SGU vs AUC

[HoppyLettuce]

Hi,

Would any current students and/or recent grads of SGU/AUC tell me why you chose one school over the other and whether you feel like you made the right choice?

[Note: For personal reasons, I have already considered and ruled out all other Carribean schools.]

Thank you!

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[bedevilled ben]

Hi,

Would any current students and/or recent grads of SGU/AUC tell me why you chose one school over the other and whether you feel like you made the right choice?

Thank you!

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There are dozens of threads devoted to this. Open-ended questions like this tend to get ignored because they've been discussed, re-discussed, dissected, and analyzed to death. I'd suggest reading through the last 10 or so pages of this forum (SGU and AUC are mentioned about 10 times just on the front page alone...) If you have a focused or specific question, you're much more likely to get traction.

I went to SGU because I wanted to maximize my chances at getting a residency spot. SGU and Ross are consistently the most residency-placed graduates and have the most wide-spread name recognition of Caribbean medical schools. Ross was cheaper, but Dominica had (and still has due to the recent hurricane, I believe) less developed infrastructure and fewer island "amenities" than Grenada.

 

[Sheffield_Beth001]

Hi,

Would any current students and/or recent grads of SGU/AUC tell me why you chose one school over the other and whether you feel like you made the right choice?

[Note: For personal reasons, I have already considered and ruled out all other Carribean schools.]

Thank you!

Hey so when I came to AUC it was because I had other friends who had come here in the past and loved it. I would caution everyone against AUC right now though. If you have the chance to go to SGU go there, I’ve heard much better things about the curriculum and they are not run by Adtalem like AUC/ROSS. The curriculum at AUC is fine, but the attrition rate is much higher than what they report online, I think for my class it’s around 50% that will be graduating on time (if at all). So definitely on par with the other Caribbean schools who report accurate numbers. I know around 20-25% of our original class is gone bc of grades, not liking island life, etc. and the rest had to retake classes putting them behind. And I know everyone thinks, “that won’t be me.” But it is for those people and it very well could be you throwing away thousands of dollars (which is totally avoidable back home). AUC is good in some aspects. The island is really nice even after the hurricane and the teachers are fairly good. If you plan on paying for school with student loans (fafsa) then I caution you. I know the blog from Benji reports $15K back after cost of attendance, but that and the tuition on there is outdated. Tuition is up to $21K now, and they only give you $10K for four months to live off in returns. This seems doable (I thought it would be fine when I first got here) until you account that rent on the island starts at $1300 even with roommates and only goes up from there. Utilities are expensive and even keeping a/c off during the day you still run $300 usually for a studio. That’s not including water, groceries (at least $450 a month for single student) other bills, Internet, etc. Not to mention flights home. So after accounting for all of that there are many students who run out of money before the end of the semester now and the school is not letting you take out additional funds to help cover costs. I know there are a lot of people just generally disenchanted with AUC right now and I really do hope it gets better since I’m in it for the long haul. But until they fix financial aid it’s going to continue to be very difficult to study stress free which is a big deal! Now if you have family money and aren’t worried about that stuff you would probably be fine financially (lucky you!). The curriculum isn’t terrible if you are a dedicated student but they do expect at least 20% of people to not pass any given semester. So really it just comes down to you as a person and your overall drive. Hope that helps!

 

[Skip Intro]

Hey so when I came to AUC it was because I had other friends who had come here in the past and loved it. I would caution everyone against AUC right now though. If you have the chance to go to SGU go there, I’ve heard much better things about the curriculum and they are not run by Adtalem like AUC/ROSS. The curriculum at AUC is fine, but the attrition rate is much higher than what they report online, I think for my class it’s around 50% that will be graduating on time (if at all). So definitely on par with the other Caribbean schools who report accurate numbers. I know around 20-25% of our original class is gone bc of grades, not liking island life, etc. and the rest had to retake classes putting them behind. And I know everyone thinks, “that won’t be me.” But it is for those people and it very well could be you throwing away thousands of dollars (which is totally avoidable back home). AUC is good in some aspects. The island is really nice even after the hurricane and the teachers are fairly good. If you plan on paying for school with student loans (fafsa) then I caution you. I know the blog from Benji reports $15K back after cost of attendance, but that and the tuition on there is outdated. Tuition is up to $21K now, and they only give you $10K for four months to live off in returns. This seems doable (I thought it would be fine when I first got here) until you account that rent on the island starts at $1300 even with roommates and only goes up from there. Utilities are expensive and even keeping a/c off during the day you still run $300 usually for a studio. That’s not including water, groceries (at least $450 a month for single student) other bills, Internet, etc. Not to mention flights home. So after accounting for all of that there are many students who run out of money before the end of the semester now and the school is not letting you take out additional funds to help cover costs. I know there are a lot of people just generally disenchanted with AUC right now and I really do hope it gets better since I’m in it for the long haul. But until they fix financial aid it’s going to continue to be very difficult to study stress free which is a big deal! Now if you have family money and aren’t worried about that stuff you would probably be fine financially (lucky you!). The curriculum isn’t terrible if you are a dedicated student but they do expect at least 20% of people to not pass any given semester. So really it just comes down to you as a person and your overall drive. Hope that helps!

I'm curious to know if the folks at Adtalem are considering merging Ross and AUC into a single school on St. Maarten, and simply calling it Ross University. To me, this makes sense. St. Maarten is a far more habitable island. AUC was transferred from Montserrat (before it was owned by DeVry) after the volcano basically destroyed that island.

I'd love to be a fly on the wall at the Ross/AUC/Adtalem decision-making process meetings. As it now stands, it seems exceedingly bizarre to me that a Caribbean medical school owned by a private, for-profit publicly-traded higher education company based in Illinois is operating a medical school in Knoxville, TN with clinical training affiliations at hospitals in various cities in the U.S. that will confer a medical degree to its graduates that requires registration with the ECFMG.

You just can't make this stuff up.

-Skip

 

[Sheffield_Beth001]

I'm curious to know if the folks at Adtalem are considering merging Ross and AUC into a single school on St. Maarten, and simply calling it Ross University. To me, this makes sense. St. Maarten is a far more habitable island. AUC was transferred from Montserrat (before it was owned by DeVry) after the volcano basically destroyed that island.

I'd love to be a fly on the wall at the Ross/AUC/Adtalem decision-making process meetings. As it now stands, it seems exceedingly bizarre to me that a Caribbean medical school owned by a private, for-profit publicly-traded higher education company based in Illinois is operating a medical school in Knoxville, TN with clinical training affiliations at hospitals in various cities in the U.S. that will confer a medical degree to its graduates that requires registration with the ECFMG.

You just can't make this stuff up.

-Skip

Even if they were planning a merger there is not enough housing currently even for the students here, let alone an influx from Ross. I agree though, it’s an interesting system with complex decisions being made about education that occur no where near the actual teaching facilities and student body.