I have some info if you care...
Webinar said the school already applied for NY approval. Will apply for FL and CA in 2017. I was at MUA and CA approval has been up in the air for a few years now. UMHS is owned by the Ross family so they have the money to invest in the program. They expect title IV in about two years. I spoke to them, you can call them up and verify. They obviously can't give you a date because of the legality but I remember calling up AUA in August 2015 asking them about title IV and they said they had no idea and then they got it in October of that year.
Anyway, I know a UMHS chief resident in IM from NJ so yeah I've seen the end result but that's one person. If you read through the ChrissyMD blog you will see that she was a straight A student so that's a very important piece of information to consider and she's in FM from what I understand. Usually when these schools have alumni profiles they are of the best students that they graduate so don't think that is representative of everybody from that school.
Most of the students (around 80%) in the school are in the extended basic sciences program as per Michelle P. So even though they are offering the 16-month route through the regular basic sciences program, just know that most people are not on that route. That's another bit of valuable information. I think she even called the regular basic sciences route "honors."
Things will obviously change with the school once they at least get NY and FL approval and you will most likely be grandfathered in but they don't have those right now and they are using private loans which I would not recommend for such a risky endeavor. And what I mean by change is that the tuition will go up.
My take on the Caribbean is that it is risky and if you must take this route for whatever reason, you must have good stats coming in to stand any chance of making it through a program that is designed to weed you out.
Also, UMHS does not have an exit exam on the island. You take your final term (5th in regular basic sciences and 6th in extended basic sciences) in Portland ME. That's where they make you take the Kaplan course and then you take the Kaplan comp. which is your basic sciences "exit" exam. In a way I like that better than taking the comp on the island which I find to be more stressful.
If you can't get into a DO program, test your standardized test-taking skills and bump up your MCAT. If you can make 500-503, I think you can survive a Caribbean med program. Matching is something different though. It's a risk till the end essentially.
