Saba by far is the best school in the Carribean taking into consideration cost and US clinicals. You will be hard pressed to show me another school for the same cost offering the same clinicals. Having said that if you want to practice in California I would say look elsewhere to ensure licensure as we currently cant do anything in Calif. Saba as far as cost of living goes by far is the cheapest. You can find housing on Saba for 300 a month if you look hard and I promise you that wont be the case on St. Marteen, Dominica or Grenada. All said and done I spent close to a 100K for tuition for 10 semesters and living on Saba and paying rent while doing clinicals, and every ROSS student that I have spoke with is in the hole just shy of 200K. If money is no concern go to St. Georges, its the Cadillac and certainly has the best name recognition in te US. Ohter living costs like food on Saba are similar to going into a US convenience store. (really not that terrible) The island is small however and can be a tad boring but certainly nothing that cant be withstood for 20 or so months. Every single rotation I did is ACGME greenbook as were all the rotations that my closest friends at SABA completed. The professors were overall decent and yes of course you run into the occasional incompetent one, but overall its no different from any other university. I am fairly close with about 10 other Saba students and all kicked butt on the boards and are applying for residency. I am certainly proud of the fact that I am 40 years old and with the help of Saba landed a 242/98 on step one and a 244/99 on step 2. Saba is certainly adequate and once finished you are more than prepared to take a quick review course and take the USMLE and move on. As far as your question with NJ and NY , we are now able to do rotations and residency in NY and we have always been able to do a residency in New Jersey as I am from NJ and that was my first concern when I first looked into SABA. My advice to anyone coming down to study in the carribean is that you cannot come down here with community college mentality and think you are just going to study the night or two before exams and just get by. The sad part is however, just doing a little bit of work and just getting by will certainly come back to haunt you when you take the Boards. You need to get A's and B's on Saba. I know plenty of people with mostly C's and beleive me I personally know a few that are having a rough go of it. Im not saying grades are exact predictors but they do reflect the amount of effort. Many people have the impression that if they just get off the island with C's and that all they will have to do is just take the 3 month Kaplan review and all will be fine. Let me save you a hundred grand now and tell you that you ALL WILL NOT BE FINE. Kaplan is not a replacement for the knowlege base that you must leave the island with before you take a review. In short Kaplan is not enough. It is a cumulative effort that culminates to a sound basic science base which allows the Kaplan review to work for you. You will put in a good 3 or 4 hours a night studying at the very least and at least one full day on the weekend. Hey if your an Einstein maybe less and thats good for you but I think the above times are a good average. I hope this information helps. I know I personally relied heavily on these posts when we were on the Network 54 forum back in the late 90's. Of course then there were plenty of Nay Sayers and I thank god everyday I took what they said with a grain of salt otherwise Id still be a paralyzed chiropractor not knowing what to do. Its a big leap faith it seems to go to some tiny island to study medicine but remember you are not inventing the wheel. Carribean schools have been pumping out doctors for the past 30 some odd years and will continue to do so for another 30. Best of luck to all. Scott Jones DC MS IV

Scott,
You certainly didn't discuss with me how much I owe ross and I did my pediatric rotation with you. Just so that everybody knows, I'm no where SHY of 200,000 dollar in debt to ross as scott implied.

As far as board scores are concerned, if anybody studied as much as you did, it would be a shame if they didn't do well on the boards. I mean you studied while eating, sitting, drinking.........24/7 and that was during clnicals. You and your friend quizzed each other 24/7.... Didn't you decide to go into family practice after all? So what's the big deal with trying to kill yourself over board scores. I don't think saba had anything to do with how well you did. Not to mention the fact that all the basic science courses were just another review for you since you're an american trained doctor of chiropractice. You learned all the same courses biochem, a&p etc when you were doing your training in chiropractice.

You are starting to sound like a paid agent for saba by putting every other school down and making it sound like that saba is the best. When I was down at ross, we had a saba professor trying to teach us anatomy and it was a shame. I've never seen anybody clear out the class room as quickly as he did.

The cost factor that you keep running into ground is really the least of my worries. Not everybody is as independantly rich as you are. We all need loans and if saba was approved by the Dept. of Education, how long do you think will it take Saba to raise the tution.? Now you go do the math.

Thanks MrScottyMD for telling us your perspectives. And thanks to 12345 for further clarifying.

