Transitioning from Engineering to Med School

I just noticed you’re an international student.

It’s extremely difficult for an international student to get accepted into a US med school. Last year only 106 international students matriculated into all US med school combined; 85% of those internationals were Canadians. (More med school will consider Canadians for admission than true internationals plus the Canadian government offers guaranteed loans to their citizens.)

See: https://www.aamc.org/download/321462/data/factstablea4.pdf

The low matriculation rate is due to 3 factors:

  1. only ~40 US med schools will consider internationals for admission. There are only about 8-12 that routinely accept more than 1 international student every few years.

  2. international applicants need to be superstars just to get their application read. International applicants are placed in separate pool from domestic applicants and are competing against each other for 1 or 2 available positions.

  3. there is little to no funding for internationals to pay for med school. No merit aid, no grants, no loans. Before you will be allowed to enroll, you must place anywhere from 1-4 years of tuition, fees (and at some schools living expenses) into a US escrow account ($120K-$450K, depending the school) OR present a letter of guaranty from your home country government saying they will support you for 4 years.

International students cannot receive federal student loans which is how most US med students pay for their education. Private loans will require a qualified US co-signer. Med students also cannot work during med school. You don’t have the time and most schools flat out prohibit students from working.