Welcome to the AUC Parents Guide
A resource for parents (by parents).
Thanks for visiting American University of the Caribbean School of Medicine’s (AUC) Guide for Parents, and we’re delighted that your son or daughter is considering joining our medical school community. We created this resource for you: Many of us are parents too, and we’re keenly aware that the idea of attending an international medical school brings with it a whole new set of things to think about, consider, and compare.
Here’s where we bring all of those things together for you. Please read on, or use the navigation buttons below to jump to a specific location on this page.
Questions or comments about this guide? Send us an email.
Make Sure You Do Your Medical School Research (We'll Help)
As you may have learned by now, researching medical schools—Caribbean medical schools or otherwise—isn’t as easy as just making a few Google searches and calling it a day. This is your son or daughter’s future career. There are lots of facts, statistics, and terms that you’ll need to review and fully understand in order to make a confident, informed decision about where he or she will ultimately obtain his/her medical education. This includes things like:
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Accreditation: What organizations have reviewed AUC to ensure that it’s a quality medical school providing an excellent education?
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Career Prep: Do AUC graduates land jobs as physicians? How does AUC prepare them?
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Getting Licensed to Practice: Can AUC graduates become licensed to practice in the United States? In all 50 states? In Canada?
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Paying for Medical School: What types of financial aid and scholarships are available to AUC students?
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Living in St. Maarten: What is it like to attend medical school in St. Maarten?
Those are the basics, but we’ll also provide you with information to help you understand the following:
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What is the United States Medical Licensing Examination® (USMLE) and how do AUC students perform on it?
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What is the residency match and how do AUC graduates perform in it?
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How is the AUC curriculum set up, who teaches it, and what do students learn?
3 Facts You May Not Have Known About AUC
Want a sneak peek of what you’ll be learning about in the next few pages of this guide? See below for three frequently asked questions from parents interested in learning more about AUC. They cover topics like accreditation, physician licensure in the United States, and what types of students we're ultimately looking for.
AUC is accredited by the Accreditation Commission on Colleges of Medicine (ACCM). You might hear that AUC is not accredited in the United States—but being a foreign operating school, AUC is not eligible to seek accreditation from traditional US accreditors. In addition, the fact is that the US Department of Education has not appointed a US accreditor to foreign schools. Instead, the Department of Education has appointed the National Committee on Foreign Medical Education and Accreditation (NCFMEA) as a special review board that focuses on monitoring and evaluating foreign medical education accreditors on their standards. The NCFMEA’s review of ACCM’s standards confirms their recognition with the US Department of Education and has determined that they are comparable to those used to accredit medical schools in the US. This is an important distinction for AUC, for two reasons:
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It attests to the quality of education AUC provides.
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It qualifies eligible AUC students to participate in the William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan Program. Only a few Caribbean medical schools currently have this distinction.
AUC graduates can become licensed in all 50 states and in Canada.
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This is a very important consideration to take into account when helping your son or daughter select a medical school. Admissions requirements and standards vary from one medical school to the next, and among the Caribbean medical schools, there are important differences.
For example, not all Caribbean medical schools require applicants to take the MCAT, and some that do don’t figure the MCAT score into their evaluation of a candidate. This approach might be enticing for students looking for an easier entry into medical school, but at AUC our hope is that students want to come into an environment where they will be held to high standards and be highly motivated to succeed.
At AUC, we have rigorous standards when considering applicants. Yes, we look at the whole person–we want to know about one’s life experience, maturity, and commitment–but we also look closely at how a candidate performed academically as an undergraduate and their MCAT score.
Our Admissions Committee is very serious about not only selecting students who have great potential to succeed and become great doctors, but also about creating a learning environment at AUC populated by bright, talented, and driven students.
At AUC, we're all in this together. Learn more about our MD program curriculum, discover our collaborative culture, read about campus, and more.
Learn more about financial aid available to help fund your son or daughter's medical education, read about scholarships, view our tuition rates, and more.
Review AUC's admissions policies, requirements, and philosophies.