sure, that is how a pass rate is calculated. it is a valid calculation if the school requires ALL students to take the test by a certain date....then you get a true idea of who passes the test and is prepared on time. does st james require you to take the test before clinicals? how many do not take the test on time? again, these are important issues to consider when looking at the pass rate. surprised you are having difficulty understanding this.....

again, i am not talking about polished floors and HVAC. i am talking about licensure in the states. simple. do your research. you will find that st james DOES NOT have grads in many states. so, there is a distinct possibility that there could be issues with the school.

nobody is promoting a certain school. nobody is looking down at people for attending a certain school. however, good and complete information should be provided to students considering a school. and, your dreamy perspective of st james has not been backed up by grads in all (or even most) states. they have a long way to go. so, there is risk.

btw, your take on the "ticket to the usmle" is a bit off....so, you think an IUHS degree from the online program is as good as an SGU degree? they are both tickets to the USMLE, right? i think it is pretty clear that there is a bit more to the degree, and the licensing boards will look at your school a bit more than the ECFMG folks. so, be careful...getting through the USMLE means squat from certain schools. there are still hurdles to overcome.

Okay, just what point are you trying to make? First you take exception to the pass rate by saying not all factors were considered in it, then you come back and say yes, that's how pass rates are determined, but you still want the other factors considered. Your point is...? I don't think anybody is having any difficulty understanding pass rate determinations. You seem to want to include how many students went to school and did not take the USMLE and use that information as a determining factor in selecting a school. Well, get busy writing all the schools. I'm sure they'd be happy to hear why you think they all should change.

How many times is this stupid issue going to be raised..."i am talking about licensure in the states. simple. do your research. you will find that st james DOES NOT have grads in many states." Allow me a simple analogy: 10 people start a mile long race. 15 seconds into the race, brilliant theorists start saying "Nobody has won the race so the aren't any good runners in the race." Makes the "theroist" sound foolish, doesn't it? The bottom line is very simple: every SJSM who was serious about becoming a doctor has been following the same path as every other serious student from every other school. There hasn't been one exception to that. Nobody has experienced a door closed to them, a licensing issue or a denial in any manner based on their attendance at SJSM. That is the bottom line issue in all of your comments about schools, is it not?

"so, you think an IUHS degree from the online program is as good as an SGU degree?" I'm sorry, do you need to put words in my mouth in order to try to win a debating point? Perhaps a better question would be: if 2 physicians are practicing and one went to X school and the other went to Y school...but that issue has been discussed repeatedly on this forum, has it not?

Or, if you're trying to make the argument that online training has not been accepted by licensing boards, then you and I don't have a disagreement. It has not been. But, if you're trying to allege that online training is inferior to classroom instruction, I do not agree with you. A good student in either venue will be a good student. The same for a poor student. Which segues nicely into our discussion about schools, does it not?

All in all...a crappy score is a crappy score.

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Life is sexually transmitted.

"Nobody has experienced a door closed to them, a licensing issue or a denial in any manner based on their attendance at SJSM"

thats because no one is there yet. its a new school, just like the others that came before it most states will probably be ok and the rest will either be won in court or be applied for.

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OBGYN PGY II
I see light at the end of the tunnel!!!...wait a minute its just another freakin tunnel!

again, point 1: a school that REQUIRES students to take and pass step 1 by a certain time (ie before clinicals) will have better pass rate information. is that tough to understand? if school x requires all students to sit step 1 by 5th semester, and then publishes a pass rate, it will give you a good idea of how the majority of students do. if school y does not require squat in terms of step 1, and the majority of students never even make it to the usmle on time (or ever) the pass rate can be artificially inflated. make sense yet?

lets give a better example. SGU will not let you start clinicals without step 1. SGU also has a relatively low attrition rate. therefore when they say the pass rate for step 1 is 90% you can figure that by attending the school you have a roughly 90% chance of getting to and passing step 1. my school could care less about if or when you take step 1. many people fail out of my school. but, almost everybody that takes step 1 passes it. i would estimate that our pass rate is 95%. what does that mean? does it mean that by attending my school you have about 95% chance of getting to and passing step 1. hell no! is my school better for USMLE prep than SGU? i don't think many would argue that, i certainly think the answer is another emphatic no...so, do you see how your statement about all the people that took step 1 passed it is pretty worthless without some context????? if st james had 100% of those that took step 1 passing it, yet only 5 people out of the last 200 students took it, i think you would agree that the numbers are worthless. give some context if you are going to quote a pass rate.

your race analogy is also pretty weak. the point is, 15 seconds into the race you cannot predict who will win or drop out. that is the point. there are other races that have been won already (ie established schools with licensed grads). pick a proven winner rather than betting on somebody who may not finish.

yep...my step 1 is crappy. got plenty of interviews though. and lots of positive feedback on the application in todo. so, there is more to life than a bad usmle. and, there is obviously more to med school than just a seat at that exam. otherwise, i would be pretty screwed, right?

