Applications to International Medical Schools

**Elisabeth** · 07-03-2009, 04:58 PM

Yes, foreign applicants can get a place at med schools in Norway. The admissions requirements are based on your grades from high school, and it's entirely points-based, which means no personal statements, no admissions tests, no interviews, no nothing. You can get some extra points for any previous uni education and some age points. They're about to change this last bit, from a pretty sensible system into something completely stupid where you get 4x as many points for your age as you do for your education, but oh well. Check with Samordna Opptak if you're thinking of applying.

Anyway, you'd have to learn Norwegian of course, and probably take a test. And I'm not sure how things work with visas and such. I'm not 100% sure if it's open to just anybody though, or if you need to have permanent residency already. A friend of mine at med school is American and got in just fine, but she was already married to a Norwegian when she started.

Basically though, if you get a visa to study in Norway (again, don't know how this works) and you learn Norwegian well enough, then you can calculate your score based on your grades etc and it's mathematical who gets in. Your BSc won't really be the basis for your application, which can be good or bad... I used some of my chemistry from uni to meet that requirement (I took some in high school but not enough) but the points are still calculated from your high school grades regardless of what you've done afterwards. They rank their applicants according to their number of points and then just give places to the ones at the top, so the requirements can change from year to year according to how good the applicants are, but if you have enough points you're guaranteed a place.

Liz

**luk25** · 26-04-2009, 08:09 PM

hi
I am in the last year of my med school in Iran and I want to knnow if its possible to transfer to a canadian or american med school , whats the odds , how should I apply

**Amani1** · 21-07-2009, 05:02 PM

Hi, i was wondering if anyone knows anything about international transfers into 1st or 2nd year medicine at any UK university??

thank you

**Fried_Rice** · 21-07-2009, 05:29 PM

Originally Posted by Amani1

Hi, i was wondering if anyone knows anything about international transfers into 1st or 2nd year medicine at any UK university??

thank you

This is pretty incredibly unlikely unfortunately. Even transfers between medical schools in the UK are rare, and tend to be considered on a case-to-case basis and only for exceptional circumstances. Medical schools tend to be very picky about accepting people into later years.

You could always write to them and ask, but I think it is unlikely that they will accept you. (And they would certainly ask you for things like an Engish proficiency exam like IELTS first if you don't have any UK school qualifications.)

If you're desperate to move you would probably have to start from the beginning again, should you get in.

The only thing of help I can suggest is that you can organise a sort of exchange period at different hospitals though, once you are in your clinical years, which is called an elective. For example for Newcastle you could organise an exchange period through here: https://mbbs.ncl.ac.uk/electives.

Sorry that's not much help!

**ASAK90** · 20-10-2009, 12:26 AM

I don’t think you have a chance of getting an offer from any Norwegian or Swedish medical schools as the competition is extremely strong. And also a lot of the teaching is in Norwegian and Swedish.

**flarestar** · 20-10-2009, 03:13 AM

I'm british with my a-levels currently doing an undergrad in mcmaster in canada. Comparing the two countries medical school, I ma not joking but it is so much easier to get in in the UK for an interbational (or even candian citizen) to get in in the UK then canada. There's a lack of medical schools in canada and too much competition and they're harsh to non-canadians or even those outside the province

**Kam14** · 21-10-2009, 01:25 AM

lol Ontario schools are harsh to students IN province too

it's sad that I have a better chance at getting into UK as an international than getting into a medical school in my own province. recent stats have ontario success rates at about 19%... lowest in the country.

**flarestar** · 26-10-2009, 06:39 PM

I'm not surprised everyone here seems to want to do medicine. It's so weird when I was in sixth form in england only 6/200 of the year wanted to do medicine