we know that getting into medical school
in the united states is tough but how
does it compare to other countries let's
talk about it dr jabal med
schoolinsiders.com when discussing how
competitive getting into medical school
is in a particular country it's not so
simple as looking at acceptance rates
there are many other aspects of medical
school admissions like gpa test scores
prerequisites and even the steps leading
up to applying that need to be
considered here's how the us compares to
other countries make sure to stick
around until the end when we'll rank
each country from most to least
competitive to get an idea of how the us
compares to other countries we must
first set our baseline according to data
from the double amc double a comb and
tmd sas only 36 percent of students that
apply to usmd and do schools matriculate
and only 25 of students that apply to
texas schools matriculate with these
statistics it is not uncommon to hear of
pre-meds applying multiple times only to
be met with rejection so what makes
getting into medical school in the u.s
so difficult it starts with the
structure of medical education unlike
many other countries where you begin
your medical training after high school
getting into medical school in the us
requires you to complete a four-year
bachelor's degree first this adds to the
difficulty as there are now two points
in the process where aspiring physicians
are screened let's say you have 100 high
school students interested in going into
medicine out of those 100 students maybe
only 75 of them will get into college
and become pre-meds now out of those 75
students maybe only 20 of them will
complete all their prerequisites take
their mcat and apply to medical school
and out of those 20 students maybe only
8 will get in if you only look at the
last part of this example you might see
a matriculation rate of 40 percent after
all 20 students applied and 8 got in
however this doesn't tell the full story
it doesn't account for all the students
that were weeded out along the way so
when you look at the figure that only
about 35 to 40 of pre-meds in the united
states matriculate into md schools you
also need to consider that there are
many more pre-meds that dropped it all
together and never made it to the stage
of applying to medical school it should
be noted that there are also combined
seven to eight year bsmd programs in the
u.s that grant both a bachelor's and an
md however they are often considered
even more competitive than the
traditional four plus four model another
factor to consider is that applicants
are self-selecting medicine is known for
being a long and intellectually
demanding career path as such students
that tend to pursue careers in medicine
tend to be those at the top of their
class already so if you're one of 50
students fighting for a spot in a
particular medical school you're not
just competing against 49 other average
students you're often competing against
49 other high achieving students don't
forget the classes that pre-meds take
either u.s medical schools generally
require one year of biology with lab one
year of general chemistry with lab one
year of organic chemistry with lab one
year of physics with lab and some math
generally some level of calculus and or
statistics although there are subjects
such as rocket surgery that are much
more intellectually challenging the
amount of time and effort needed to get
an a in these classes is often higher
than in most other subjects it's not
enough to just make it through these
classes either you also have to excel in
them the average gpa for matriculants
into allopathic md programs is 3.74
osteopathic do programs is 3.64 and
texas medical programs is 3.81 in
addition the average mcat scores for
matriculants are 512 504 and 511
respectively this means that to be
reasonably competitive for us medical
schools you should aim for at least the
58th percentile for do schools and
between 80 to 84th percentile for usmd
and texas schools hard metrics aren't
the only thing considered in medical
school applications either there are
also various extracurriculars needed to
make one a competitive applicant more
specifically it's recommended to accrue
around 150 to 200 hours of volunteer
work 50 to 75 hours of physician
shadowing 30 to 40 hours of patient
exposure around 200 hours of research
experience and multiple examples of
leadership experience on top of
attaining a high gpa and mcat score as
such finding the balance between
extracurriculars and academics can be
incredibly difficult for many pre-meds
with that as our baseline let's see how
difficult it is to get into medical
school in other countries the process of
getting into medical school in canada is
very similar to the us although some
programs do not require the completion
of a four-year degree most pre-meds in
canada will complete their bachelor's
degree before applying to medical school
the difference however is that medical
school admissions rates are even lower
than in the us at around 20 nationally
the average gpa and mcat score for
canadian medical school matriculants
also tend to be higher on average than
in the us the average gpa for
matriculants is between 3.7 and 3.95
depending on the school and the average
mcat for students with at least one
offer is 512.5 which is around the 85th
percentile one reason that medical
school is so competitive in canada comes
down to the number of applicants per
first year medical school spot in canada
there are approximately 15 000
applicants competing for 3 000 medical
school spots in any given year compared
to the us which has 62 000 applicants
competing for 23 000 spots that comes
out to approximately five applicants for
each spot in canada versus 2.7
applicants per spot in the us
additionally prerequisite coursework in
canada can vary widely between schools
so pre-meds need to pay more attention
to the requirements for each program the
most common requirements are two
semesters of biology two semesters of
chemistry two semesters of physics one
semester of math and two semesters of
english however some schools require
coursework in biochemistry anatomy and
physiology psychology and or social
sciences as well around seventy percent
of medical schools in canada also
