Hi Guys,
I just wanted to share some of my experiences with Ross University. I originally enrolled 7 years ago. As are most of the people looking at foreign med schools, I was not your ideal candidate. My GPA was borderline low and MCAT was not good enough. A friend of mine told me about Caribbean schools and I really didn't consider that idea until I was rejected from all the US schools. When you start looking into Caribbean schools, the first posts and reviews you come across are from those unfortunate people who were not successful there. You read about low match rates, high dropout rates, large class sizes, indifferent faculty etc. Very few posts/reviews tended to be positive and there was even fewer from people who had made into residency. This made making the decision of going to Ross University a truly terrifying one.
Looking back now, most of what I read on the forums about Ross were exaggerated. Yes there were major issues that many had with the school, location and infrastructure but I felt that the school was addressing them albeit slowly. As a foreign grad, you are already at a disadvantage no matter what. The island is a 3rd world Caribbean island with all the problems inherent to a 3rd world country. There is not much the school could do about that. I personally enjoyed it immensely but it can get annoying. Electricity outages, brown tap water etc. But all in all, it was an incredible experience. There was always new construction on campus and I pretty much had everything I needed in place to study. However I felt that the school could have done more for local security in the area and to me the library rules were very draconian. At that time we had an old lab with a few cadavers which were shared by numerous students. I was never one for lectures so mediasite worked fine for me. I studied the way I was best suited for and that helped immensely. Some of the classes like PBL were a waste of time and some professors also were not that good. And yes, we did have large class sizes and our attrition rate was about 20% . (Not official stats, just a rough estimate based on what I saw).
Rotations were somewhat unorganized when I started and it was extremely frustrating to schedule. I felt 5th semester was also somewhat of an expensive waste. My first IM rotation dropped me several weeks prior to starting due to an internal hospital issue (SGU had bought out the spots). I scrambled to fill that 12 week void. Pediatric rotations were also very difficult to come by during my time. The school offered no help with finding housing during rotations which left us vulnerable to local landlords. They could charge us what they wanted and knew that once you left, it would be very hard for you to collect your security deposit. Given that you may not have much time between rotations in different parts of the country, it made life very difficult to get housing on such short notice. Scheduling rotations became a little easier toward the end of my time, especially with AskRoss. Prior to that, you had to call and wait on hold for hours to speak to someone.
I was able to get a residency in my chosen field and went on to get licensed in my state. The alumni department was very helpful with the licensing process. I had no issues with them.
I hope this helps people as they sift through all the different posts on here. As I said, I started in 2007 and finished in 2011 so my experience may not correlate to how things are now. That terrifying decision now seems like a good one, at least for the moment. Feel free to PM me for any questions
I just wanted to share some of my experiences with Ross University. I originally enrolled 7 years ago. As are most of the people looking at foreign med schools, I was not your ideal candidate. My GPA was borderline low and MCAT was not good enough. A friend of mine told me about Caribbean schools and I really didn't consider that idea until I was rejected from all the US schools. When you start looking into Caribbean schools, the first posts and reviews you come across are from those unfortunate people who were not successful there. You read about low match rates, high dropout rates, large class sizes, indifferent faculty etc. Very few posts/reviews tended to be positive and there was even fewer from people who had made into residency. This made making the decision of going to Ross University a truly terrifying one.
Looking back now, most of what I read on the forums about Ross were exaggerated. Yes there were major issues that many had with the school, location and infrastructure but I felt that the school was addressing them albeit slowly. As a foreign grad, you are already at a disadvantage no matter what. The island is a 3rd world Caribbean island with all the problems inherent to a 3rd world country. There is not much the school could do about that. I personally enjoyed it immensely but it can get annoying. Electricity outages, brown tap water etc. But all in all, it was an incredible experience. There was always new construction on campus and I pretty much had everything I needed in place to study. However I felt that the school could have done more for local security in the area and to me the library rules were very draconian. At that time we had an old lab with a few cadavers which were shared by numerous students. I was never one for lectures so mediasite worked fine for me. I studied the way I was best suited for and that helped immensely. Some of the classes like PBL were a waste of time and some professors also were not that good. And yes, we did have large class sizes and our attrition rate was about 20% . (Not official stats, just a rough estimate based on what I saw).
Rotations were somewhat unorganized when I started and it was extremely frustrating to schedule. I felt 5th semester was also somewhat of an expensive waste. My first IM rotation dropped me several weeks prior to starting due to an internal hospital issue (SGU had bought out the spots). I scrambled to fill that 12 week void. Pediatric rotations were also very difficult to come by during my time. The school offered no help with finding housing during rotations which left us vulnerable to local landlords. They could charge us what they wanted and knew that once you left, it would be very hard for you to collect your security deposit. Given that you may not have much time between rotations in different parts of the country, it made life very difficult to get housing on such short notice. Scheduling rotations became a little easier toward the end of my time, especially with AskRoss. Prior to that, you had to call and wait on hold for hours to speak to someone.
I was able to get a residency in my chosen field and went on to get licensed in my state. The alumni department was very helpful with the licensing process. I had no issues with them.
I hope this helps people as they sift through all the different posts on here. As I said, I started in 2007 and finished in 2011 so my experience may not correlate to how things are now. That terrifying decision now seems like a good one, at least for the moment. Feel free to PM me for any questions
