ARCOM 67.5% COMLEX passrate

[FloridaGators1992]

Entering class of '23 = 160 students. ARCOM has a 67.5% 1st-time COMLEX Level 1 pass rate. In other words, 7 (4%) students failed on their first attempt, and 45 students (28%) have either dropped out, been held back, or have not taken Level 1 as of November of MS3.

ARCOM has many issues. There is a lot more than I am going to list here, but to name a few:

• High faculty turnover rate. There are regularly new professors coming and going from courses and new faculty chairpersons each year. This led to volatility and variability in the coursework from year to year.
• Poor exam performance. Every exam average is curved to 80% +/- 1-2% regardless of the high and low scores. Meaning, no one makes 100%, but many people fail every exam. This likely contributed to the above numbers.
• Mandatory class attendance amounting to >20+ hours on-campus per week. Consequences of failing to attend classes and labs include dismissal if you fail even a single course. This is shockingly easy, considering each exam is worth 25% of your semester grade, depending on the course.

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[Goro]

There's a difference between pass rate and attrition rate. Pass rate only refers to those who took the exam.

The attrition for the 2023 cohort (those are the exam takers in the graduating Class of '23, BTW) is frightening.

Exams are curved??? That's for UG schools!

 

[YCAGA]

That is insane. My question is will a school like this continue to be accredited? If so, the DO accreditation bodies are an absolute joke. I'm pretty sure there are schools in Central and Eastern Europe that cater to Americans and Canadians that have better outcomes than this. And they cost like 10 grand a year as opposed to 80. Not saying those schools are overall better, but just wow.

Not saying this will happen anytime soon, because Caribbean schools are even worse, but it seems unethical to even allow students to take out federal loans for school like this.

 

[paradoxic_toxic]

My question is will a school like this continue to be accredited?

Ye$

 

[The Last Reclaimer]

This sucks. This was one of the schools on my list I thought I would have a decent chance of getting into.

 

[petomed]

I'm not sure this is the whole story. Per their site:

"The Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine (ARCOM) welcomed our inaugural class of 150 students in August of 2017."

This puts the graduating class of 2021 at 150 students. Of those, 147 appear to have sat for COMLEX-1. Of those 147 test-takers, 0.8571*147 = 126 passed on their first attempt. This yields a percentage of 126/150 = 84%, per your definition. Again, this is for the 2021 class size of 150 students, who matriculated in 2017. And keep in mind this is not their pass rate for total attempts.

As for the class of 2023, are you able to find data on the initial class size? If we assume it was again 150 students, as it appears to have been for previous matriculation years, then yes their numbers are concerning. If their class size for 2019 was only 120 students, then the conclusions drawn should change accordingly.

 

[BuffaloRiver10]

Entering class of '23 = 160 students. ARCOM has a 67.5% 1st-time COMLEX Level 1 pass rate. In other words, 7 (4%) students failed on their first attempt, and 45 students (28%) have either dropped out, been held back, or have not taken Level 1 as of November of MS3.

ARCOM has many issues. There is a lot more than I am going to list here, but to name a few:

• High faculty turnover rate. There are regularly new professors coming and going from courses and new faculty chairpersons each year. This led to volatility and variability in the coursework from year to year.
• Poor exam performance. Every exam average is curved to 80% +/- 1-2% regardless of the high and low scores. Meaning, no one makes 100%, but many people fail every exam. This likely contributed to the above numbers.
• Mandatory class attendance amounting to >20+ hours on-campus per week. Consequences of failing to attend classes and labs include dismissal if you fail even a single course. This is shockingly easy, considering each exam is worth 25% of your semester grade, depending on the course.

That is interesting because I made a 100% on my final exam today which we had an average of 75% on. If you have 80% and up then you do not have to attend BECOM here, but I go anyway. Also, not every exam is worth 25% of your grade. Our class averages range from 75%-85% usually per exam. Faculty review exams and toss questions that are performed poorly on so the exams are fair. Passing is very doable if you try. Doing well is an option if you put in the work.

