Even when it’s your choice to study abroad, it doesn’t make it any easier to actually make it happen. There are the obvious issues, like language differences, but there can be other issues that may not be so apparent.

One of those is the difference between the university systems from one country to the next. For example, if you’re thinking about studying medicine in the Caribbean, you’ll need to know:

How Caribbean Medical Schools Work

Fortunately, many Caribbean medical schools work in similar ways to medical schools in the U.S. and Canada.

Admissions Qualifications

Like North American schools, many medical schools in the Caribbean use Grade Point Averages (GPA) as a gauge of an applicant’s academic qualifications. But Caribbean schools don’t just use the number itself as a qualification.
They look at the history of your GPA. If they see improvement as you progressed through your undergraduate program, it’s considered a sign that you’re able to face an academic challenge and overcome it. In that way, you may not need as high a GPA to get into a Caribbean school.

Admission Times

Caribbean medical schools offer a major advantage for anyone who does not want to wait an entire year for admission times to roll around again. Many schools offer three admissions windows, usually in September, January and May. Some offer two admissions times, one in August and one in January.

Curricula

Many medical schools in the Caribbean model their Doctor of Medicine programs after those in the U.S. and Canada. A number of those schools are accredited for residency and medical licensing in the U.S. and Canada.

In the end, there are Caribbean medical schools that are very little different to their North American counterparts, considering that their programs are based on North American models and you can get clinical rotations at residencies in the U.S. and Canada.

But it helps to apply to more than one university to give yourself a range of schools to choose from. At UMCAS, we help you with the application process to many of the best Caribbean medical schools. Contact us to learn more or check out our list of participating medical schools abroad.