why to avoid st. matthew's university

SDN Members don't see this ad. (About Ads)

Trust me please, as a caribbean grad from Ross, you do no t want to throw away your time, money, and efforts with this school. I have tons of friends that went to this school, not one recommended that i send my brother to St. Matthew's. From the top of the school all the way down to faculty, they are a mess and do not give a rats ***** about you. They offer no financial aid (unless you illegally use money from an mba program to pay off your medical school tuition, even with that waste of time you will be short), they are not licensed in many states, they will keep changing rules while you remain there, and they have all sorts of legal troubles, lawsuits, etc. So they are on a nice island? If that is your reason to go there, God help you Seriously, please look to the better schools, like ROSS, SGU, AUC, AMA, AUA, and I am sure others. This school will put you in debt or weed you out, actually both. If you think you won't fall into this category, trust me you don't want to think like that and you will wish you listened to me if you get yourself into this mess. I sent my brother there despite the warnings, and now he is in a huge bind. Help yourself and heed this advice, i am doing this only to save people the pain and agony of what my brother had to endure. Sarim

CaribbeanGrad,

I'm sorry to hear about your feelings and overall experience for your brother. I would be interested if he is a veterinary or medical student. I am happy to share that I am a veterinary student from St. Matthew's and am currently completing my final clinical year at NC State University. I have had an awesome experience at St. Matthew's and would not give my experience or degree up for anything. Even a degree from a US veterinary school. Again, I can not speak on behalf of the medical school however I am VERY familiar with all aspects of the veterinary school.

I would also like to point out to folks reading this thread, particularly those interested in veterinary programs that schools like AUA no longer exist. Given that fact I would feel horrible for someone that decided to put their "life" in the hands of AUA and then be left out in the cold because the school decided to terminate or post-pone their veterinary program. A recent article in DVM News Magazine referenced that AUA did not establish an alternative for any of their current students. They were left to attempt to transfer to another school.

But to share my experience about St. Matthew's University School of Veterinary Medicine. It was absolutely awesome. I have done extremely well in the veterinary program and have excelled while in my clinical year at NCSU. Despite the economy I have already secured a job, with an outstanding salary. All because of the foundation established by St. Matthew's.

I welcome anyone interested in St. Matthew's veterinary program to contact me either here or via email. (jdabbraccio@smuvetmed.com)

Joe

With all due respect, vet school doesn't have much to do with med school.
With med school one HAS to secure a 3-7 year residency in the US after graduation, if one wants to ever practice medicine (on humans) in the USA. If the school has suboptimal training for the USMLE I exam, or has suboptimal training for the USMLE Step 2 exams (there is one with patients and one that is "book learning") and does not have good clinical rotations set up, preferably in the US, the students are not going to do well as far as getting residencies in the U.S. I recommend if someone cannot get into one of the US MD or DO schools, only consider a few of the top few Caribbean schools, or perhaps Ireland or Australian schools, or another profession altogether.

Join dates are suspect.

Originally Posted by dragonfly99

With all due respect, vet school doesn't have much to do with med school.
With med school one HAS to secure a 3-7 year residency in the US after graduation, if one wants to ever practice medicine (on humans) in the USA. If the school has suboptimal training for the USMLE I exam, or has suboptimal training for the USMLE Step 2 exams (there is one with patients and one that is "book learning") and does not have good clinical rotations set up, preferably in the US, the students are not going to do well as far as getting residencies in the U.S. I recommend if someone cannot get into one of the US MD or DO schools, only consider a few of the top few Caribbean schools, or perhaps Ireland or Australian schools, or another profession altogether.

Understandable DVM does not = MD. But we have residency programs and even fellowships to become more specialized. Just figured I would offer insight on the other part of St. Matthew’s program as not to lump the two together.

J

Originally Posted by CaribbeanGrad

Trust me please, as a caribbean grad from Ross, you do no t want to throw away your time, money, and efforts with this school. I have tons of friends that went to this school, not one recommended that i send my brother to St. Matthew's. From the top of the school all the way down to faculty, they are a mess and do not give a rats ***** about you. They offer no financial aid (unless you illegally use money from an mba program to pay off your medical school tuition, even with that waste of time you will be short), they are not licensed in many states, they will keep changing rules while you remain there, and they have all sorts of legal troubles, lawsuits, etc. So they are on a nice island? If that is your reason to go there, God help you Seriously, please look to the better schools, like ROSS, SGU, AUC, AMA, AUA, and I am sure others. This school will put you in debt or weed you out, actually both. If you think you won't fall into this category, trust me you don't want to think like that and you will wish you listened to me if you get yourself into this mess. I sent my brother there despite the warnings, and now he is in a huge bind. Help yourself and heed this advice, i am doing this only to save people the pain and agony of what my brother had to endure. Sarim

CarribeanGrad-
I am sorry to rebunk all of the falisies that you seem to be posting here. It really is unfortunate that you feel the need to come to a public website to "blame" St. Matthew's for your brothers short comings. I have been at SMU for amost 20 months and have succeeded in every class, every semester. I have continuosly been at the top of my class and I have been doing Davenport, which I also belong to their Honor Society. And the Finacial Aid that I receive is not "illegal".

