Go to SGU or not?

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.

kelseyp

New Member
7+ Year Member
Joined
Feb 3, 2016
Messages
7
Reaction score
1
I have read a lot of posts on here and am interested in overall opinion. I'm a 35 y/o non-trad student that is a prior service Navy Corpsman with the Marine Corps. I have the option of attending SGU in August or waiting another year and doing AMCAS/AACOMAS. At first, I thought my decision fairly straightforward, go to SGU. But after reading through tons of material on here, my anxiety level has risen through the roof. I originally started undergrad back in 2003 after getting off active duty. I went to run track and ended up with injury after injury. Long story short, I pretty much failed out of school with a 1.4 gpa. Years later, after being married and maturing a ton, I went back to the same undergrad school and graduated with a 3.5 gpa (not that great but not bad coming from a 1.4). I couldn't retake every class due to time and money. Anyway, I frequently took 20+ credits, worked two jobs and an active reservist job. I took the old MCAT w/o studying and did horrible, especially in the sciences. I scored like a 22. After graduating, I moved to Corvallis, OR where my wife was going through veterinary school and got a job to support her during school. I recently took the new MCAT and once again did poorly 495. I studied more for it than the first, but being honest, not enough. I'm now 35 and my window to go to medical school, especially with undergrad classes expiring, is quickly closing. Once again, with my age, SGU is extremely expensive and realistically what are my chances of getting a decent residency and being able to pay off that debt?

Members don't see this ad.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Its usually not a good idea to go to medical school without being able to figure out the MCAT. In the end only you know whether your performances are due to your ability or circumstances, and if its the latter whether circumstances will "be different this time". I am definitely not as anti-IMG as virtually everyone else on this forum, but at first glance you SEEM(from a very shallow look at that) like the type of student who would be at risk of falling victim to attrition or failing step 1.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2 users
I agree with the comment above... If you are unable to dedicate your time and make sacrifices to study hard for the mcat, how do you see yourself studying hard for medical school?? It would be a big risk to go the caribbean route if you haven't prove to yourself that you are capable to handling even the slightest challenge of getting an average mcat score.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
First off, many thanks for your service to our country.

Second, don't even think of attending SGU unless you like the idea of being deeply in debt and never being a doctor.



I have read a lot of posts on here and am interested in overall opinion. I'm a 35 y/o non-trad student that is a prior service Navy Corpsman with the Marine Corps. I have the option of attending SGU in August or waiting another year and doing AMCAS/AACOMAS. At first, I thought my decision fairly straightforward, go to SGU. But after reading through tons of material on here, my anxiety level has risen through the roof. I originally started undergrad back in 2003 after getting off active duty. I went to run track and ended up with injury after injury. Long story short, I pretty much failed out of school with a 1.4 gpa. Years later, after being married and maturing a ton, I went back to the same undergrad school and graduated with a 3.5 gpa (not that great but not bad coming from a 1.4). I couldn't retake every class due to time and money. Anyway, I frequently took 20+ credits, worked two jobs and an active reservist job. I took the old MCAT w/o studying and did horrible, especially in the sciences. I scored like a 22. After graduating, I moved to Corvallis, OR where my wife was going through veterinary school and got a job to support her during school. I recently took the new MCAT and once again did poorly 495. I studied more for it than the first, but being honest, not enough. I'm now 35 and my window to go to medical school, especially with undergrad classes expiring, is quickly closing. Once again, with my age, SGU is extremely expensive and realistically what are my chances of getting a decent residency and being able to pay off that debt?
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
I have read a lot of posts on here and am interested in overall opinion. I'm a 35 y/o non-trad student that is a prior service Navy Corpsman with the Marine Corps. I have the option of attending SGU in August or waiting another year and doing AMCAS/AACOMAS. At first, I thought my decision fairly straightforward, go to SGU. But after reading through tons of material on here, my anxiety level has risen through the roof. I originally started undergrad back in 2003 after getting off active duty. I went to run track and ended up with injury after injury. Long story short, I pretty much failed out of school with a 1.4 gpa. Years later, after being married and maturing a ton, I went back to the same undergrad school and graduated with a 3.5 gpa (not that great but not bad coming from a 1.4). I couldn't retake every class due to time and money. Anyway, I frequently took 20+ credits, worked two jobs and an active reservist job. I took the old MCAT w/o studying and did horrible, especially in the sciences. I scored like a 22. After graduating, I moved to Corvallis, OR where my wife was going through veterinary school and got a job to support her during school. I recently took the new MCAT and once again did poorly 495. I studied more for it than the first, but being honest, not enough. I'm now 35 and my window to go to medical school, especially with undergrad classes expiring, is quickly closing. Once again, with my age, SGU is extremely expensive and realistically what are my chances of getting a decent residency and being able to pay off that debt?