require applicants to take the casper
exam as part of the admissions process
in comparison only about 30 of medical
schools in the u.s require casper while
this doesn't necessarily influence
competitiveness it is another hurdle to
jump through for a comprehensive list of
which u.s medical schools require casper
check out our blog post link in the
description extracurriculars for
canadian medical schools are also
similar to u.s medical schools with
research volunteer work leadership and
clinical experience being an important
part of one's application in the united
kingdom getting to medical school is
quite different from the united states
and canada although you can complete a
four-year bachelor's degree and then
apply for a four-year medical school
program through the graduate pathway
this is not the norm the standard
pathway to becoming a doctor in the uk
is to apply for a five-year medical
school program right after secondary
school the equivalent of high school
after that you'll complete a two-year
foundation program with the national
health system followed by either three
years of general practitioner training
or five to eight years of more
specialized training so despite uk
medical students starting their medical
training earlier the total amount of
time from high school to practicing
physician is similar to that of the us
or canada now let's talk about
admissions data in 2021 there were
around 29 000 applicants competing for
around 9500 medical school spots that
gives us a matriculation rate of around
33
which is less than that of the us but
greater than that of canada that being
said acceptance rates can vary widely
between schools with some schools
reporting rates below 9 and others
exceeding as high as 30
one important caveat to note however is
that uk students are limited to four
medical schools on their application so
they are often much more particular with
which schools they apply to this is very
different from the us where it is
generally recommended that pre-meds
apply to as many schools as possible
often 20 or more to maximize their
chances of a medical school acceptance
in terms of the average gpa for
matriculants the uk follows a different
grading scale than the us and canada
which makes comparison difficult in
secondary school when students are
around age 16 they will take their
general certificate of secondary
education courses these are the basic
qualifications in the uk and cover a
broad range of topics like math english
and science towards the end of secondary
school around ages 16 to 18 students
choose their a level courses which are
more focused students generally take at
least three a-level courses however some
will take an extra a level to try to
make themselves more competitive most
medical schools have specific
requirements for what a-levels a student
must take generally biology chemistry
and one other science-related subject as
well as the grades that the students
must achieve most programs require at
least three a's or 70 or above in your a
levels to be considered for their
medical school with some requiring a
star grades 80 or above in one or more
of your a-level classes according to
statista approximately 19 of students
achieved a star grades on their a levels
in 2021 and over a quarter received a
grades in terms of test scores most
medical schools in the uk require
students to take the university clinical
aptitude test or ucat the average ucat
score for low tier schools is generally
between 2400 and 2500 which is a 50th
percentile score and the average ucat
for higher tier schools is generally
above 2700 which is an 80th percentile
score now that we've gone through each
country in detail which one is the most
competitive based on the data canada is
the most competitive the process and
requirements of getting into medical
school are very similar to the us
however more students are competing for
each medical school spot this means that
medical schools can be more selective
with whom they choose to accept which is
evident in the slightly higher average
gpa and mcat score between the us and
the uk the us is substantially more
competitive not only because the average
matriculus mcat percentile is
substantially higher than the average
matriculants you cat but also the fact
you first go to college and then apply
to medical school in the u.s the pre-med
years are cutthroat and highly
competitive and the overwhelming
majority of pre-meds on the first day of
college are no longer pre-med by the
time they graduate whether it's organic
chemistry physics or the mcat there are
many tough hurdles to overcome during
college that stop pre-meds from applying
to medical school the mcat in particular
has stopped many hopeful pre-meds in
their tracks however it doesn't have to
be this way doing well on the mcat isn't
a matter of how smart you are or how
long you study it comes down to spending
your time wisely and studying
effectively the goal is to maximize
information acquisition and minimize
forgetting and one of the best ways to
accomplish this is by using high quality
high yield resources the med school
insiders mcat course has everything you
need to know for the mcat in one place
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out the fluff so you don't have to
unlike other resources we don't just
stop at content either we cover the
details that separate the top scorers
from the rest like study strategies
schedule and even your self-talk and
mindset these are the tactics that
propelled our team to 99.9 percentile
scores from the start of the course we
will walk you through a comprehensive
plan and help you develop optimal mcat
performance from every angle if your
mcat is coming up in the next year learn
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get the course at a massive discount for
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free of charge with that said which
country do you guys think is most
competitive let me know with a comment
down below thank you all so much for
watching if you enjoyed this video be
sure to check out five reasons pre-meds
fail to get into medical school or this
other video much love and i'll see you
guys there
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