Hi, my name is Csongor, and I’m an 18-year-old Hungarian student who recently achieved something extraordinary: I’ve been accepted into the University of Edinburgh’s Medical School, ranked among the Top 20 medical programs in the world, and among the hardest to get into as an international student — with less than 1% chance of acceptance. But despite the honour, the dream is slipping away. Not because of merit, but because of money and the lack of governmental support.

My Story: From the Countryside to Edinburgh

I grew up in a small countryside town in Hungary with my divorced mother, who was working as a nurse. During those years, I spent most of my free time preparing for the centralised high school entrance exam in 8th grade, which determines whether a student can be admitted to the country’s top institutions. After years of hard work, I was accepted to Fazekas Mihály High School, one of Hungary’s top 3 schools.

Since then, my mother and I have been living in Budapest, which brought both intellectual fulfilment and significant financial strain. My mother, whose support I cannot be grateful enough for, has worked night shift ever since, covering my studies and our 25 million HUF mortgage. During the last four years, I've tried to repay these amounts of sacrifices by working tirelessly on fulfilling my dream of being accepted into a prestigious medical university in the UK.

My achievements vs. the requirements

To get accepted into a top-tier university like Edinburgh or Cambridge for medicine, students need not only exceptional grades but also a competitive portfolio, AP courses, and a strong UCAT score. In Hungary, these pathways are not readily available.

While other countries' systems allow students to do AP or internships in the field of medicine, or just to do university-level research, I had to fight my way through many and many levels of rejection to reach my goals.

This started in 9th grade. During a seemingly meaningless event called Researchers' Night, I visited an enzymology laboratory, where, after my mother's countless attempts to convince me, I finally asked the lab's leading scientist whether I could join their lab's work as an intern. To my surprise, she was thrilled to accept my proposal and less than a month later, I started my afternoon internship as a research assistant.

In 10th grade, through my school’s unique internship program, I spent six months in a hospital's cardiac ward.

The turning point came two years ago, when after several rejections, I was finally accepted into Semmelweis University's PhD and Scientific Youth Society(TDK) research programme. Under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Andrea Székely, an anesthesiologist professor of the Városmajor Cardiac Clinic, I've completed three different research studies and presented two of them at many different scientific conferences in the country, the most notable being Semmelweis University's Youth Researchers' Conference, where, during the two years, I've received three special awards in the category of Anesthesiology. This experience led to something never granted before: I was given special permission to shadow doctors and assist in Semmelweis University's Transplantational Clinic's Surgical ICU — a one-off mentorship program tailored just for me to receive the work experience needed for UK universities.

This medical background and my top 3% performance on the UCAT 2024 test were the reasons why I was granted a place at the University of Edinburgh's MBChB course.

Moreover, this achievement's rarity was something that, sadly, my country's leaders could not understand. To understand how rare this is: In the 2023-24 cycle, Edinburgh received 1,760 applications for medicine. Only 20 overseas students were accepted. That’s a success rate of just over 1%. I was one of them..

Why I Need Your Help

As an international student, I must pay nearly £52,000/year in tuition. This adds up to £312,000 over six years.

Living in Edinburgh adds further unavoidable costs: accommodation, visa, insurance, and basic expenses.

Since receiving my offer, I’ve applied for every scholarship I could find and contacted hundreds of institutions for support. Here I'd like to include the most notable mentions:

• I've applied to the Stipendium Peregrinum scholarship, which is Hungary's only scholarship that supports high-achieving students at prestigious universities. Even after reaching their very last interview stage, I was not included in the final batch, which this year was 26 people out of the 30 top contenders, opposed to the promised max. 20. Also, for complete transparency, I am attaching the rejection email from them

• I've emailed several different charities and medical institutions. Until this point, the only responses that I've received were rejections from all of them, such as Richter Zrt., Aegis, Ingelheim Boehringer, Hold Asset Management, etc.
• All of Hungary's 'world-famous, student-helping, charitable foundations', such as Soros Foundation or Jákob Foundation, rejected my proposal, all citing the same as every other institution, that my cost was too high for them to accommodate.

I’ve personally managed to save 2.5M HUF, enough to roughly cover my visa and insurance, but sadly, nothing more.

To be fully transparent with everyone, I feel the need to tell these:

• I've set my fundraiser's total goal to £312,000 because that is my 6-year tuition fee.
• I want to be clear: I’m not asking for living expenses. I will work part-time to cover those. I’m only asking for help covering the cost of staying in medical school.
• My current, smaller, but much more important goal is finding coverage for my upcoming Overseas deposit payment, which is roughly £18,000
• Even small donations help; every £5 or £10 pushes the campaign closer to survival, and larger donations can push me towards full months or years of tuition.

Giving Back — My Pledge

During university, I don't plan on wasting any second not helping those who are on the same path as me.

I will launch a mentorship program in Hungary to help talented, low-income students apply to top UK universities or even medical programs. The reason behind this is that other large agencies in Hungary, many of which i have tried, failed to help me in any meaningful way. That's why I will try my best to utilise my connections to gather up-to-date materials on application preparations, or help build connections or even assist in developing a successful application strategy for students.

This campaign is not only about one student going to med school. It’s about creating a path for others to follow.

Thank you for believing in me.

If you can’t donate, sharing this story helps just as much.