Thank you for your input DrMidlife.
Alright, well -- to the audience at large, let me make this argument then. Say that I was a Pre-Med student who became very disillusioned with the medical school admissions process over the years and was willing to accept less favorable financials because I wanted OUT of being a pre-med as long as I was at a U.S. school (or else pretend that my only other option was paying full OOS tuition at U. South Carolina or UIC, for argument's sake---MD schools with completely unseemly tuition practices).
Even if you view the business side of the school as completely repugnant, on the educational side of things, as I have told
@Goro privately, I haven't seen a problem with how CNU faculty have been conducting themselves.
I would say our professors have all the typical Med Ed. mentality and academic sensibilities and I feel that they sincerely care about our futures, well-being, and improving the school.
They are making appropriate headway/due diligence in improving their educational program. This is not to say that everything has been perfect from day 1---being the guinea pigs for testing and fine-tuning the curriculum does come with its *great* many day to day annoyances as a student. That being said, I know that future classes won't have to deal with a majority of the bugs that the inaugural class encountered because I have seen (and there are several students heavily involved with) the planned curricular changes/improvements. To that end---CNU has a good organizational structure in place for quality improvement and transparency about those changes: all the major educational committees at CNU have voting student members: Curriculum, Assessments, Admissions, Evaluations; there are others and additional subcommittees (e.g. Curriculum Phase A, etc.) that have additional student members in an advisory capacity.
I suppose this is a very roundabout way of saying: Even if the business office doesn't have a soul, CNU does. There are enough well-meaning students and faculty that we will make it to the other side of MD relatively unscathed in spite of all the flak being directed our way. The students here are making satisfactory progress and are consistently outscoring the national medians for our NBME systems block final exams. This is by no means an all-defining measure of success or effectiveness and I do not represent it as such, but to say that CNU is a lost cause without direction is hyperbolic at this early stage. I doubt LCME would have approved the class size increase from 60 to 90 if we were about to be DOA (btw, the class size increase was approved after the federal loan situation had already played out). If I did not sense enough of a good-faith effort by the medical education faculty here on an ongoing basis to do right by us, I would not speak up in support of the school.
@AquamanForever , as I tell everyone else, weigh your options and decide where you can meet the goals you have set for yourself. If academics is your calling, then I agree that reapplying in hopes of attaining a better pedigree will open more doors for you. But don't be a sheep. Think for yourself.
@gyngyn @GrapesofRath , The Physiology dept. and COM admissions are completely separate entities. They [admissions] keep tabs on us, but seem only to take just enough of u$ to keep the program self-sustaining. Last year (during the program year) there were all of 8 outright interviews of current SMP students; the remaining 5 were given out after last-minute cancellations (total of 13) by my count. Suffice to say that it's a long, dark tunnel when you're on the wrong side of pre-med. UC's 10th percentile GPA was a 3.51 for 2019 (and I assume it continued to rise with c/o 2020)--- admissions there these days is about as wholistic as applying for a mortgage. We could see the writing on the wall and made the best decision we could given the information available at the time. A perhaps risky U.S. MD is less risk to a pre-med than no MD. I have shared my candid musings about the pros and cons of CNUCOM to the program's director already. None of us regret our decision to come here even if other things might have worked out in a year or two. If that ever changes and I feel sorry for myself, I'll chat up the venerable DrMidlife for my sympathy pep-talk
😉 .