Again thank you for your service!
Don't give up on medicine inland yet! You can still try and study harder for mcat and prove to yourself what are you are made of.
And think of being away from your son and wife... That's one of the hardest things to do.
 
There are plenty of people who have gone to SGU and become successful physicians but unfortunately just going there and getting a degree doesn't guarantee you a residency like it does to most people in US MD/DO schools. You have to be able to preform very well on the STEP tests and during your clinical rotations in order to have a good chance. I would wait to apply to US schools first and only go there after exhausting those options. It might be worth taking the MCAT again just to prove to yourself that if you study you can do well on standardized tests.
 
If you can't put in the time to pass the MCAT with a middling score, I'd be careful about going to the Carib, as boards are everything for an IMG, and the Steps are WAY more study intensive than the MCAT. We're talking day-in, day-out, zero life studying for extended periods of time for Step 1 if you want to be at or above the median. You could try seeing what your AACOMAS GPA is, and apply to some of the lower-tier DO schools if it's over 3.0 including your old courses (which you are WELL beyond it sounds like, but I just want to make sure that 3.5 includes both your old and new coursework) cumulative or so. Even some mid-tiers might consider you. I've got several classmates with a 22 on the MCAT. A 3.5/22 with a military background can net you an acceptance if you apply pretty broadly on the DO side of things.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
First off, many thanks for your service to our country.

Second, don't even think of attending SGU unless you like the idea of being deeply in debt and never being a doctor.

Responses like these really bother me. I have met plenty of doctors (including two of my family members) who attended SGU. I will be following in their footsteps and attending. Being an FMG/IMG definitely is not ideal, especially when considering residency placements. However, those that insinuate that IMGs are less qualified than those who attended USMD or USDO schools are mistaken. Those who attend SGU have to prove themselves with high USMLE scores like everyone else. Unfortunately, I was not accepted to the USMD schools I applied for this year. I understand that I will have to work hard to prove myself due the unfortunate stigma surrounding IMGs. However, I watched my peers with lower GPAs and MCAT scores get accepted into schools that I did not. In undergrad, I was involved in undergraduate research, worked as a teaching assistant and medical scribe, maintained a 3.9 science gpa, and graduated magna cum laude. I submitted 5 LORs from professors where I was the top student (4 upper level science courses and 1 nonscience). After I graduated, I took the MCAT and got a 29. While this was lower than I hoped, I applied to schools where I was well above the average and was rejected. My friend with <3.5 gpa and 24 MCAT was accepted. Not everything is as black and white as it seems. And I hope throughout the years this ignorance will continue to decrease as time goes on.
 
*sigh*

Your stats are fine for a number of MD schools, and all DO. But the odds of you ever being an MD are 50-50 at best by going IMG, and they will get smaller as more MD and DO schools open (probably another 10 by 2020).

How important are those letters after your name?

The point here isn't that there are successful Carib grads. The point is how many additional obstacles to success you face by going to a Carib school.