 

[Obnoxious Dad]

Mr. Kyle Parker, an engineer and a lawyer, is the CEO of ARCOM. According to the Form 990 for the year ending June 30, 2020, submitted by ARCOM to the IRS and published by Propublica, Mr. Parker drew a an annual salary from ARCOM of $683,230.

Arkansas Colleges Of Health Education - Form Form 990 for period ending Jun 2020 - Nonprofit Explorer - ProPublica

Since 2013, the IRS has released data culled from millions of nonprofit tax filings. Use this database to find organizations and see details like their executive compensation, revenue and expenses, as well as download tax filings going back as far as 2001.

projects.propublica.org

 

[BoneWizard]

I'm not sure this is the whole story. Per their site:

"The Arkansas College of Osteopathic Medicine (ARCOM) welcomed our inaugural class of 150 students in August of 2017."

This puts the graduating class of 2021 at 150 students. Of those, 147 appear to have sat for COMLEX-1. Of those 147 test-takers, 0.8571*147 = 126 passed on their first attempt. This yields a percentage of 126/150 = 84%, per your definition. Again, this is for the 2021 class size of 150 students, who matriculated in 2017. And keep in mind this is not their pass rate for total attempts.

As for the class of 2023, are you able to find data on the initial class size? If we assume it was again 150 students, as it appears to have been for previous matriculation years, then yes their numbers are concerning. If their class size for 2019 was only 120 students, then the conclusions drawn should change accordingly.

The class of 2023 would include 150 matriculants from 2019 as well as any students that had to repeat a year between 2019 and 2023.
If you look at first year enrollment for the 2019-2020 year ARCOM had 173 students: https://www.aacom.org/docs/default-..._fyenroll_gender_re_com.pdf?sfvrsn=8f0f0997_6

So if they have 115 students passing COMLEX Level 1 that means 58 students either dropped out, had to repeat, failed Level 1 or have yet to take it.

 

[FootballAndSkiing]

The class of 2023 would include 150 matriculants from 2019 as well as any students that had to repeat a year between 2019 and 2023.
If you look at first year enrollment for the 2019-2020 year ARCOM had 173 students: https://www.aacom.org/docs/default-..._fyenroll_gender_re_com.pdf?sfvrsn=8f0f0997_6

So if they have 115 students passing COMLEX Level 1 that means 58 students either dropped out, had to repeat, failed Level 1 or have yet to take it.

Not to hijack the thread, but wow, I've never seen this info before. Im an RVU student. I know the school is not diverse, but 0.3%, 1 student who is an URM??? Thats crazy. Truly an outlier among DO schools.

 

[deleted1100659]

This is not uncommon at many DO schools believe it or not. In my day, over 20 people didnt make it through, and a record number failed comlex on top of that. A lot of fault goes to the school but DO schools often are very forgiving on admissions, accepting people that don;t have a strong chance of making it through.

Historically they purposely overrecruit knowning that a certain amount will fail anyways

 

[AlbinoHawk DO]

Exams are curved??? That's for UG schools!

WesternU does this as well to account for questions that too many people didn't get. Usually curves the entire class 0-2% but the worst I saw was +5%

 

[FutureDoctor5000]

Something is wrong or incomplete about this, this data is also not published on their site so that leads me to believe it is not complete. There is NO way only 115 out of 150+ people who started took COMLEX. ARCOM has issues like many medical schools do, but considering that their attrition in 2021 and 2022 was on par with most other DO schools, I doubt it suddenly increased to like 58 people.

 

[Dr Meow]

The "missing" numbers comes from students that haven't taken Step 1/COMLEX-1 yet. They're taking it now btw.

 

[FootballAndSkiing]

The "missing" numbers comes from students that haven't taken Step 1/COMLEX-1 yet. They're taking it now btw.

But why? isn't is really late to take it. Was that always the plan? I may be wrong, but I always assumed everyone at basically every school took it after second year before rotations. Do some schools recommend a different schedule?

 

[Goro]

But why? isn't is really late to take it. Was that always the plan? I may be wrong, but I always assumed everyone at basically every school took it after second year before rotations. Do some schools recommend a different schedule?

