gekko513 said:
So how is the education system in the US anyway?
It can vary from region to region, but speaking in very general terms, you start school in the fall of the year you become 5 years old. This would be one year of Kindergarten. Then, in the year you become 6 years old, you start grade school. Elementary school is usually grades 1 through 5 or 6, and then you might have middle school and/or junior high through grade 8. Then there's high school where the grade years typically go from 9-12. You usually graduate in the year that you turn 18.
Then, if you choose to do more education, you could go to college or university. The reason you don't see many Americans talking about university is because a lot of us use the term "college" to mean university education, and "university" is rarely used unless it's in the name of your school (for example, "I went to college at the University of Michigan"). Not all of our colleges are universities though; universities have a reputation for being larger, and colleges have a reputation for having a smaller atmosphere. There are also community colleges, some (but not all) of which offer only a 2-year program. A student could attend 4 years at a (4-year) college or university or could go 2 years at a community college and then transfer to a 4-year college or university. Any education past the 4-year degree is graduate school.
To macaddicttt, my suggestion would be to inquire with your school's Office of International Students to see what would be required for a resident of Norway to study at your institution. Even if your GF doesn't decide to study at your institution in particular, the advice they give should help give you a more solid understanding of which requirements would apply for any institution. We have a lot of foreign students in my graduate program, so I know there are various regulations (for example, they can't work more than 20 hours/week at a job while they are in school full-time), and I suspect your Office of International Students would be able to point you to what they are. You could also consider calling up the admissions office or international students' office of a medical school that she may be interested in and speaking with them directly... I imagine that they would be willing to help spell out the requirements for anyone, and are probably asked about it often. They might have a flyer that they can send you, or helpful information posted on their website.
I do know that medical degrees in the US are relatively expensive to get, and aren't one of those graduate degrees that the school pays you for through assistantships. (Also, the programs can be very competitive, so ideally she is a strong student academically and would be able to perform well on the MCAT.) My understanding is that even if you get financial aid to cover a portion of the cost, you will still be left with a substantial amount of debt. If I were her, I would try to balance the following factors when making my decision: (1) what is required to receive accreditation to practice in the US after receiving a degree in Norway (perhaps there's a physicians' organization that you can contact to get this information, or perhaps the medical school in Norway that she would attend can help?), (2) what the starting wages are for physicians in both countries, and (3) how much debt the medical school in question would accrue. School debt doesn't have to be a large issue in and of itself if you make enough money after University and can plan to live frugally enough to pay it off before getting too excited about your post-school earnings... it really depends on how fiscally responsible and conservative you think you honestly can be in practice, so you should think critically about yourselves in this respect. If her getting the degree in Norway requires more years of schooling or residency here in order to practice here, then she may have lost opportunity wages to balance against the cost of medical school debt. I might consider stonyc's option of her finishing her pre-med degree in Norway for free and then taking the MCAT and trying to attend medical school here. It sounds like to balance your options well, it might be worthwhile to look into admission requirements at medical schools to find out whether her admission would be penalized if she had a good MCAT score and a high GPA and Bachelor's degree equivalent from a Norwegian university rather than an American one.
Like I said, I know you were looking for personal experiences, but hopefully if you haven't checked some of these sources yet you'll give them a shot. I think a lot of the people at these institutions would be happy to help you. A bit of information never hurt anyone, and hopefully you'll be able to find what you're looking for. I apologize for the length...