The pool of US applicants from the Caribbean is viewed differently by Program Directors. The DDx for a Caribbean grad is pretty off-putting: bad judgment, bad advice, egotism, gullibility, overbearing parents, inability to delay gratification, IA's, legal problems, weak research skills, high risk behavior. This is not to say that all of them still have the quality that drew them into this situation. There is just no way to know which ones they are. Some PD's are in a position where they need to, or can afford to take risks too! So, some do get interviews.

Bad grades and scores are the least of the deficits from a PD's standpoint. A strong academic showing in a Caribbean medical school does not erase this stigma. It fact it increases the perception that the reason for the choice was on the above-mentioned list!

Just about everyone from a Caribbean school has one or more of these problems and PDs know it. That's why their grads are the last choice even with a high Step 1 score.

There was a time when folks whose only flaw was being a late bloomer went Carib, but those days are gone. There are a number of spots at US schools with grade replacement for these candidates.

It's likely you'll be in the bottom half or two thirds of the class that gets dismissed before Step 1. The business plan of a Carib school depends on the majority of the class not needing to be supported in clinical rotations. They literally can't place all 250+ of the starting class at clinical sites (educational malpractice, really. If this happened at a US school, they be shut down by LCME or COCA, and sued.


The Carib (and other offshore) schools have very tenuous, very expensive, very controversial relationships with a very small number of US clinical sites. You may think you can just ask to do your clinical rotations at a site near home. Nope. You may think you don't have to worry about this stuff. Wrong.

And let's say you get through med school in the Carib and get what you need out of the various clinical rotation scenarios. Then you are in the match gamble. I don't need to say a word about this - you can find everything you need to know at nrmp.org.

You really need to talk to people who made it through Carib into residency, and hear the story from them. How many people were in their class at the start, how many are in it now? How long did it take to get a residency, and how did they handle the gap year(s) and their student loans? How many residencies did they apply to, how many interviews did they get, and were any of the programs on their match list anything like what they wanted?

A little light reading:

https://milliondollarmistake.wordpress.com/

http://www.tameersiddiqui.com/medical-school-at-sgu




Responses like these really bother me. I have met plenty of doctors (including two of my family members) who attended SGU. I will be following in their footsteps and attending. Being an FMG/IMG definitely is not ideal, especially when considering residency placements. However, those that insinuate that IMGs are less qualified than those who attended USMD or USDO schools are mistaken. Those who attend SGU have to prove themselves with high USMLE scores like everyone else. Unfortunately, I was not accepted to the USMD schools I applied for this year. I understand that I will have to work hard to prove myself due the unfortunate stigma surrounding IMGs. However, I watched my peers with lower GPAs and MCAT scores get accepted into schools that I did not. In undergrad, I was involved in undergraduate research, worked as a teaching assistant and medical scribe, maintained a 3.9 science gpa, and graduated magna cum laude. I submitted 5 LORs from professors where I was the top student (4 upper level science courses and 1 nonscience). After I graduated, I took the MCAT and got a 29. While this was lower than I hoped, I applied to schools where I was well above the average and was rejected. My friend with <3.5 gpa and 24 MCAT was accepted. Not everything is as black and white as it seems. And I hope throughout the years this ignorance will continue to decrease as time goes on.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 3 users
And I hope throughout the years this ignorance will continue to decrease as time goes on.
The only ignorance I have seen decreasing is the bias against DO's.
The preference for US educated physicians is not ignorance, it is a pervasive reality.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 2 users
The only ignorance I have seen decreasing is the bias against DO's.
The preference for US educated physicians is not ignorance, it is a pervasive reality.
Lol do you and goro just get off to posting the same things over and over again, year after year about IMG grads? It's always the same people...like 5 of you who have nothing better to do than post your own biased opinions. Sure, if you go to SGU and you shoudn't be there in the first place you're an idiot and will fail out. Besides that, the vast majority of students who are not in that group match.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
Members don't see this ad :)
Lol do you and goro just get off to posting the same things over and over again, year after year about IMG grads? It's always the same people...like 5 of you who have nothing better to do than post your own biased opinions. Sure, if you go to SGU and you shoudn't be there in the first place you're an idiot and will fail out. Besides that, the vast majority of students who are not in that group match.
One would be hard-pressed to find anyone who would recommend any Caribbean school to someone who still has a chance at a US school. I post here to give those who have not yet make this decision (like OP) enough information to re-consider. For those who have already made this decision, there is little I can do.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
You are against us warning people from making a very expensive and foolish career choice?


