re: Ross Unversity Med School

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USMLE passing rates around ~97%

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No way this is true, and even of it is, still worthless. Barely passing step 1 is a death sentence, especially for a Caribbean grad.

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All 3 schools have residency placement rates close to the national average for the US schools.

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Another not believable and worthless stat. How many get spots outside of primary care in undesirable places? How many are prelim spots that lead nowhere?

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I've just never understood the superiority complex some MD's have toward their DO and Caribbean piers. It's largely unfounded and based on unconfirmed beliefs about the respective programs

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Because majority of their students didn't get into an American medical school or didnt have the stats to get in and went another direction. Much more so for the Caribbean than the DO programs obviously.

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Look up any competitive specialty at a USNews top hospital.

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I honestly don't care. My girlfriend matched into an MD program in Louisiana which is what she and I wanted. She'll have a good career making good money, that's all that matters to me.

Sorry that you'll possibly have to work with a DO or Caribbean MD in the future. I know that must be a nightmare for you to have to deal with their ineptitude and lack if medical knowledge.

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The average MCAT at PCOM is 27 with a 3.5 GPA. That's on par with most state MD schools significant ahead of the HBCs like Meherry....and a far cry from most island schools.

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A couple things: DO schools have different rules about MCAT retakes and GPA grade replacement. For MD schools, if you get a C in a class, you can retake it, get an A, and it'll average to a B for your AMCAS GPA. DO schools allow you to replace the C with the A. This makes it much easier to get a better GPA. Secondly, MD schools typically look at all MCAT attempts, not just the most recent. It doesn't look good to have scores like 25, 26, and 27 on three attempts. DO schools will typically take your most recent or best score. Third, I graduated from a state school and our stats were an average MCAT of 30 and GPA of 3.7. That's a very significant difference for an entire class. Apparently it's now closer to 31 and 3.8.

I'm not anti-DO, it's a much better choice than going to the Caribbean, but there's definitely a drop off due to students almost always choosing MD if given the chance.

I know someone who went to Ross University for vet school. She pretty much was studying on a beach 24/7. I think it was in St. Kitt's? I'm not sure. Seemed pretty easy IMO. Not sure about the residency point yet, she hasn't reached that point yet to my knowledge.

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The biggest difference in a US MD and a Caribbean is clinical experience. The clinical rotations generally aren't comparable. It's important to train at a large, tertiary care center no matter what specialty you go into or what type of practice you enter after residency. Medicine is so much easier when you've been exposed to the rarest of diseases and don't just read about them in textbooks. Caribbean grads (and DOs) generally do clinicals and residency at community hospitals where their exposure is limited.

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The 2 hospitals where most of my school's students do clinical rotations at are Bronx-Lebanon in NYC and the University of Miami Hospital in Miami. I set up my rotation tentative schedule (confirm it when I pass Step1 in a few months) last friday, and I am doing my 3rd year mostly at University of Miami hospital in Miami and my 4th year electives at the Cleveland Clinic in South Florida, and the rest at UF's Hospital.

Also if you think La is such a crapy place to live, why are you on the off topic board of a Louisiana State University football based site? Not everyone is stuck up snob like you, and are perfectly happy living in Louisiana or Mississippi.

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Has anybody heard of this school? A quick search tells me it is in the Dominica and they basically accept everybody who applies. I think my friend is going to struggle to find a residency once he is finished. But anyways he is trying to tell my other friend, who is smart, to apply for med school at Ross. And I'm saying why would you want to go to a foreign med school especially if you are smart enough to get accepted into a US med school. Can anybody name some advantages?

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The standards for Caribbean medical schools is lower, for obvious reasons. Graduates of these schools struggle to match into competitive specialties and are more likely to wind up doing primary care, which is ok. The main advantage to these schools is being able to go to med school when one otherwise would have been academically ineligible. For what it's worth, the best pediatrics resident I ever worked with was a graduate of Ross.

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I know someone who went to Ross University for vet school. She pretty much was studying on a beach 24/7. I think it was in St. Kitt's? I'm not sure. Seemed pretty easy IMO. Not sure about the residency point yet, she hasn't reached that point yet to my knowledge

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Very few vet students go on to do a residency - It is not a requirement after vet school and is ultra competitive. Most go out and become general practitioners right after school. The residency spots are for those who will specialize and work in referral based hospitals/clinics.