When students are taking the exam this late, it's a sign that the school is making sure that the most problematic students are not included with their stronger peers from the previous test taking cycle.

 

[Angus Avagadro]

This is not uncommon at many DO schools believe it or not. In my day, over 20 people didnt make it through, and a record number failed comlex on top of that. A lot of fault goes to the school but DO schools often are very forgiving on admissions, accepting people that don;t have a strong chance of making it through.

Historically they purposely overrecruit knowning that a certain amount will fail anyways

^^^^^ This! Thank you for pointing this out. My school had mandatory attendance and I passed all boards easily. My wife's school did too and she crushed boards. This goes back to the chicken salad controversy. DO schools take too many at risk students. It's not the school's fault they don't pass. Having said that, DO schools take marginal students and make them great docs. Trouble is, predicting which marginal students will excel is imperfect.

 

[FutureDoctor5000]

^^^^^ This! Thank you for pointing this out. My school had mandatory attendance and I passed all boards easily. My wife's school did too and she crushed boards. This goes back to the chicken salad controversy. DO schools take too many at risk students. It's not the school's fault they don't pass. Having said that, DO schools take marginal students and make them great docs. Trouble is, predicting which marginal students will excel is imperfect.

While this may have been true say 10-15 years ago, the average mcat and gpa's have risen a decent amount for DO schools. I believe it's 504-505 and 3.6 gpa averages for all DO schools now? It's not like a majority of the class is 495 mcat and 3.0 gpa students, those people are a very small minority. It's alarming that ARCOM has that many people yet to take level 1 tho... attrition for most DO schools is less than 10, maybe even 5%, with the worst offending schols being closer to 10%, and even then a decent amount of that attrition is not academic related. I know my class had a person leave during orientation. That's why I find it hard/impossible to believe that only 115 out of 173ish remain.

 

[Goro]

^^^^^ This! Thank you for pointing this out. My school had mandatory attendance and I passed all boards easily. My wife's school did too and she crushed boards. This goes back to the chicken salad controversy. DO schools take too many at risk students. It's not the school's fault they don't pass. Having said that, DO schools take marginal students and make them great docs. Trouble is, predicting which marginal students will excel is imperfect.

The chicken salad controversy???????

 

[Angus Avagadro]

The chicken salad controversy???????

Something about not being able to make chicken salad out of something. My apologies to anyone offended for my inappropriate comment.

 

[nlpucke]

Person that started this thread biffed the analysis hard af.

Still, 115 is weird. does the fact that this was as of 10/25/2021 not present day change anything?

 

[Isoval]

WesternU does this as well to account for questions that too many people didn't get. Usually curves the entire class 0-2% but the worst I saw was +5%

My guess is practically every school has a “curve”, referencing dropped questions that a majority/supermajority of students miss or which were miskeyed/had typos which is the same way board exams are scored.

 

[CajunMedic]

Interesting, seeing the Dean, and at least 6 of the Faculty and Staff came from WCUCOM. They took our best and worst professors. Looks like they also brought the mandatory attendance policy and somehow made it worse.

 

[DrStephenStrange]

Entering class of '23 = 160 students. ARCOM has a 67.5% 1st-time COMLEX Level 1 pass rate. In other words, 7 (4%) students failed on their first attempt, and 45 students (28%) have either dropped out, been held back, or have not taken Level 1 as of November of MS3.

ARCOM has many issues. There is a lot more than I am going to list here, but to name a few:

• High faculty turnover rate. There are regularly new professors coming and going from courses and new faculty chairpersons each year. This led to volatility and variability in the coursework from year to year.
• Poor exam performance. Every exam average is curved to 80% +/- 1-2% regardless of the high and low scores. Meaning, no one makes 100%, but many people fail every exam. This likely contributed to the above numbers.
• Mandatory class attendance amounting to >20+ hours on-campus per week. Consequences of failing to attend classes and labs include dismissal if you fail even a single course. This is shockingly easy, considering each exam is worth 25% of your semester grade, depending on the course.