Lol do you and goro just get off to posting the same things over and over again, year after year about IMG grads? It's always the same people...like 5 of you who have nothing better to do than post your own biased opinions. Sure, if you go to SGU and you shoudn't be there in the first place you're an idiot and will fail out. Besides that, the vast majority of students who are not in that group match.
 
I think a lot of reflection is in order. The journey to be a physician is a long and arduous one. At this stage of your life, is this a path you would want to take? You're married with a wife who will soon have a stable job, a new home, maybe kids? There are other ways you could contribute to healthcare besides being a physician. Becoming a nurse anesthetist, physician assistant, and others are fulfilling jobs that pay well and don't take no where near as long to complete as MD/DO. Not to mention you would be with your family. I'm not anti-IMG but I do believe it should be a last option since after all it is a buisness first and foremost. i agree with the previous commenter in that based off what you told us, you would seem to be a at-risk candidate of not successfully finishing. They're really trying hard to weed people hard down there so you will be under a lot of stress.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
It is a big risk.

If you have been having consistent difficulty with the MCAT, you must concern yourself with whether you would be able to turn the tables on the Step 1.

Nothing is impossible, but going to SGU would mean that you need to do much better than the average AMG grad to secure the same residency position.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
I have read a lot of posts on here and am interested in overall opinion. I'm a 35 y/o non-trad student that is a prior service Navy Corpsman with the Marine Corps. I have the option of attending SGU in August or waiting another year and doing AMCAS/AACOMAS. At first, I thought my decision fairly straightforward, go to SGU. But after reading through tons of material on here, my anxiety level has risen through the roof. I originally started undergrad back in 2003 after getting off active duty. I went to run track and ended up with injury after injury. Long story short, I pretty much failed out of school with a 1.4 gpa. Years later, after being married and maturing a ton, I went back to the same undergrad school and graduated with a 3.5 gpa (not that great but not bad coming from a 1.4). I couldn't retake every class due to time and money. Anyway, I frequently took 20+ credits, worked two jobs and an active reservist job. I took the old MCAT w/o studying and did horrible, especially in the sciences. I scored like a 22. After graduating, I moved to Corvallis, OR where my wife was going through veterinary school and got a job to support her during school. I recently took the new MCAT and once again did poorly 495. I studied more for it than the first, but being honest, not enough. I'm now 35 and my window to go to medical school, especially with undergrad classes expiring, is quickly closing. Once again, with my age, SGU is extremely expensive and realistically what are my chances of getting a decent residency and being able to pay off that debt?


Hi OP, I just want to mention that I too was once a pro SGU person. I actually had the deposit check written, however my decision changed. I was not confident in my skills to get an exceptionally high USMLE score just to secure a FM residency that I ultimately wouldn't be happy in. Needless to say I also applied to 5 MD feeder SMPs (as can be seen from my other posts) and failed to get into all of them. After some soul searching, and applying strategically, I got into a DO SMP. I am beyond happy with this opportunity. The MCAT is the first step, not a lot can do it. People lie about their scores, I urge you to reconsider and maybe do a DO SMP. The profession is becoming flooded with immature 23 yr olds who are book smart and have no sense other than what they read (hence the high MCATs and GPAs) and it needs people like you. The reason why I am saying all of this is because every year IMGs have a smaller and smaller window to match. It is not a fun thing to go through a match and have to wait a year to reapply and hope to get into one in a remote location (An Alaskan hospital for instance.....no offense Alaska).

Why am I saying all of this? (knowing it may get you angry) It's because I was raised to respect and serve the men and women who have served me. THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE and because of that you deserve the best advice and the opportunity to fulfill your dream. So do it and the SMPs that are feeders are the best way to do so. Like I said I say this because I feel that as someone who supports the armed services and the men and women who serve I need to at least give my thoughtful opinion.