oh yeah, my point re IUHS and SGU were simply to illustrate that there is a lot more to a school than just a seat at the USMLE. both of these schools get you that seat. however, there are severe limitations with one of them. if all you get from med school is a seat at the USMLE (as you have stated) then a degree from these schools should be worth the same. it is pretty clear that they are not.

it had nothing to do with online instruction, teaching quality, or anything else. i have no comment on things such as this from schools i really don't know much about. instruction at IUHS (or st james) may be miles ahead of SGU or Harvard, or anywhere else. the problem lies with the fact that it does not matter how good the instruction was if the school is going to limit you. and, there are limits out there for many schools

No question is tough to understand if the question is asked. It took you a while, though. If memory serves me right, it wasn't the schools that required passing Step 1 before clinicals, it was the clinical sites insisting on it. From what I heard, too many students were treating clinicals like school and not showing up and when they did, they had the deer in the headlights look about them. And yes, SJSM complies with that. All students must pass Step 1 before staring clinicals. No big news there. Using your skills in logic, the pass rate for SJSM just went up, huh?

That's a pretty impressive statistic. Too bad the school doesn't claim that. If that was the case, I'm surprised more US students don't go to SGU instead of a US school. Damn impressive. Of course, we won't mention those who failed and repeat because they didn't drop out, right?

I believe the context was that SJSM prepared students to take and pass the USMLE Step 1. But you raise a good point...if a student doubts s/he can do well in school, by all means, pick the most expensive one and really teach mommy and daddy a lesson.

So, if I'm understanding your situation right, you have spent 6 years of your life in a foreign country only to achieve bad scores on the Step 1 exam, yet you are getting plenty of interviews. Oh yeah, and everybody likes your application. I'll withhold judgement on your final question.

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Life is sexually transmitted.

well, we don't know that sjsm did that, do we? how many students passed vs how many enrolled? you really, really are having a hard time with this, aren't you? in fact, what do the students think about how SJSM prepared them? did they all enroll in kaplan before step 1?

based on numbers (pass rates, numbers of grads, competitive residency placements, alumni in the states, licensability issues) many, many schools are miles ahead of st james. and, your little 100% pass rate number just shows a little desperation, sjsm trying to compete. too bad they don't, really. they can get a seat at the usmle just as good as IUHS or SGU. but, the usefullness of the degree is somewhere in between those two schools, isn't it?

hey, if you want to recommend people go to st james because it is cheap, fine. if you want to point at a few grads and the residency positions, great. if you want to look at a tiny sample size and claim 100% success on step 1, more power to you. but, it really shows that you lack insight into the big picture.

oh, yeah, i enjoy the little pot shots you attempt to take at me for my step 1 scores. it is amusing that you stoop to that, and that you think it bothers me. i am bummed i got a low score, but not ashamed at all. and, i am doing very well in spite of it. i spent 6 years getting an education, not a test score. even with my crappy step 1 i will always be eligible for licensure in all 50 states. nobody from st james is able to say that, even if they get a 280, right? and, from the looks of my interview schedule, i am no worse off in terms of landing that residency. so, by your "seat to the USMLE" terms, it really is a pretty short sighted perspective. a score on the USMLE lasts about 1 year. after that, a pass is a pass. and, a poor score can be compensated for. a poor choice in schools cannot.

Dude are you a medical student? You sure do seem to find all the newspaper articles of every school and show them off to everyone. How much time do you spend studying or working. I can't believe someone would spend this much time on something that he has no use or gain for.

What school are you from?

If you don't want to become a medical student thats fine, just don't go screwing with other peoples plans. I would sooner you have a list of all 28 schools of the carribean and say here they all are, You decide what one you like the best.

When it comes down to it, whatever school you were from doesn't really matter when you go to clinicals, everyone is in the same boat so we are all pretty much family. There's gonna be azzholes in all schools but for the most part, everyone helps each other in clinicals to get by and to figure out what to do.

So trying to put down every school really doesn't do much, it just shows that you have no interest in what you do and you want to screw with everyone else.

The pay must be really good what your doing by the way, or why else would you continue to do this garbage?

that's what i mean vinny!!!!

From what I am told, (could be wrong) only one person of the class in question,(April 2005) has not written the exam. I spoke with him before he left, and he seemed to be considering not taking it at all. Maybe having a change in mind about medicine. Great student, and a nice guy, just maybe doesn't want to do this. JP is correct. St James requires everyone to pass step 1 before starting rotations. I, for one, am pretty proud of those guys. They not only passed, but had some damn high scores. I'd love to do as well as the lowest reported mark. (86%) To be fair, these people were all very good students who busted it out every day. They'd get good scores no matter where they went to school, even Prague. Just kidding, neilc, your school has a great rep. and you have every right to be proud off your education. One of the most beautiful cities in the world I might add. If Azskeptic allows me to be an MD, I'll go back there often.
All respect