Medicine or an undergrad in the US?

I am in year 12 rn and I am trying to decide whether to apply for medicine in the UK or apply for a science undergraduate in the USA like you have. After a lot of research and speaking to my family members who have studied medicine in the states, trust me when I say go and take that offer for the scholarship. It's an opportunity you will regret not taking and you will lose nothing from it. Like it keeps all of your options open and medicine in the UK and then moving to the states is such a complex process (one of my parents is in the process of taking USLME exams and moving there bc its a whole lot better than the UK) so just go! I am planning on doing the same thing and after all I've seen if I had an opportunity like yours I would take that instantly. Good luck with everything!
p.s. not to be annoying or anything but genuinely wondering what you got on the SAT? I'm trying to figure out how to study for it and stuff :-)

First off, well done - the offers you're holding are an amazing achievement

No one can make this decision but you, because there's no 'right one'. There are a couple of things to bear in mind that you don't seem to have mentioned, so just to add those: for medicine, it's usually best to study where you want to work. If you're thinking of postgrad med in the US, you're potentially committing yourself to a decade or more in the US just to qualify, and then you'll probably work in the US as well (which is totally different to working in the UK, especially hours-wise). Postgrad med in the US is also very expensive, and if you couldn't afford a 2nd US degree it seems surprising that you could afford a US medical degree? Going to the US means potentially no medicine, and if medicine is really what you want to do that might start ringing alarm bells.

So it seems like there are two seriously big questions you need to think about: medicine or no medicine? and Where do you want to live for the next five to ten years?

It can be helpful to draw out a pros and cons list for both, and to think about how you'd feel if someone turned around and said "sorry, your medicine/US offer was a mistake" - relieved or upset? In terms of medicine, did you do any work experience? What are your concerns other than 'not knowing about other jobs' (that is a valid concern, but if you like medicine and want to do it, it may not be that big a deal - I probably didn't research other careers 'enough' before starting medicine but I don't really care because I'm happy with what I'm doing)

Hi, it's nice to hear other inputs, it's definitely a difficult decision and I'm still not sure what I'm going to do. Either way it's going to be an incredible experience I'm sure, just don't want to make the wrong decision. I wish you all the luck in your applications too. About the SAT: as part of the Sutton Trust, we do the ACT which is out of 36. I managed to get a 35, I was so pleased. But anything above 30/31 puts you in good stead for the "full need" schools. I don't know much about the SAT as everybody on the programme does the ACT, but I would imagine anything 1500 and above would similarly put you in good stead. But for what it's worth I think the ACT is easier for a-level students, try practice tests for both though, everybody is different.

As for studying, (again my pov is for ACT but I think it's similar to SAT), there really shouldn't be too much that you don't know. It's not a material or knowledge based test like everything in the UK. And by year 12 you have covered almost everything that is on the test. The main thing is filling in those gaps. It tests things that aren't really tested in the UK. For example the English section, a question might give you a sentence as part of a passage, and it will give you a series of other options, each with a semi-colon in a different place, and you have to pick the most grammatically correct sentence. This is completely different to the UK, we stop learning grammar in like year 7. Even by A-level English. SPaG is the least important part of the subject. So I would try and find some online guides with all the tested skills and make sure you know them. Like with the semi-colon , I didn't really know how to use them before studying for this, I just kind of slapped them wherever in essays.

I find a lot of it comes very intuitively to a-level students. Especially science students. This is because the English and reading sections are very intuitive if you are a native speaker, again you just have to refresh on some finer points. The maths you have to be able to apply actual maths skills, most of it is very easy and GCSE level, but there are some a-level topics you may have to teach yourself. But again these are very basic questions, equivalent to max 3 marks in the UK I'd say. Then the science questions are almost all data/graph based, there's almost no content. If you do biology a-level or a-level stats you'll be well placed for this.

And the overall part that is hard for UK students is 100% timing. All of the sections have 1 minute or less per question, some are down to 45 seconds per question. Some questions will only take you 5 seconds, but some will take you 3 minutes. This is so foreign to UK students, we are used to majority long answer questions. My last biology paper had about 20 questions and 14 of them were > 4 marks. The best way to get around this is practice practice practice. Similarly to the uk, there's only so many types of questions. They repeat themselves but in a different wording or format. If you do enough you'll recognise patterns and such. Also look up on the internet and YouTube for ACT skills tutorials and things. There's a number of techniques and skills you can learn to skim read and pick out words etc which might seem obvious but aren't. The internet is your best friend and it has everything you need. Don't spend money on it, (aside from the test fee itself obviously) because you don't need to. At the very most maybe get 1 or 2, 10 or 20 pound book from Amazon.

I'll just say don't worry too much. It's really not as hard as it seems, once you get over the initial hurdles of "I've never done this type of test before," We were told the average UK taker does much better than the average US taker. Many factors affecting this of course, but UK students tend to do very well, and as one last note, the test isn't actually that important. Again this is a UK mindset, but in the US applications are holistic, there are no set entry requirements. Try for 3A* predicteds, work on your ECs and essays. These hold much more weight especially as the vast majority of colleges are going test optional this year. Best of luck.