Good Luck to you
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 users
I completely agree that going to SGU is a risk...from my experience there...there is a certain subgroup of students who get accepted who plain flat out should not be there - these people need to be deterred, no questions asked. Other then that, the vast majority of students end up matching (~800-850 students/cycle...as this has been fairly consistent for the past several years). The vast majority of these students matched in New York and New Jersey, however they matched all over the place. If you go there and are actually an intelligent human you will match.
 
The reason why I am saying all of this is because every year IMGs have a smaller and smaller window to match.
This is factually incorrect. The number of IMGs matching into PGY-1 positions has been stable for the past 10 years. If you get all your information from this website then you might think this is not the case (because some "respected" members of the community continually make this claim), but if you get your information from the ACGME data, you will clearly see that the number of IMGs matching has held steady for the past 10 years ranging between ~6700 and ~7100.

http://www.acgme.org/About-Us/Publi...Graduate-Medical-Education-Data-Resource-Book
page 6 in the most recent edition
 
One would be hard-pressed to find anyone who would recommend any Caribbean school to someone who still has a chance at a US school.

I agree.

Exhaust all other options first.

When I was considering this in 2001, there were far less options for people who were "near misses". Since then, there are many more individual spots at MD-granting schools, new MD-granting schools have opened up, and there are a ton of schools who offer the osteopathy degree (despite my own personal concerns about a lot of the osteopathy "science", much of which the vast majority of graduates will never use at any point in their career).

In other words, it is far better to stay home in the good ole yew-ess-of-AYYY! (If you can.)

If you have exhausted all of these options and are still determined to pursue your dream of becoming a doctor, then I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would attend a school that does not have (at this point) at least a 25 year track record of placing graduates in quality GME training programs. It seems like a huge gamble to me otherwise, and you are not just playing with the best years of your life and a large amount of money. You are playing with your potential future.

Good luck!

-Skip

(P.S. Skip has some big news that he will be announcing once it becomes official.)
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1 user
This is factually incorrect. The number of IMGs matching into PGY-1 positions has been stable for the past 10 years. If you get all your information from this website then you might think this is not the case (because some "respected" members of the community continually make this claim), but if you get your information from the ACGME data, you will clearly see that the number of IMGs matching has held steady for the past 10 years ranging between ~6700 and ~7100.

http://www.acgme.org/About-Us/Publi...Graduate-Medical-Education-Data-Resource-Book
page 6 in the most recent edition


Ok now you've come spewing your facts at me so I want to ask you a few questions my expert on caribbean medical schools:

1. What was your Step 1 score?
2. What type of residency are you in?
3. Why did you attend a caribbean medical school?
4. Did you go through the match to obtain your residency or did you do it under the table as some IMGs do?

Please enlighten me
 
Ok now you've come spewing your facts at me so I want to ask you a few questions my expert on caribbean medical schools:

1. What was your Step 1 score?
2. What type of residency are you in?
3. Why did you attend a caribbean medical school?
4. Did you go through the match to obtain your residency or did you do it under the table as some IMGs do?

Please enlighten me
not sure what the point of your questions are, but I'll play along...

1. ~220
2. university IM
3. non-traditional, poor GPA from undergrad degree, > average MCAT/sGPA
4. through the match, where I received >40 IM interview invites from ~120 applications

You say "spewing your facts" like that's a bad thing. You stated the reason you replied to the thread was "because every year IMGs have a smaller and smaller window to match," and all I did was point out that that's not actually true. It's just not a factual statement, no matter how many times it's repeated on this forum. The numbers are freely available from the ACGME proving it's not a true statement.

And prematch is not "under the table" as you put it. It's as legitimate a way of getting a residency position as going through the NRMP.
 
not sure what the point of your questions are, but I'll play along...

