Go Caribbean or reapply?

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Your positive attitude is certainly very admirable and I wish you good luck as you complete the program and move on towards your goal of matching. But I think you're confused that this is somehow about my story vs. your story. A lot of these threads are about people asking if they should apply to the Caribbean and I think you're advice of "powering through" is not the best and a bit lame to be honest. The programs are designed to trip you up (as I pointed out in detail with my first post) so instead of giving a prospective student, mind you someone who has no experience with the Caribbean and how these schools operate, this false idea that they stand some type of statistical chance, it's better to point out more of the negativity and have them decide if any positives outweigh those negatives. Even I am still considering giving this one more shot myself at a better school but I have a lot more information to decide (for myself) if that is something that is realistic or not. But you would really be doing a disservice to an uninformed student by telling them to just work hard.




At least at Ross / SGU you are mistaken. The programs are definitely not designed to trip you up. They want you to succeed. At SGU I am amazed at the chances that people get after failing classes.

You work hard and you will make it through just fine. It isn't some statistical game. Now if you fail and repeat courses, do poorly on steps, get C's in your clinical rotations, fail CS, etc ... and then expect to match 100%... you have a problem. Or if you make it through and are average with 225 step and want to do surgery .... you have a problem.

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At least at Ross / SGU you are mistaken. The programs are definitely not designed to trip you up. They want you to succeed. At SGU I am amazed at the chances that people get after failing classes.

You work hard and you will make it through just fine. It isn't some statistical game. Now if you fail and repeat courses, do poorly on steps, get C's in your clinical rotations, fail CS, etc ... and then expect to match 100%... you have a problem. Or if you make it through and are average with 225 step and want to do surgery .... you have a problem.

Read that blog by Tameer SGU and then compare and contrast with your experience there assuming you went to SGU.
And yes, when you have to weed out a class, it is a statistical game...at least for those who want to succeed.

To be fair the successful student you are describing is the same student I am describing but that is a small or even smaller percentage of the whole class and that's the message I would like to leave for the prospective Caribbean applicant. If everybody comes in with this attitude that "I am going to work hard" do you think a school like SGU is going to say "well oh damn this class all got A's because they worked so hard, we need to pass them all into year three." That is NOT happening and that is where the statistics game and the uncertainty comes in because they are going to cut that class down to size regardless.
 
Read that blog by Tameer SGU and then compare and contrast with your experience there assuming you went to SGU.
And yes, when you have to weed out a class, it is a statistical game...at least for those who want to succeed.

To be fair the successful student you are describing is the same student I am describing but that is a small or even smaller percentage of the whole class and that's the message I would like to leave for the prospective Caribbean applicant. If everybody comes in with this attitude that "I am going to work hard" do you think a school like SGU is going to say "well oh damn this class all got A's because they worked so hard, we need to pass them all into year three." That is NOT happening and that is where the statistics game and the uncertainty comes in because they are going to cut that class down to size regardless.

SGU has no interest in "weeding out" students. They have nearly limitless clinical spots in NYC based hospitals because they are willing to pay big bucks for their students to rotate through them, which traditionally US medical schools do not do. Every year they sign on more hospitals that accept their students in exchange for a hefty contract fee. Furthermore, they make more money from a filled seat than an empty seat, so it's not in their best interest to fail out students completely. That is why they give students so many opportunities like "test driving" medical school with the Foundations classes, or being able to decel 1-2 classes. What SGU has done historically, is ride the statistical line between a good Step 1 pass rate/Residency Match rate and enrollment numbers. So long as they can push enrollment numbers higher each year while still maintaining a good reputation/relationship with US hospitals, they will continue to generate bigger profits each year. They are not bashful about being a business foremost and an academic center second, and this is reflected in the culture of the place pretty readily.

The bad news is that naive, unprepared, or uninformed prospective students can get royally screwed in this deal if they go into it thinking the school only has your best interests at heart. The good news is that savvy students can leverage this business transaction to their advantage and get a MD, something many would have been unable to do otherwise.
 
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The bad news is that naive, unprepared, or uninformed prospective students can get royally screwed in this deal if they go into it thinking the school only has your best interests at heart.

And that is called weeding out my friend.
 
Can't speak for all, but I will tell you this much, I'm not brainwashed. I just literally had no other options... I couldn't see myself in any other career and I exacerbated all efforts to improve my abysmal 1/2nd year of college. Ya, most Caribbean schools are diploma mills. Ya, it's harder to match. Ya, SDN hates us. Either way, you are correct, some will match and some won't. I'm hoping I'm one by making sure I do well on step 1 (which I'm studying for now). Our US counterparts are in a far better situation. PDs will often turn a blind eye to an indiscretion or a slightly sub-par board score if your med school is within the US' confines. I on the other hand, will go into the match on my last strike. PDs interview AMGs to find a reason to not like them whereas us IMGs need to give them a reason to like us.

Edit:
Just read your previous thread... so your assertion that IMGs are brainwashed, does that include your personal experience? Not too sure what this post was asking when you obviously knew the answer from first hand experience. This post seemed troll-esque imo.