Thank you so much for your reply, I haven't decided yet but I'm leaning towards medicine in UK. If I did go to the US I'd probably return for grad med here, family and all that, this is my home etc. Ultimately I'm coming to the conclusion that taking an extra 4 potentially more years out is prolonging what is already a long and gruelling process. And it's not something I want to prolong. I am actually 19 as I repeated a year in order to change my subjects for medicine, so I managed to volunteer in an Intensive care unit over the past year and it really is what I want to do. If I delay it, I won't really be doing much like that for another minimum 8 years. Plus my med offer is for a London school so it's hardly going to be a boring experience. Either way I'm going to take a bit more time to think it over, neither can really be a wrong decision after all as both are amazing options.

Thank you so much for your input.

Thank you so much for your reply, I haven't decided yet but I'm leaning towards medicine in UK. If I did go to the US I'd probably return for grad med here, family and all that, this is my home etc. Ultimately I'm coming to the conclusion that taking an extra 4 potentially more years out is prolonging what is already a long and gruelling process. And it's not something I want to prolong. I am actually 19 as I repeated a year in order to change my subjects for medicine, so I managed to volunteer in an Intensive care unit over the past year and it really is what I want to do. If I delay it, I won't really be doing much like that for another minimum 8 years. Plus my med offer is for a London school so it's hardly going to be a boring experience. Either way I'm going to take a bit more time to think it over, neither can really be a wrong decision after all as both are amazing options.

Thank you so much for your input.

I didn't realise you were planning to stay in the UK - it completely makes sense to go for the UK medicine offer. I'm just biased towards the US from what I've heard from my family members, but regardless both are amazing options. If you do end up going down the US route, I doubt you will want to come back once you've seen the hospitals and stuff (according to my father, after a trip last summer). I mean if you are willing to prolong the wait to be a doctor for a bit and just sort of experience a new perspective, once again I'd recommend the US (yes, I am extremely biased but life is short and opportunities limited). Good luck with your decision!

What would you plan to study if you did go to the US? In my opinion if you were just going to then study a premed curriculum and be a bio major and do medicine anyway, it seems like you're just delaying your original plans for little reason or benefit. Unless you had a fairly clear idea of what you wanted to study, and it's something you probably won't be able to pursue again in future and the experience will be somewhat unique to where you're going in some respects (e.g. ancient near eastern studies at UChicago, physics at CalTech, linguistics at MIT, philosophy at NYU etc) it seems a bit pointless.

Note also that pursuing medicine as a second degree in the UK (either standard entry medicine or graduate entry medicine) will have more limited funding than studying it as a first degree. GEM courses you need to pay ~2/3rds of the tuition fee yourself for first year, while getting 1/3rd paid through tuition fee loans from SFE and getting a maintenance loan from SFE, and thereafter get full funding from the NHS. Standard entry medicine as a graduate is even worse (but is less competitive than GEM, even for graduates, although the gap is smaller than for school leavers I understand), as you only get a maintenance loan for the first 4 years and have to pay the tuition fees yourself (probably using the maintenance loan, requiring you figure out how to support yourself otherwise), and only get fully funded by the NHS for the last two years. So there are still some financial considerations if you go the US route.

Also bear in mind there are aspects to living in the US you will need to put up with which don't exist here. You will need to get health insurance, if you get sick there as an undergrad you may have to pay a lot of money, depending what state you are based in and the nature of the student body, you may need to put up with seeing students carrying guns around campus. Also normally in US dorms you share a room with someone, with two beds to a room (i.e. not sharing a flat with individual rooms with others) which can present difficulties if you don't get along with the other person. The drinking age in most states is 21 (not 18 like here) as well, if it matters. Some colleges have arbitrarily draconian rules about some things, and you may feel more like an older school student than an independent adult in uni at some colleges (e.g. one college a couple years ago notably banned dildos on campus, while permitting open carry). Also the nature of assessment is very different; less exam based, with much more of your grade coming from attendance, "participation", weekly assignments and more frequent, smaller quizzes, etc.

If it truly is a once in a lifetime opportunity to pursue something that isn't likely going to be a career goal for you but which has been a long term interest for you which pursuing medicine would mean you would have very limited opportunity to continue pursuing, then it might be worthwhile. If it's just going through the motions to end up in medicine anyway, you may as well just go directly into medicine in my opinion. You could ask both if you could defer entry for a year to spend some more time reflecting on the choices and figuring out what you really want to do, although there is no guarantee either will accept the request.

I think in that case it makes no sense to go to the US - there's no guarantee you'd get a GEM place, they're much more competitive than undergrad places (plus it may make you very limited in what you can study in the US to be eligible, taking away the 'fun' of doing a US degree) and you'd be kicking yourself so hard if you turned down a medicine place at 19, and couldn't get one again at 23.

