Pre-Med Admission/ Foreign Student/ What should I do?

denisepotato
Thu, 11 Sep 2014 20:34:38 +0000

Hello!
I just moved from Romania in the USA a few months ago. I just started junior year in high school here and I discovered I have a problem.
I really want to go to medical school. But in order to do that everyone told me I need to take Biology, Chemistry and Physics. I went to the Guidance Officer to plan my schedule. He put me into English 2, English 3, US History 1 (all these three because they are mandatory in order for me to graduate), French 3,
AP Chemistry and EMA Honors. I talked to him about getting another science and he said there is no space left and he told me that I can have Biology or Physics in senior year, but not both.
In Romania I used to have 18 subjects in a year that included Biology, Chemistry and Physics.
As a little background, in my country eight graders are given a pretty challenging test at the end of middle school. After that, the results are combined with
your average grade of 4 years ( it’s similar to a GPA) and then, based on your final grade you can apply to high school.
I got into the best school country-wide.
I started school in US and realized that I am not doing the right thing so I decided to go talk to my Guidance Counselour.
She replaced my AP Chemistry with Biology Honors because I told her that I want to major in Molecular Biology but she said there is no way she can put me in all three sciences these 2 years.
I talked to a friend of my parents who is a principal in a high school nearby mine, and he told me that is really important for
me to get these classes because colleges won’t really look that much into my work from Romania.
I also talked to another family, who’s child is my grade and has the same ambition as mine. When I told them my situation
they too said that this is an issue.
I now discovered that I have two choises.
One is to find a high school that will allow me to take an online class (because my current high school doesn’t), maybe
in English 2 or US History…
The other is to leave USA and go back to my country to finish high school there, which is a pretty hard decision considering how hard my parents worked in order for us to get here.
My main questions are:

1. If I finish high school here will the colleges view me as an foreigner or as an American student?
( I asked my counselor this and she couldn’t answer)

2. If I finish high school in my country what are the odds for me to get into an American university if I take my Toefl, Internationall Baccaulareate, SAT?

3. Does anyone have any other solution or advise to this problem?

Thank you very much and sorry for the long post :)