Premed at Cambridge

GeraldM
Tue, 19 Apr 2011 10:42:49 +0000

Have to agree with those suggesting that going to med school in the US is far easier if you have a degree from an US institution. A case in point may be well be that doing premed, or studying law is nearly always easier at the countries you intend to practice; you’re right, with a Cambridge degree you would stand out, but you would make your life easier if you go to Stanford.
It would, however, be a mistake to conclude that people with an Oxbridge BA having hard time to get admitted to US MA or PhD programmes, just because their BA normally take 3 years to complete. What an absurd idea. The UK model is not a liberal arts one, but far more focused, and although people may not get a broader education, but their knowledge on their subject is, indeed, far greater compared to those studying under the US system.

" Most American schools don’t consider 3 year degrees as valid for starting a masters."

Interestingly enough, I have plenty of friends who, after getting a BA from either Cambridge or Oxford, went to top notch grad schools in the US (Harvard, Princeton, Chicago, Stanford, MIT, Columbia, Yale, Brown, just checked) and faced with no problem. But this not just applied for Cambridge and Oxford (or, may I assume that a 4 year BA from, say, UVA, is worth more than a 3 year BA from Oxbridge? ROLF), but to whole Europe, as the BA takes 3 years to complete in the EU countries, and tons of EU students continue in US grad schools. But maybe neither attending to proper “American schools” LOL.

Anyway, just out of curiosity, why everyone is mentioning Oxford when he got admitted to Cambridge? :D