The professors are some of the best around, and since you have never been to the island or attended the school I suppose you have no real "justification" for your statements against our professors. Furthermore, perhaps your brother does not have the mental capacity to really understand medicine or to flourish in a high-paced cirriculum, something the professors can't change. Sometimes medicine is not for everyone, maybe be would be more apt to another career?

Also, our school is lisenced and accredited in almost every state, and those states that are not may make exception depending on Step scores and where you did clinicals. Also, SMU is one of the only Caribbean schools which offers fantastic clinical locations including those at John Hopkins University. Im not sure JHU would take our students if we were so "terrible".

Also, the fact that the cirriculum has gotten harder in the last few semesters is simply because the Step is becoming more difficult and the school legitimately wants students to pass on the first try. It does no good to the students to let them pass all the way through 5 semesters and then have them fail step. That my friend is a waste of money.

I am sorry that you have such poor feeling toward our school (which ultimately I have proven unwarranted), but like I said, perhaps it is your brother and not the school.

YouareIgnorant, I'm glad that you are showing that hard work pays off. Unfortunately some will have bad experiences while others have the opposite. I often wonder how people that have bad experiences would have operated in a US medical school? I certainly would not have been a walk in the park, that's for certain.

Regarding the Davenport funding, I often wondered how this was not slightly illegal. Do you use it towards your living expenses, or towards actual tuition? I know its a "gray" area.

These threads are like open wounds that won't heal. The bottom line is that Carib schools (especially Med Schools) are a mixed bag:

1. They accept people who cannot get into a US medical school. Whether you see this as "giving deserving people who messed up their GPA / can't do well on the MCAT a second chance" or "leeching tuition off of desperate students who can't get into US medical schools" depends on how you view the situation.

2. Top performers in Carib schools will likely do fine.

3. Middle performers, and especially those at the bottom of their class, may not do fine and find that matching into a residency becomes impossible.

4. Failing a class, or worse failing a step, is often an unrecoverable event. However, students retake, pass, and then think everything will be OK, and it might not be.

5. A reasonable percentage of all carib schools fail out in the first 2 years.

6. If you fail out of med school, or can't match to a residency, you really have no options. A partial MD is of no value. An MD without a residency is also of very limited value.

7. If you fail out of school, or can't find a residency because of poor performance, your loans are non-dischargable. You will have them forever, and paying them off is very difficult.

8. Most IMG's will find it difficult to get more competitive specialties. Best to plan for IM/FM/Peds/Psych/Path etc. If you work really hard, do incredibly well on the USMLE, and get good rotations, you might have a chance at Anesthesia, Surgery, Rads, etc. But I wouldn't count on it.

9. US med schools have increased their class size, while residency spots are remaining relatively flat. It may be that as time goes forward, that IMG's will have further trouble getting even IM and FM spots.

So: Going to a Carib school is an uphill process. You need to work harder and be better than your US colleagues to do well. Carib schools often tout their successes, and ignore the (relatively) large number of students who never make it to graduation, are only able to get a prelim spot, or not match at all. Getting in is not the challenge -- it's getting out with a degree and residency spot.

On the issue of St Matthews:

1. To the poster stating that they have rotations with JHU, that sounds completely unbelievable. On St M's website they state that students have been able to do "electives" at a large number of institutions, including JHU. That might mean that one student, who had a connection, did a rotation there. Or, someone did a rotation at one of JHU's community sites. But to suggest that St M's students regularly rotate at JHU is crazy hyperbole, and honestly is part of the problem with this whole discussion.

2. The Davenport program is very troubling. They are associated with a few Carib MD degrees. If I understand correctly, you enroll as an MBA student doing only online coursework. They then give you federal financial aid -- more than you actually need, so you can then use the rest to help pay your med school tuition. This seems so wrong and illegal, I can't imagine it would be OK if investigated. And if so, everyone who participates would be at risk of being found liable. Trying to pass blame to the school will be pointless -- you signed the forms, you can see it was wrong. And it's not like you can really say you didn't "understand" it -- you're in medical school, more is expected of you than the common public.

Post above is so SPOT ON. It's exactly as aprogdirector said. 100% agree as a Carib IMG that successfully matched and survived through the risky process. It's a last ditch effort, especially now as the gap between US grads (MD or DO) and residency spots closes.

Anyone considering going IMG had better talk to those who've successfully survived the process before they jump on the IMG ship.