This post won’t be very long because there isn’t much to say that hasn’t been said elsewhere, more for completion. I won’t be comparing MD versus MD-PhD programs because the difference is more straightforward.
The key difference is funding
MSTPs, an acronym for Medical Scientist Training Program, are MD-PhD programs funded through a T32 grant from the NIH. This funding is the fundamental difference between MSTPs and MD-PhD programs, and has downstream consequences. First, whereas MSTPs offer stipends for the entirety of training, MD-PhD funding can vary during the course of education, with some offering stipends for your entire training, and others only offering stipends during the PhD phase and tuition support during the MD phase. Second, because of the NIH funding, students funded through the T32 grant must be domestic students. This does not mean that international students cannot apply for MSTPs or MD-PhD programs. Many institutions with long-established MSTPs, as well as private institutions, have institutional grants to fund international students in their programs. I’ve compiled a list below of NIH funded programs that do and do not allow international students to apply (though these data are from 2023).
| Accepts intl. student applications | Does not accept intl. student applications |
|---|---|
| Minnesota | Cincinnati |
| MUSC | Einstein (DACA only) |
| UT Houston-McGovern | Iowa-Carver |
| Vanderbilt | Mount Sinai-Icahn |
| Baylor | Oregon |
| Columbia-Vagelos | Alabama |
| Cornell-Weill | Case Western Reserve |
| Emory | Chicago-Pritzker |
| Harvard | Colorado |
| Johns Hopkins (unfunded) | Duke |
| Massachusetts | Illinois |
| Northwestern | Maryland |
| UPenn | Mayo-Alix |
| UT Southwestern | MC Wisc. |
| Virginia | Miami-Miller |
| WashU | UMich |
| Yale | North Carolina |
| OSU | |
| Penn State | |
| UPitt | |
| Rochester | |
| Stanford (unless Hennessy Scholar) | |
| Tufts | |
| UWashington | |
| UC Irving | |
| UC San Diego | |
| UCSF | |
| UCLA Geffen | |
| UT San Antonio | |
| Wisconsin |