any extra-curricular activities to get myself admitted in a renowned college there ? Also, Give me some advises I should follow before getting admitted there.I would love to hear someone who is a med student in USA or any bangladeshi student currently living in USA.TIA! :slight_smile:

You don’t directly go to medical school from high school in US

In US, you go to 4 yr undergraduate first THEN go to medical school. I assume 20 lakh is 2,000,000 taka? Then it’s around 25.6k dollars in US, which isn’t…not bad at all.

I don’t know what your major is going to be, but let me tell you some thing: You DON"T need to go to prestigious schools to go to medical school. Medical schools don’t really care much about whether you graduated harvard, MIT, Oxford, Oregon state university, U of alabama unless the school is so bad and below the decent level. They don’t care whether you are double major, triple major, whether you are chem major or english major.

Don’t worry about getting into med school now. Worry about undergraduate.

Can you list your grade, extracurriculars or any significant award records(not like “student of the year”)

The medical schools in the USA typically cost around $250,000 to 300,000 USD, for those 2,000 lucky ones. only 40% of the medical schools accept international students. and there is absolutely no scholarship or loans for internationals. So, you/your parents need to prepare that amount after your 4 years undergraduate studies, if you were admitted.

It would be much easier and cheaper if you attend medical school in your own country and try to pass physician exams in the US and practice medicine in the US.

It is extremely unlikely for a foreign trained physician to be able to practise medicine in the U.S. The hard part is not the immigration or the passing of exams. The hard part is getting a residency position as a foreign trained medical graduate. Very few international medical graduates get a residency position. http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/about-ama/our-people/member-groups-sections/international-medical-graduates/practicing-medicine.page?

You are much more likely to fulfill your dream by going to undergraduate and medical school in the U.S.

In addition to what @bouders‌ said, even the medical schools who accept foreign students accept only 1 in a year average.

So, either you get an O-visa, GC, citizenship through any possible means before you apply to US medical school, or you just study in your own country.

@Paul2752 Thanks so much for the info
I meant ,My parents will give me 20 Lakh taka per year which means around 24000 Us dollars :frowning:
I am an average good student.I get '‘A’'s in Biology,Physics,Chemistry ,Maths almost all the time.I just need to be more good at English and I am gonna take IELTS for that.I haven’t got any significant awards or anything like that.

How long does it take to get a citizenship ? And, are all the subjects expensive as medicine in the US ? TIA

If medical is hard , I would certainly go for any other subjects I feel interested

@mystifiedStudent‌

It depends on how “good” you are. Are you a very distinguished student, as in:

  1. Won several notable awards
  2. had near-straight or straight As
  3. did extracurriculars you love and extinguished yourself
  4. is capable of writing good essays
  5. took the hardest courses available

Since you don’t have any test scores yet, it’s moot to tell you whether you have shots at top 20~30 schools, therefore whether you want to study medicine or not, is not worth discussing for now I think.
Also, if you don’t think you have all five above, you have to reconsider going to the US. US colleges are very, very expensive compared to any other parts of the world.

@mystifiedstudent MBBS in Bangladesh isn’t so bad, is it? I have heard a lot of students from India going there. But, if America is your choice and you are adamant and worthy, it will still cost a lot because international students don’t get scholarships. Don’t forget that you’ll have to pay for room and board and other expenses too. And it is illegal for international students to work off-campus.

@amrikagaincha‌
Not exactly.There ARE schools rhat offer gpa and sat based merit scholarship even to foreign students.
Although he will have to get good SAT scores…

MBBS in Bangladesh isn’t bad at all but I don’t like our education system.It takes a long time to become a MD here.
I am good at writing & Singing but haven’t got any significant awards.Because I am too lazy to go to the competitions.But I think I am gonna work on my skills from now on so that I get to admit myself in a reputed college.Thanks all for the advises !

It also takes a long time to become an MD in the US. 12+ years of college, medical school and residency.

If you want to become a physician in the US and don’t have half a million USD to spend on your education, your best strategy is to complete medical education in your own country. There’s a well-established path for foreign doctors to immigrate to the US. (The US gives green cards to foreign primary care physicians willing to work in areas of the country that are unpopular among American MDs.)

5 years after you become a permanent resident. Problem is, permanent resident visas are hard to come by. Your options are:

  • marrying a US citizen and convincing US authorities that the marriage is 'real' and not just a ploy to get a permanent resident visa. that process usually takes more than 2 years.
  • getting a college degree and then finding an employer who can prove that there are no Americans qualified to do the job you were offered (NOT easy - done most frequently in the tech industry for PhDs with specialized knowledge)
  • qualifying for political asylum
  • fitting into a narrowly defined category. for example, key witnesses in certain criminal trials may be offered a permanent resident visa. MDs willing to work in medically underserved areas of the country can self-petition for a permanent resident visa. things like that.

@b@r!um Thanks for the info.But if I complete 5 years MBBS in my country and then go to US ,how long will it take to qualify myself as a USA doctor?