It sounds like you are very committed to medicine in the UK (changing subjects, a year of volunteering etc) so as you say why prolong the process for four years of 'experience' (which it's worth bearing in mind that you may not even get for the first year because of COVID). Depending on what you wanted to do in the US, there may well be opportunities to do it in the UK (eg an US elective, intercalating in something, learning a language alongside your degree)

Of course this is just my opinion based on what you've said, so hopefully you aren't reading it thinking "wait what but actually" (and if you are maybe that's a sign you should go to America )

Currently a London med student as well (Imperial) so happy to answer any question you have too

The main thing that attracted me to the US was that you can do more than one thing. In fact in many colleges its a requirement to take classes in a set few areas alongside your major and minor. For example in my college, you would have to take 16 classes per semester, 8 of these must qualify towards your major, 4 must qualify to your minor, 1 must qualify for "aesthetics and culture" 1 for "ethics and civics" 1 for "histories, societies and individuals" and 1 for "Science, Technology and Mathematics." Classes can fill multiple requirements, for example if you majored in physics and minored in maths, a particular maths class might will the major, minor and the stem requirement. There's hundreds of classes to choose from so you really get a broad and personalised degree.

I probably would've done a strong premed-like curriculum. Lots of bio and chemistry just because I'm interested and can skip 1 or 2 years of the classes thanks to my a-levels. Which would allow me to take even more classes. I would minor in languages at least to start with, but I also have a strong interest in computer science and anthropology.

My reasons for the US are a mix of "the experience" and interest in things non medicine. But ultimately I think I'll have just as good an experience wherever I go, if I make the effort, as I said in another reply, my med offer is for London. Hardly a boring place. And as for the study interests, there are so many ways to study computer science and languages in your free time or in societies. I doubt I would be the first doctor to get an anthropology masters if that is still something that interests me down the line.

To be honest since posting this yesterday, doing more and more research all night and verbalising my thoughts on here it's just made me think about what I want. I'm sure you know a good bit about the US from your father, but I've been in touch with US Sutton Trust programme staff this morning, one of whom is in fact a retired doctor. He convinced me to stay in the UK because as difficult as it is to move to the US as a UK doctor, it's apparently 1000 times more difficult to become a doctor in the US as an international. I knew this to a degree but didn't quite realise the extent of it. The acceptance rate for internationals at US medical schools is something ridiculous like 0.05%. And yes I could do GEM in the UK but ultimately I think I'd like to get on with it.

Either way I'm going to try and take a week or so left of half term to chill out, not think about the decision too much, take a break from revision. And make a decision afterwards. And by all means if you have any more questions about the US please don't hesitate to ask.

Yeah I think verbalising and putting all my thoughts into words is helping a great deal to sway me towards the UK. The end goal is to be a doctor, and anything else is just a fun experience along the way. I can have a fun experience wherever, and there will be plenty of other options for 'experience' in my life, like you say intercalating, electives maybe even a masters? And you are so right about the GEM thing. One of my mum's friends has been applying for the past 3 cycles I think? And still hasn't gotten in anywhere. She's a 40 year old accountant though, not sure if that puts her in a better or worse position though?

Imperial is actually where my offer is from!! Only a few questions if that's okay?

How do you feel about compulsory intercalation? My other 3 choices were 5 year degrees with the option to intercalate. I think I probably would've anyway but I don't love the thought that you have to.

How is living in West London? Do most students stay relatively close after 1st year/how long do you commute? Because it's so expensive. Even feels expensive, but that's partly why I love it.

Is it really as dead as people say? I've chosen to ignore the stereotypes, it is what you make of it etc but do you ever wish you'd gone to UCL or Kings?

How broke are you?

Hey so I know this is probably a really niche position to be in, but I'm really struggling with this decision, and naturally there's not many people in my life who have much experience with either of these, let alone both.

So I am on the Sutton Trust US programme, and I applied to 10 US universities and I have been lucky enough to be accepted into one really prestigious one. I also applied for medicine in the uk, and received one offer.

I applied to medicine because I'm 90% sure it is what I want to do in the future. But I'm doubting myself with that 10% because really I don't know what else is out there. All these alumni that we've had talk to us have these crazy jobs that I've never even heard of. Doctor, engineer, lawyer are some of the most present in tv/cinema and life and I think that makes us gravitate toward them. So it's not so much that I don't want to be a doctor, but that I'm scared I've not considered all the options.

My biggest worry is turning down my US offer, doing medicine and regretting it. It is such an incredible opportunity being a part of the Sutton trust, the amount of support they offer is ridiculous and if I had to apply without them I absolutely wouldn't have gotten in.

If I go to America, I graduate with zero debt as I will be given full financial aid, I could apply for grad medicine then. It's obviously not ideal: much more expensive and competitive, but very possible.

The same cannot be said if I do the reverse, if I do a medicine degree, I simply will not be able to afford a second degree in the US if I decide not to do med, as the funding is limited. I could work there potentially, but still.

This is such a stressful decision and I'm genuinely losing sleep over it. It's such a privileged position to be in, and I don't want to waste the opportunities I've been given.

Again I doubt many people have been in this specific position before, but are there any med students/doctors/us grads who could advise me at all? What would you do?