Hey Guys, I saw this Ross University Medical School, can anyone tell me if they have gone there or if it is a legit med school ?
@WayOutWestMom any idea?
It’s a Caribbean med school (in Barbados, I believe?). The issue is not so much whether it’s legit, as whether its students are able to get spots in US residency programs.
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It is “legit”. It is an unaccredited Caribbean medical school. Students who attend are almost all students who were rejected by US and Canadian medical schools.
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Ross is a medical School located in the Barbados. It’s NOT accredited by the LCME and ACGME, meaning at all Ross grads are considered FMGs/US IMGs. FMGs/IMGs must apply for residency via an alternative pathway and are among the last to be considered for positions by US residency programs.
Ross is a for-profit school that has a reputation for enrolling classes that are significantly larger than the number of US rotation slots the school has access to. This means the number of students graduating from Ross is much, much smaller than the number enrolling. Flunking a large portion (40-50% or more is the best guess since Ross is very secretive of its enrollment data) of its students out is part of the school’s enrollment management process.
As far as Caribbean med schools go, Ross is one of the better options. (Currently a better choice than SGU which is lost its regional accreditations (CAAM-HP) last fall and is in danger of being delisted by the World Directory of Medical Schools which is used by the ECFMG to determine eligibility for applying to the NRMP residency match program.)
Caribbean grads face difficulty in matching to US residencies. Most do not match and will never match to a US residency. Those who do match tend to match into primary specialties (FM, IM, occasionally peds, neuro, and pathology) at low ranked/unranked, community hospital programs located in undesirable areas (rural or inner city). Among Carib grads from the top 4 Carib schools, only about 40% of grads find a residency position thru the Match, SOAP/Scramble, or thru contracts for off-cycle or unlisted residency positions. Many positions that IMGs are offered are temporary 1 year contracts that do not lead to continued training. US IMGs/FMGs cannot be licensed in any US state without competing at least 3 years of a US residency.
Caribbean med schools may be a good idea for some US students who have tried and failed at least 3 application cycles at US MD and DO programs with time allowed in between application cycles to remediate any application defects, and who are unwilling/unable to consider alternate medical professions such as PA, NP, CAA, etc. But anyone thinking of going to the Caribbean should be aware of the very high risk of ending up with significant debt (hundreds of thousands $$) and no job as a practicing physician waiting for them at the end of their journey.
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I see by your other post you are a high school student.
Although a 6 year combined undergrad + med school degree such as Ross offers looks like an enticing shortcut to a career in medicine, please don’t be tempted. The fail out rate at this school is quite high. Plus the school is very expensive and there is a large likelihood that even if you do graduate you won’t be able to obtain a US medical residency (required in all states to qualify for a medical license) so you will never be able to work in the US as a physician.
If you want a faster track through med school, there are combined undergrad and med school programs in the US. There is a whole forum devoted to discussing these programs here:
Combined BA/MD programs are extremely competitive with acceptance rates in the single digits.
If you are wishing to practice medicine outside of the US, you may be better served by attending med school in the country you intent to practice in. In many countries medicine is 6 year program that students enter directly from high school. What you will need to investigate is whether any of those programs or countries will allow a non-citizen to enter medical training and residency there.
Medical education is a two step process:
- medical school for the academic classroom training
- 3-10 years of hands on practical training (which is called residency/fellowship)
You much complete BOTH parts of medical training if you want to be licensed to practice medicine.
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as mentioned above, Ross medical students generally are US grads who did not get into any more reputable US med schools. But it’s not like it’s the end of the road. do well at Ross and you might get “stuck” at a small and unknown community hospital for internal medicine residency. But do well there and stand out- and you can still match into a nice fellowship in pulmonary medicine, infectious disease, endocrinology…
now if your goal is a competitive specialty like surgery, gastroenterology, dermatology, ophthalmology…that might be a tough road from Ross.