The Caribbean Med schools...holy #!$ there are a lot of them!

When it comes to Caribbean medical schools 2 things rule: 1. 50 state approval and 2. Title IV funding ie federal financial aid....period. These 2 things separate the top 3/4 schools from the more than 60 at the last count I believe. Caribbean schools are for profit schools so in the end, you get what you pay for to a certain extent in my opinion.

The top 3/4 schools break down as follows:

50 state approval:      
Saint George University (SGU)
Ross University
American University of the Caribbean (AUC)
Saba

Title IV funding:
SGU
AUC
Ross

In my opinion, all the other schools are negligible. Sure there may be some good schools with great doctors coming out of these schools, yet in the end of the day, 50 state approval is the BIGGEST thing to consider when going to an international medical school.

Within the big 3/4 there are also alot of other things to consider. I decided on AUC for a few reasons.
1. May start. It is quite common for the Caribbean schools to have 3 semesters for acceptance: May, Jan, and Aug. The May start gives me a little extra time to study for the USMLE steps and more time off for interviews.
2. Smaller class size. Compared to SGU and Ross, AUC has much smaller classes. If I had my choice i'd rather study within a class of 100 at AUC compared to 400-600 at SGU or Ross.
3. Cost. AUC and Ross have similar costs, yet SGU is a good 50-100,000 more over 4 years!
4. Island. AUC is located on Saint Maarten which is hands down the most developed of the islands...SGU on Grenada and Ross on Dominica.

And so it begins.....

In T minus 3 months i'll be heading down to Saint Maarten to start medical school at AUC (American University of the Caribbean). My goal is to turn this blog into my life blog, which in turn will be my medical school blog since that will be my life. I am going to try and document everything that is anything for who ever wants to read....family, friends, future students...who ever. Keep on the look out for everything that has led me to get to where I am now over the next few weeks. Why the caribbean, why AUC, and how I got to where I am now.

Noxolo