After completing a MBBS, you will need to pass 3 (very difficult) USMLE medical exams, step by step. Then you apply for residency, which lasts 3-6 years depending on your specialty. And then you can start looking for a job! Please note, that a job does not mean you can stay in the U.S. indefinitely; you will be on a temporary worker visa.

More details here http://www.ecfmg.org/

By the way, all this information is easily found through Google.

A foreign educated MD has less than 50% chance to either pass USMLE or get into a residency program, as these programs are mostly government sponsored. Whereas an US medical school graduate has 95% chance to pass and get a residency program. Even a foreign educated MD got in a residency, most likely it will be in the family practice category, the better specialties are already been taken by US graduates. There is 1% chance to get into dermatology for US graduates as an example.

Have many MD friends from overseas, they had successful specialties in their own practice already, like cosmetic surgeon and cardiology etc. When they immigrated into US, they all start from ground zero and family practice.

So, either you have a half a million usd and be very lucky to be one of the 2000 US med school matriculates or be a US family doctor.

It’s not quite as hopeless as artloversplus makes it seem. 25% of Residency Match positions go to graduates of international medical school. It is true that a majority of the matches are in primary care specialties (though internal medicine beats family medicine); however, that might be due to the preferences of the international applicants. Keep in mind that international primary care physicians can self-petition for a green card while other specialists have to be sponsored for a temporary work visa and then hope that their employer will petition for their green card later. That’s a very strong incentive for foreign medical graduates to choose primary care specialties.

In this context, it’s also worth noting that a full one third of the available surgical residency positions go un-matched. Do hospitals refuse to even consider international applicants for surgical residency positions? Or do the foreign applicants just not want these positions?

Match statistics here: http://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Main-Match-Results-and-Data-2014.pdf

I’d agree you should concentrate on your undergraduate education first. I think a high achieving Bangladeshi student would be a person of interest to many US colleges.

Getting into and financing medical school is extremely difficult; however, you are several years away from that point. You may change your mind about becoming a doctor, you may apply for US citizenship, you may decide to go back to Bangladesh or another Asian country.

You don’t need to go to the most prestigious college/university for undergraduate; you just need to find one that offers solid academics, has a reasonably good track record in med school admissions, and that you can afford.

Let’s start with the affordable part: many colleges offer need based and merit based aid to internationals. For the first category, you want to look for colleges that “guarantee to meet demonstrated aid.” This means if they admit you, they will give you grants (sometimes loans) to cover the difference between what your family can afford and what college costs. They determine what they think your family can afford by a formula. You can get an idea by using a net price calculator – though these are not 100% reliable for internationals.

What I’d suggest you do is contact the financial aid departments of a few colleges that guarantee to meet demonstrated aid and ask them how much NEED based aid you may be eligible for. To do this you will need to know your family’s financial details. They will help you figure out your estimated family contribution. If it’s close to $24K, then you should be okay financially at that college. This is a long process, but it’s the best way to get a somewhat clear idea of what may be affordable.

The second category is merit aid, which colleges give to high achieving students, no matter what their economic status. Not too many US colleges give merit aid to internationals.

Guarantee to meet demonstrated need: Amherst, Colby, Hamilton, Macalester, Middlebury, Vassar, Wesleyan, Williams
Guarantee to meet demonstrated need and offer merit aid: Carlton, Davidson, Dickinson, Emory, Grinnell, Kenyon, Rhodes
If you are female Mt. Holyoke, Smith

These are mostly smaller colleges that won’t have big name recognition in Bangladesh; however, they offer excellent academics and reliable medical school advising. Most importantly, need and merit aid can be good for internationals and don’t get too many applicants from South Asia and very few from Bangladesh.

You will need to work on your English skills, especially writing.
You will need good SAT scores, though personally I don’t think these are as important as your grades and life experience.
You will need good recommendations and essays that show what you could contribute to the college community. Islam is a hot button issue on campuses today, and colleges are interested in recruiting Muslims from all over the world.
You will need to develop some interested or extracurriculars that show commitment. You don’t have to be a superstar, just show that you have interests/talents outside of school.

If you live in Dhaka I’d suggest you take advantage of the US Embassy’s EducationUSA program. They will be able to answer many questions about US colleges.
http://dhaka.usembassy.gov/advising.html

Lastly, your best resource is your own high school. Have they sent students to US colleges before? Compare your grades and scores to theirs. Colleges are often more comfortable admitting international students from high schools that they are familiar with, so look to see what US colleges students from your high school have attended.

Come on @momrath the schools you listed are the top schools in the U.S. and they are not easy to get into. When we make a broad recommendation we should advise the safeties not lotteries. Amhurst for example is a true lottery school.

Perhaps op should look into those automatic full ride schools start with Howard and Alabama.

Understand these are selective schools, but they do recruit high achieving internationals especially from less developed Islamic countries, and I’m sure they don’t get a lot of Bangladeshi applicants. Frankly we don’t know enough about the OP’s grades and scores to know whether s/he would be a contender in admissions or could even handle the academics at these schools, but from what we do know I think s/he would be a person of interest.

The problem with most safeties and less selectives is that most do not guarantee to meet full aid for or offer merit aid to internationals.