I think some of the same professors at Unibe teach at Unphu. From what I have seen unphu seems to be the place for rich kids. I have never been to PUCCM (Santiago) nor do I know anything about.

UNIBE is for rich people( the most expensive sch in dr according to dominican stnd) and dominicans at unibe think they are rich b/c they attend unibe.---->myth uno. I personnally know many students from unpu which is much better med sch than unibeor used to be.
THey lost their us fed loan so almost all the potericans who could not able to study without uncle sam money , transferd to unibe.
Unibe does not have any full time faculty members or depts. profs teach several diff schs too. You will find same prof will be teaching at INTEC, & pupblic university.

out of curiousity how would/could a doctor with a practice and patients and hospital rounding be able to teach full time?

I hope I can help you with some of your questions. I am currently a 6th semester med student in clinicals.

1)Do students of the UNIBE program take the USMLE step 1 at the end of the basic science years? If not, then WHEN?
Do students wait untill they graduate to take step 1 and 2 -- try to get US residency and then take step 3?

Most students take STEP I and II after they have graduated. Some students take a semester off and split the next semester after the 5th semester of Med. In regards of STEP 3, most students are American in the English program and they usually write STEP 3 around R2-R3 (Residency Year 2 or 3)

2)Is the program accredited likes schools in the caribbean--say like AUC or Ross?

Accreditation is good at UNIBE, they have residents in alotta different states in the U.S.

3)Are clinicals only done in DR or are there any US hospitals student can choose?

You do most of your clinicals in the D.R., but you can set up a semester of rotations in the states i.e. Med 9 (Internal Med) But you MUST set up these rotations BY YOURSELF.

4)Do students of the UNIBE program get to take part in the US Match program like other schools do?

Yup. 100%$

5) The semesters are very similar to other schools but semesters 6 through 8 are strange --can someone explain?

Med 6-8 are clinicals but you have classes too! Weird right? Tell me about it, I'm in it! Usually in American schools they don't have class but just hospital, but again they've all written STEP I by the time they're in clincals.

6) Besides learning another language,which I believe is a major plus, what does UNIBE have that schools in like AUC, or Ross don't? What motivated those that picked UNIBE over other schools in the caribbean?

I went to UNIBE solely because I knew people here and their pre-med program was decent. I came straight outt highschool and picked up the language quite well. But I would rank SGU and SABA over this school.

7)What are some of the pluses and negatives of the school
I could go on forever...but the pluses that are major are this...
1) New Language (Spanish)
2) Great Hands-on Experience
3) Living is not that expensive
4) STAFFORD LOANS...a big plus for people here

CONS:
1) Teachers aren't that great
2) Hospitals are kinda ghetto, mostly the public hospitals
3) Not many people in the english program....I'm guessing around 300plus

If you have any other quetions, I don't mind answering them by e-mail.

I hope I helped you out
Bob

My knowledge is from quite a few years ago when i was a student in the RD. At that time (if UNIBE existed) it was not the upscale school. UNPHU WAS and I had no lack of friends from rich dominican families studying there.

A recent trip to SD and to unibe showed an upscale local student population certainly appearing to be well off but I did not visit unphu thus cannot comment on their present student pop.

lets be realistic, the unibe kids are well of, the parking lot is a show room of porches, hummers, and corrvetes. but this is besides the point, weather this is beneficial for them or not is not my place to say. But how is all this relevant anyways. how does the financial state of students apply to ones decisions of the university?