How Caribbean students do in the match (from my personal experience)

I think the big question people have when looking into Caribbean medical schools is whether or not they can get the residency they want. Or maybe the big question is *if* they can even get a residency. The answer is yes. The official stats haven't come out yet for AUC, but based on the highly accurate facebook posts and word of mouth news, the great majority of my classmates matched. Naturally we don't tend to match into the ultra competitive fields of plastic surgery, orthopedic surgery, neurosurgery, otolaryngology, dermatology, or ophthalmology (actually we had one person match in optho this year) but we have a good number of people matching into internal medicine, pediatrics, family medicine, OB/GYN, general surgery, psychiatry, radiology, anesthesiology, pathology, emergency medicine, and PM&R. And people not only match in their desired specialty, but the majority match into one of their top 3 choices.

With all that being said, however, I'm not going to lie to you... coming out of the Caribbean is tough during interview season. It will be used against you. You won't get interviews at many places just because you come from a Caribbean med school. I know excellent students with amazing board scores, high class rank, all honors in clerkships, and what's the result? They still get pigeon-holed into the same programs that are IMG friendly and are unceremoniously ignored by the majority of other programs. Even when they can get interviews at well-known and respected institutions, more often than not, they will be ranked lower than their US grad counterparts. It's not fair, but that's just the way it is.

I'm going to take myself as an example. I applied to both child neurology and pediatrics. I was a competitive enough applicant in my chosen fields.

My stats:
224 for Step 1 (first attempt)
226 for Step 2 (first attempt)
Passed CS (first attempt)
In the top 1/3 of my med school class
Numerous community service experience
Held a leadership position
Received an "Outstanding" recommendation in my MSPE letter
Had 3 strong letters of recommendation (2 of which were from Massachusetts General Hospital).

The results:
Out of the 49 child neurology programs I applied to, I was offered 12 interviews.
Of the 123 pediatrics programs I applied to, I was offered 19 interviews.

As sad as this may sound, coming from a Caribbean medical school, I did well for myself. To anyone else outside of the Caribbean system, those are some tough numbers to swallow.  Hell yes this was expensive, but the more you spend on applications, the higher your odds of getting an interview, and the higher your odds of matching. So that is why Caribbean medical schools encourage their students to apply to as many programs as they can afford.  If you are considering Caribbean, definitely know this before coming in.