1. ~220
2. university IM
3. non-traditional, poor GPA from undergrad degree, > average MCAT/sGPA
4. through the match, where I received >40 IM interview invites from ~120 applications

You say "spewing your facts" like that's a bad thing. You stated the reason you replied to the thread was "because every year IMGs have a smaller and smaller window to match," and all I did was point out that that's not actually true. It's just not a factual statement, no matter how many times it's repeated on this forum. The numbers are freely available from the ACGME proving it's not a true statement.

And prematch is not "under the table" as you put it. It's as legitimate a way of getting a residency position as going through the NRMP.


These answers prove my point, you had around a 220, placed into a university IM, and had to apply to 120 programs. Say what you want but you got interviews at about 30% of your applied programs. Not good odds. The 220 you're very lucky, most people need between a 230 and 240 to place in a solid IM residency. Your story is a n=1 caliber tale and just because you went and got lucky to place doesn't mean the OP will. You want to go by factual info, facts are IMGs place at a lower percentage than US schools even you can admit that. Your likelihood of matching percentage wise if you look at the new NRMP proves that you got very lucky. Not a bad thing for you but in 4 years that luck may not be available. Times are changing get with it.

Quoted from the NRMP since you love it so much: "The number of active U.S. citizen IMGs increased by 309 from 2015, and at 5,323 represented a 24.4 percent increase since 2012. The match rate for those applicants was 53.9 percent, the highest since 2005."

Compared to....

"The PGY-1 match rate for U.S. seniors was 93.8 percent"

I like facts.....this proves the better match percentage.....read new info and stop reading the 2010 NRMP....Also continue to educate yourself and look at pg 19 of the 2016 NRMP.

Skip at least admits its a risk, something to not take light heartedly, and to try and stay in the US. You tell people that its ok to go and encourage it which could be detrimental to them if they aren't as lucky as you.
 
These answers prove my point, you had around a 220, placed into a university IM, and had to apply to 120 programs. Say what you want but you got interviews at about 30% of your applied programs. Not good odds. The 220 you're very lucky, most people need between a 230 and 240 to place in a solid IM residency. Your story is a n=1 caliber tale and just because you went and got lucky to place doesn't mean the OP will. You want to go by factual info, facts are IMGs place at a lower percentage than US schools even you can admit that. Your likelihood of matching percentage wise if you look at the new NRMP proves that you got very lucky. Not a bad thing for you but in 4 years that luck may not be available. Times are changing get with it.

Quoted from the NRMP since you love it so much: "The number of active U.S. citizen IMGs increased by 309 from 2015, and at 5,323 represented a 24.4 percent increase since 2012. The match rate for those applicants was 53.9 percent, the highest since 2005."

Compared to....

"The PGY-1 match rate for U.S. seniors was 93.8 percent"

I like facts.....this proves the better match percentage.....read new info and stop reading the 2010 NRMP....Also continue to educate yourself and look at pg 19 of the 2016 NRMP.

Skip at least admits its a risk, something to not take light heartedly, and to try and stay in the US. You tell people that its ok to go and encourage it which could be detrimental to them if they aren't as lucky as you.
Settle down there chief. As a premed with so much experience, thank you for explaining to me how lucky I was to succeed from a caribbean school. Seriously...

I am well aware of the NRMP statistics. Look at my posting history, you might learn something. Unlike you, I don't automatically assume I know more than other people, but after your latest ridiculous diatribe it's very clear that I do.

No one is arguing that going USMD is not preferable to the caribbean. I have stated numerous times that people should go through multiple cycles of US admission before considering the caribbean. But once you are at that point, I think it would be helpful to have accurate information. I've always been very upfront about the challenges of attending a caribbean school. Again, look through my positing history, you might learn something.

What is ridiculous is the number of people, in which you are now officially included, who post on this topic when they have absolutely no experience and try to validate their claims with statements that are just factually incorrect.
 
If you went by the posts on this forum you would think Argus would be lucky to get 5 rural FM interviews with a 220 from a caribbean school. University IM is actually fairly competitive.
 
Top