What I got from the posts are:

1. be dedicated
2. keep studying at all times


The goal is to do as well as one can on the USMLE steps.

First off I would like to say congratulations for being extremely good with money and not being 200 K in debt. Maybe you are not and thats good for you. But you are an exception. I am impressed only for the fact that currently the tuition at Ross is 100K for 10 semesters. Then you have to live, eat, buy books and own, operate and insure a car. Here is a nice breakdown of costs, I think Im in the ball park.

Ross Tuition- 100K (please go to Ross.edu or call, I didnt make this up)
RENT 4 years 30K (i think this is a reasonable figure 650/month and ill include all expenses with it, eg. phone, electric, cable etc.)
Car Insurance 5K for 4 years (1200 bucks/year)
Car gas for 4 years 4K (20 bucks a week)
** Ill assume over 4 years you never had to make a repair or change the oil.
Books and Supplies 2K over 4 years
Otoscope/Opthalmoscope and Med Bag Junk 1K
Food/Toiletries 20K for 4 years (100 bucks a week which is reasonable)
Step 1 and Step 2 Fee 1,200 dollars
CSA fee 1,200 dollars
Kaplan Review for step 1 and 2 1,400 dollars (just for video tapes)
AIRLINE TRAVEL TO HOME EACH SEMESTER 3K but this can vary but a good estimate. ( you dont have to go home though but most did)

So far if my math is correct Im at close to 170,000 dollars. Most students at some point also had to buy a car so you can tack this on top. Im not saying you cant live with other people and bring some of these costs down but for you to say you are not in the hole close that figure means that you were extremely good with your money and I honestly commend you for that or you had help or other savings and did not have to borrow that much. Yes you can go to flea markets (ha ha ha) and be frugle and truly can save some cash for books on ebay which I did do but the above is the true deal. I am going from the premise that the student has to borrow the whole thing and I was assuming no help from mom and dad. The above figures are extremely right on and definitely not extravagent by any means. You'll notice I didnt include any money for going out or for any extras or incidentals or any medical or clothing outlay. Im just saying it costs what is costs. Now you can take on a roomate and not have a car but you will certainly need a car in your years in clinicals.
Now I have to comment on your comment that I studied day and night in pediatrics. Just for your information I was studying for the CSA and Step 2 at the same time which I took immediately following pediatrics and then step 2, 5 weeks later but it was hardly day or night. You forgot to mention that fact, I was not studying for pediatrics. Although maybe I should have been studying pediatrics because I got a B Im sorry that me studying bothered you but I think you can understand the fact I wanted to be done all tests before ERAS . Anyone who knows me knows that I studied hard and played harder.
And finally I would like to add that Saba absolutely takes some of the credit for how I did in general. And yes you would be correct that Saba's tuition is rising and it would be also correct to say that Ross's is going up at the same rate. Good Luck To All Sincerely, Scott Jones DC MS IV

Housing for $300 a month is easy to find in Dominica (and close to school too). Also, a car is not needed on the island whatsoever...very few students have one.

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CanIMG
Moderator - Canadian IMG and Immigration Visa Forums

You are a chiropractor, you had most if not all of the coursework of medical school during chiropractor school.

well then If Saba is so awful why don't you explain all the successful Saba graduates who weren't former chiropractors?

Chiropractor School is just 3 1/2 years with at least half that time learning to manipulate and read xrays. Besides I did my basic sciences in chiroschool 1n 1986 (18 yrs ago almost) and trust me the only thing that hasnt changed is the anatomy of the human body. Im not saying the chiro background wasnt helpful but to say that is the reason for how I did on the boards would be ridiculous. By the way I scored only the National Average on my chiroboards for what its worth. Good Luck To All, Scott Jones DC MS IV

May I suggest that whether we go to Ross or Saba or even Harvard (yes, I'm referring to SGU), we are all pretty much in the same boat. I don't think there is much difference in class profile at each school in terms of previous healthcare experience. There are Chiropractors, Dentists, Podiatrists, Nurses, Lawyers, Engineers, Priests (threw that in for Father Luis) and many others at each school. I think the difference is up to the individual.

It's probably best for us all to learn to support each other as FMG's than it is to try to cut down each other's school (unless a football team is involved ).

Best of Luck!