sometimes they overexaggerate it... like how they tell u to take out 19k in loans.... is way over what u need. tuition and housing and transportation for my 1st semester was like 13k. then u have the rest to urself. youll save a lot more money if u know how to cook and prefer to cook rather than buying food all the time. i cook for dinner everyday and usually buy lunch from the tent lady cuz its cheap... 10 ec's(3.75 US) for a meal. there's a place called ken's club which is like a smaller BJ's / costco's where u can buy a lotta drinks for a good price. i kept a record and calculated it and i spent like 450$ US a month on food / gas for the car and laundry.

i would rent... i bought a car... and had problems with it and its a pain in the but* trying to get it fixed by urself. rent from someone thats reliable tho... there are a lotta ppl that take ur deposit and won't respond to ur calls if you have car problems.

I think something to know is not to spend lots of money trying to buy all the books that are on the buying list. I think you should wait and that way only buy the essential books that you would actually use. Couple of the must have books are:-
1) BRS Anatomy
2) Moore Anatomy (The small one)
3) Histology book is a must have
4) Mosby's for DPS
5) First Aid for USMLE (Is the most important book to have.)
*******MAKE SURE YOU HAVE THAT*******

And what ever supplemental books you think will help you. Other than that buying any more books would be a waste. I made that mistake when i started at AUA and spent about 500 bucks on books. I would suggest that you buy the Kaplan books for side reference and study for the step starting first semester.

I hope you all do well and if you have any questions feel free to contact me by e-mail. My screen name is abe8284 and that is on yahoo.com. For some it won't let me post my e-mail address but i don't usually come on here very much

5th semester AUA student

I was wondering if there is anyone out there who is set and ready with their loans to go to AUA. and if so please share what company you used to get approved!!!!

I'm still trying to get my loans through the only lender AUA suggested ie. Medinvest. Unfortunately for us they decided to updated their webpage for AUA NOW while people are trying to get loans for the May semester. It's dumb. I get on Sunday to apply for my loans with my mom and I get this message. "Unfortunately, we are temporarily unable to accept new applications on this website. Please contact your financial aid office to discuss other loan options." So it's just another delay for us trying to get our loans situated. You would think they would handle this earlier than a month before the May semester is suppose to start....... So anyway, I go and contact the financial aid office and they ask for some personal information so medinvest can call me. Well I did that two days ago and still waiting for a phone call. I'm really not satisfied with this loan process. It's one headache after another. Hopefully, they get this ---- on lockdown by next week. I MEAN COME ON.....

my two cents.

I hope other people have better luck..

I FINALLLY got accepted into May semester!!! After weeks of waiting, the agony and pain finally paid off. Now i have to read through pages of forums to see what to do now.

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thanks! did u secure your loans already? when are u arriving on the island?

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Hey everyone! Looking forward to finally getting this party started! Just curious, did anyone else buy a bunch of their books ahead of time? I did thru amazon and half.com but now I'm looking at how much it costs to pooh pooh heavy stuff down to the island and am starting to think that I might not have really saved all that much! Is anyone shipping their stuff down and how are you doing it?

I might just end up carrying my books with me on the flight.

Hope everyone is doing well. Cheers.