I am 18 years old, been living in India for past 8 years. Currently a first year student at a Medical college that offered me free admission based on state level entrance test performance. Not happy with the school. I will be completing 1 year with Anatomy, Physiology and Biochemistry. The maximum marks offered here is 70%. Am I eligible for transfer to undergraduate program? Not worried about any scholarships as mostly will be OOS. Will like to know if eligible for transfer for spring 2016 and which good school will fit me as I am still interested in Pre med?
Thanks
Btw I am also a US citizen
Are you only taking 3 classes? What grades did you get? What’s your class rank?
Of course you can transfer. For Spring 2016, possibly.
But we’d need to know your HS grades, SAT or ACT score, any preference for state or area, parents’budget.
You can be premed anywhere, and major in anything. What’s key is being in the top 10-20% of each class and having a very high GPA.
HS grades is 4.0.SAT/ACT scheduled in September. I also took MCAT in January 2015 and got 29.
My first year medicine is a year long course with 3 subjects Anatomy, Physiology and Biochem along with lab and I believe they should be more than 24 credits. College grades will be released in November and should be 2.8 and as I said the best percentages we get is 60 to 75%.
My preference is south with physics major and premed pre-req. Private is fine as long as I get some aid.
Please help.
My preference is
Of course you can transfer – but how much aid will you need? The more you need, the smaller your chances. Also be prepared to repeat some (or most) of your courses since American schools may not give you credit for all of them. Use a search program such as ‘Find a College’ on this site, princetonreview.com or collegeboard.com to find a list of schools that will match your criteria. Then go to each school’s website to see the transfer requirements. Odds are, there will be many good colleges and universities in the American south happy to take an internationally educated student with decent grades/stats – it’s the aid you will be requesting that will be your biggest barrier.
You will need to explain the grading scale very carefully - what percentage got 70, what percentage got 65, what percentage for 60, 55, all the way to 30 or so. (ie/ 70 = top 5, 65 = top 10%, 60= top 15%, 55= top 25%, etc., or whatever applies).
Don’t convert your GPA to a 2.8 scale.
UAlabama, Mississippi State, USouthFlorida, NCSU, UNC-Wilmington, Appalachian State, USC-Columbia, College of Charleston, Hendrix, Eckerd, Centre, would all be colleges in the South where you may be able to transfer. Email each of them to ask whether they may admit an American citizen for Spring 2016 who’s attended his first year of college in India with a “medicine major”, indicating also that you plan on majoring in a STEM field with the premed core. Ask when the Spring 2016 will be available and whether you’ll be able to apply.
Get some help from the counselors at the closest office of EducationUSA. If no one in that office has worked with a US citizen recently, they have colleagues in other offices who do have that kind of experience. There are scads of you in India: https://educationusa.state.gov/find-advising-center?field_region_target_id=&field_country_target_id=306&field_center_level_value=All
If it is difficult to transfer credits, then will it be advisable to try as a freshman for spring? Freshman stand better chances of scholarships than transfers.
You can’t apply as a freshman once you have started at a university unless the college you’re applying to authorized you to. Each college will decide so you have to contact each of them one by one. Since you’ve taken three year long classes, assuming each is worth 3credits you’d have 18credits and SOME universities would consider that if youre under 24 credits you can apply as a freshman. If each class is worth 5 credits then you will not be allowed to apply as a freshman anywhere.
You may well apply as a transfer and find that none of your classes transfer. In all likelihood you’d transfer two biology classes although since the grades would count for your med school app and would sink you Ibecause they’re not As, wouldn’t ask for c edit and just retake the class in the us.
MYOS1634, Thanks for the message but it is not clear. What you mean is go as transfer and yet do not ask for any credits because they are not As? I thought during transfer, it is usually credits are offered and grades do not transfer. As an International transfer, there is no way my university will release any information.
I thought only credits transfer and not the grades. I could be wrong. plz explain. I am a International student so is there any way I not release my year long courses and instead apply as freshman? Because my transfer is not really helping me in any way.
Whether you apply as a freshman or a transfer is not up to you. It is up to the college/university that you are applying to. It is entirely possible for you to be required to apply as a freshman at A, required to apply as a transfer at B, and to have the option of choosing between those two when applying at C. You need to ask each place separately whaqt its policy is for a student in your situation.
Whether you apply as a freshman or a transfer, your credits from India will still be part of your permanent academic record, and when/if you apply to Med School, you will need to provide an official copy of that transcript.
You do not get to decide which credits to transfer, the college/university that admits you will decide that. Some places will only list the course equivalent on their transcript, others will include the grade. Again, you have no control over that because it depends on that institution’s policies. If you are accepted at several places, ask each of them how they expect to handle your credits and how those credits would be recorded on your transcript, and take that into your consideration when you are deciding which place to attend.
There are two cases in which you would have some input as to transfer of credits:
- You are not awarded specific credit immediately and need to petition for course credit or a waiver of a pre-requisite. For this reason, you should hold onto all graded homework, all graded projects, and all graded exams as well as the course syllabi, textbooks, and workbooks. That way you can provide evidence of the course content and grading system, and the receiving institution can do its best to award you the appropriate credit or placement.
- You have more transferable credits than the number that you are actually allowed to transfer. In this case you would want to meet with your advisor and with the registrar’s office, and determine which courses to transfer, and whether any of the remaining ones can be used to give you placement into higher level courses even though they aren’t recorded on your new transcript. By swapping out one course for another, you might be able to graduate more quickly or have a different major.
All that said, if your long term goal is specifically to become a practicing physician, your best option may be to complete your degree where you are, then come to the US afterward. Yes, you will need to pass the foreign medical exams, but the whole package could still end up being cheaper, quicker, and more certain than if you come here. Do think that through.
Thanks Happymom for the clarification. One more thing, since I am a International transfer, is it not easy to not mention about my college history anywhere and start afresh? It is not that I wish to do it but trying to know if International students try to take advantage of the situation and start their slate fresh?
That’s called lying, and if you try to do that, you will get caught.
Additionally, when you apply to colleges, you sign a clause that says that you have truthfully provided accurate and honest information. If you don’t do so, then, when you get caught, you will be expelled immediately; the universities then submit your name to the college information clearinghouse to make other universities aware of lack of integrity.
Don’t start off on the wrong foot. It is not worth it.
In addition, if youre a us citizen, you’re a domesric applicant with foreign credentials but are consider ed a citizen for financial aid, which is essential.
Thanks guys. One more thing I need to know… So having applied as Transfer, lets imagine none of my credits transfer
and I might have to repeat all and when I apply to medical school with 2 sets of transcripts–one from India and another from US, will this have any impact on my admission???
I would assume that if none of your Indian classes transferred to a us college, then mes schools wouldn’t consider them transferable and If you didn’t get As you’d be off the hook, lucky you. Because no, classes typically don’t transfer grades, except that med schools count everything, even colleg classes taken in high school.
They will look at all of your transcripts. What they think of those transcripts is entirely up to them. There isn’t anything that you can do about it, so just move forward.
But truly, unless you are made of money and are utterly miserable at your current Med School, trading four or five more years there for three to four years of pre-med in the US and four years of Med School here (that is assuming you are admitted) makes very little sense.