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SDN doesn't hate Caribbean students, but I'd say most people here don't really like those schools. The reason is that they often try to sell a dream, but end up with many students that fail. Compared to US based schools, the attrition rate is huge. The schools are also not transparent and you don't really know exactly how many students who start actually finish and match. We figure the number can be anywhere from single digits to at best maybe 70-80%, and that's probably very generous. The loans you get seem to be a large amount to gamble on for a chance...
 
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SDN doesn't hate Caribbean students, but I'd say most people here don't really like those schools. The reason is that they often try to sell a dream, but end up with many students that fail. Compared to US based schools, the attrition rate is huge. The schools are also not transparent and you don't really know exactly how many students who start actually finish and match. We figure the number can be anywhere from single digits to at best maybe 70-80%, and that's probably very generous. The loans you get seem to be a large amount to gamble on for a chance...

I agree. Lack of transparency is something I've noticed runs rampant at my school.
 
DO. NOT. COME. TO. THE. CARIBBEAN.

This is one of my biggest life regrets. I attend UNIBE school of medicine, and as of friday, they announced they are about to lose their loans. On top of that, it is a mediocre program, fake english, terrible teachers. Don't do it. Reapply or consider a different career route.
 
While I agree with the above poster's comments, they also choose one of the worst possible schools to go to so honestly this is no surprise
 
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DO. NOT. COME. TO. THE. CARIBBEAN.

This is one of my biggest life regrets. I attend UNIBE school of medicine, and as of friday, they announced they are about to lose their loans. On top of that, it is a mediocre program, fake english, terrible teachers. Don't do it. Reapply or consider a different career route.

Caribbean schools are limited in their production of successful physicians in the US coming out of the big 3 and you decided to go to a no name? What did you expect to happen?
 
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I will be starting at Ross this year and can tell you that if you really want an MD then you will study your ass off. You score well on the USMLE, kick ass in your clinical rotations, and network with PDs. This website is what I like to call “Amerocentric” as in it doesn’t take into account how much international medical graduates (IMGs) improve and enrich our healthcare system. In undergrad my principle investigator (that I did research with) graduated from medical school in India. He landed an IM residency at Duke and is now a Cardiologist/professor/researcher at UCLA. I have also worked side-by-side with other IMG physicians as a registered nurse and can honestly tell you that they were my favorite docs to work with. Long story short, people like to bash IMGs on this website simply because they can. In the real world you will meet many doctors who graduated from other countries and likely respect them because the merits of their work speak for them.
 
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I will be starting at Ross this year and can tell you that if you really want an MD then you will study your ass off. You score well on the USMLE, kick ass in your clinical rotations, and network with PDs. This website is what I like to call “Amerocentric” as in it doesn’t take into account how much international medical graduates (IMGs) improve and enrich our healthcare system. In undergrad my principle investigator (that I did research with) graduated from medical school in India. He landed an IM residency at Duke and is now a Cardiologist/professor/researcher at UCLA. I have also worked side-by-side with other IMG physicians as a registered nurse and can honestly tell you that they were my favorite docs to work with. Long story short, people like to bash IMGs on this website simply because they can. In the real world you will meet many doctors who graduated from other countries and likely respect them because the merits of their work speak for them.

It's not so much bashing IMG's. The argument against the Caribbean, at least today, is that it is a risky proposition for the average student. SGU and Ross are the best schools down there but there is a lot of stuff associated with those types of schools that the published statistics fail to highlight. If you make it out, yeah that's great. I don't think an IMG is necessarily any less capable than an AMG but that's not the focus of the Carib bashing. The focus of the bashing is that these are for-profit schools that encourage weeding out a significant portion of the class. Some people argue that it doesn't exist, I for one argue that it does. It's a huge risk.
 
Not an MD student was looking up Ross university out of curiosity because I knew someone who went there. I was surprised that they have MD schools, then I found out they're not accredited. You have a competitive GPA both Science and cumulative. MCAT scores are a slight issue, but you also have volunteering hours. Point is your resume is good enough to get you into an american school where it'll be easier to get a residency, and better outlook for the future. Not saying caribbean students are bad but you don't want to go to a place because you haven't explored other options. Why even consider the caribbean when you haven't even considered MD/DO schools outside Florida? Apply to other schools in the nation. You will most likely hear something from DO schools.
 
SGU has no interest in "weeding out" students. They have nearly limitless clinical spots in NYC based hospitals because they are willing to pay big bucks for their students to rotate through them, which traditionally US medical schools do not do. Every year they sign on more hospitals that accept their students in exchange for a hefty contract fee. Furthermore, they make more money from a filled seat than an empty seat, so it's not in their best interest to fail out students completely. That is why they give students so many opportunities like "test driving" medical school with the Foundations classes, or being able to decel 1-2 classes. What SGU has done historically, is ride the statistical line between a good Step 1 pass rate/Residency Match rate and enrollment numbers. So long as they can push enrollment numbers higher each year while still maintaining a good reputation/relationship with US hospitals, they will continue to generate bigger profits each year. They are not bashful about being a business foremost and an academic center second, and this is reflected in the culture of the place pretty readily.

The bad news is that naive, unprepared, or uninformed prospective students can get royally screwed in this deal if they go into it thinking the school only has your best interests at heart. The good news is that savvy students can leverage this business transaction to their advantage and get a MD, something many would have been unable to do otherwise.

Really in NYC?? Which ones?
 
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