Need more info on Ross

[ZON]

I believe Ross is the best or one of the best caribbean med schools, what are the entrance requirements?

gpa, mcat scores, any general idea?

also, I hear that you only spend 4 months on the island, and then you go to ny for the remaining year? please clarify?

[MDMD]

Ross is one of the top 4 med schools in the Caribbean (I think St George's, SABA and AUC are the other three, but I could be wrong). The entrance requirements vary alot. I got in with a 3.41 gpa and a 29Q on my MCAT, but others have higher and much lower stats and get in as well. I think a lot depends on when you apply - I applied last Decemeber for a spot in the Sept class, since I knew that I would be one of the first to be interviewed and hopefully offered a spot for that class. Classes fill up on a first-come, first-served basis, so apply early for the class you want to start in (at my interview there were people there vying for a spot in the January 2008 class! Now that is planning ahead!).

You only spend 4 semesters on the island (16 months total), doing your basic sciences coursework, then you head to Miami for a semester to do your Advanced Introduction to Clinical Medicine (AICM) and then you spend the next 5 semesters doing your clinical rotations. If you can get all your clinicals booked back-to-back, it is possible to do the program in 40 months, but it is tough. I haven't started at Ross yet, but just having read this forum, if you are going to come here, you have to be prepared to take the initiative - Ross presents you with the opportunity to become an MD, but you have to take that opportunity and run with it to really make it happen.

Good Luck!

[GeorgeMD2B]

Ross is an extremely cutthroat school, out of 450 students in the first semester only about one third will make it to clinicals in 5 Semesters. Sure they say you only spend four semesters on the island but they are misleading people. At AUC and SGU, you spend two full years on the island and hence they both have much lower attrition at both schools.

[UnknownHero]

Ross is an extremely cutthroat school, out of 450 students in the first semester only about one third will make it to clinicals in 5 Semesters. Sure they say you only spend four semesters on the island but they are misleading people. At AUC and SGU, you spend two full years on the island and hence they both have much lower attrition at both schools.

What are you talking about? Are you a Ross student, or has the St. Matt's board leaked over here again? Listen OP, MDMD's MCAT and GPA, provided you have a little volunteer experience and the like, you should have no problem getting in. In fact, MDMD is in the mid to high range of people coming here. I've heard of people getting in with MCATs in the low 20's, and I've heard of people here in the mid thirties. GPA is fine as long as you're a 3.0. It is difficult here, and very accelerated, but if you buckle down and do the work, it's no problem (not to make it sound easy). Some people will fail, but medical school usually isn't for them. You spend sixteen months on the island, 3 months in Miami, and the rest of the four years in various clinical sites around the country (mainly in the NYC area). Also, take what you hear here with a grain of salt, a lot of people here have their own bias and will trash this thread like the person I quoted. Ross isn't perfect, but it's not a hellhole either.

[McGillGrad]

Take a look at the school's website. It will answer most of your questions.

[Shah_Patel_PT]

I believe Ross is the best or one of the best caribbean med schools, what are the entrance requirements?

gpa, mcat scores, any general idea?

also, I hear that you only spend 4 months on the island, and then you go to ny for the remaining year? please clarify?

Study hard and you will be fine. All the info is on the site:

Ross University: An International Educator in both Medicine and Veterinary Medicine since 1978 (http://www.rossu.edu)

[BrotherMan]

The basic sciences in retrospect were a lot easier than clinicals if not, for the simple fact that you didn't have to worry whether or not classroom 6 had too many students and you would get "bumped" from biochemistry one semester to another, like we do in clinical sciences; I know of someone who was described on this board who was dropped from his pediatrics rotation on multiple occasions, and this was a 10th semester student with 79 weeks of rotations under his belt.

[RossMD2006]

Ross is an extremely cutthroat school, out of 450 students in the first semester only about one third will make it to clinicals in 5 Semesters. Sure they say you only spend four semesters on the island but they are misleading people. At AUC and SGU, you spend two full years on the island and hence they both have much lower attrition at both schools.

IMO, Top 2 schools are prob Ross and SGU. It is NOT extremely cutthroat. There were many in my first semester (years ago) class who weren't meant for medicine, plain and simple. The attrition rate at Ross is because of the open admissions policy. Wow, this must have been said a thousand times on this forum!!!!!!!!! I knew of one guy who left Ross and went to SMU, where a good number of Ross dropouts go, if they do continue on with medicine. He had a difficult time with the medical curriculum to begin with. That's why he was in MEDPREP (now called MERP).

So, if you are in MERP, you better assess your situation on a daily basis. If you are struggling in classes, failing semesters, you are going to have a helluva time down the road, with two huge hurdles in your way, Step 1 and 2. IMO, Medprep back then did nothing for students who were in it to prepare them for medical school. It was just another way for Ross to make some quick cash $$$$$. I don't know how MERP is structured now, but I bet it is the same way...just another way to funnel some money from students. Instead of MERP, I would say take a year worth of basic science classes in Biochem, Physio, Anatomy, Pathology, Pharm, Micro. That would be a much better preparation. Seriously, I thought MEDPREP was a travesty in medical education.

You don't have to be a genius to get out of Dominica and move on to Miami. You have to be focused, hard working and capable of handling a rigorous medical science curriculum.