I go to ARCOM, and I can tell you that there are way more than 114 students in the class of 2023. The reason it appears that way is because they report the pass rate as more and more students complete the exam. They did the same for my class, which is why it says as of 10/25/2021. Some students take their exam as far as late January, which is the latest the school allows us to take it. They took those numbers down from the page, so I think they saw this thread lol.

 

[DrStephenStrange]

Interesting, seeing the Dean, and at least 6 of the Faculty and Staff came from WCUCOM. They took our best and worst professors. Looks like they also brought the mandatory attendance policy and somehow made it worse.

Class is not mandatory unless you fall below 80% average. Even then people still skip classes with no issues because no one cares. In my experience, it was only a problem if you failed a class, and they noticed you never showed to that class.

 

[hallowmann]

While this may have been true say 10-15 years ago, the average mcat and gpa's have risen a decent amount for DO schools. I believe it's 504-505 and 3.6 gpa averages for all DO schools now? It's not like a majority of the class is 495 mcat and 3.0 gpa students, those people are a very small minority.

Umm, back in 2012, the DO matriculant averages were MCAT of 27 and a GPA of 3.5. That is pretty close consider a 27 correlates to ~504. I guess GPAs went up 0.1 if those numbers are right.

Person that started this thread biffed the analysis hard af.

Still, 115 is weird. does the fact that this was as of 10/25/2021 not present day change anything?

Its probably because not everyone has taken it yet. Schools publish when they think the numbers look good. Chances are it will "adjust" slightly when all is said and done.

Its pretty funny they took it down though, definitely saw this thread.

 

[Dr Meow]

Umm, back in 2012, the DO matriculant averages were MCAT of 27 and a GPA of 3.5. That is pretty close consider a 27 correlates to ~504. I guess GPAs went up 0.1 if those numbers are right.


Its probably because not everyone has taken it yet. Schools publish when they think the numbers look good. Chances are it will "adjust" slightly when all is said and done.

Its pretty funny they took it down though, definitely saw this thread.

Yeah and whoever this is also duplicated this post onto reddit.
So I sense that there's some frustration involved.

 

[Fishwithadeagle]

Shoutout from a school with a flipped classroom and mandatory attendance. As an established school, they've dropped board pass rates by 10% since they switched to this new curriculum (flipped classroom, mandatory attendance, etc) and are blaming the students and not looking at their new program and the issues with it.

While it is students some of the time, it is definitely an issue with the curriculum in other cases.

 

[Goro]

Shoutout from a school with a flipped classroom and mandatory attendance. As an established school, they've dropped board pass rates by 10% since they switched to this new curriculum (flipped classroom, mandatory attendance, etc) and are blaming the students and not looking at their new program and the issues with it.

While it is students some of the time, it is definitely an issue with the curriculum in other cases.

Yup. The Faculty clearly don't know what they're doing. Yet another reason to avoid ARCOM.

 

[DrStephenStrange]

Yup. The Faculty clearly don't know what they're doing. Yet another reason to avoid ARCOM.

The person was talking about another school (ARCOM does not have a flipped classroom) @Goro. Always looking for a new reason LOL. If ARCOM is your only acceptance, I still believe it is fine school to come to, and that's coming from someone who got accepted with a 499 MCAT and now currently applying for residency. Compared to other new schools, ARCOM at least values student research, is opening new residency programs, is very supported by the community and the state, has matched people into some pretty competitive specialties and programs from their inaugural class (may tell more about the students, but still...), and had a decent match rate.

 

[FlaringRaynauds]

Yup. The Faculty clearly don't know what they're doing. Yet another reason to avoid ARCOM.

Goro speaks with passion, however a " faculty and verified expert" should use caution before blindly adminstering opinions. Without doing so one may mistakenly mislead others.

 

[Angus Avagadro]

Goro speaks with passion, however a " faculty and verified expert" should use caution before blindly adminstering opinions. Without doing so one may mistakenly mislead others.

I believe @Goro 's comment is accurate for the most part. Certainly outliers can exist, but in 17 yrs of Med Ed, I have seen board scores change considerably. Some classes perform better than others. I have also seen an upward trend in board scores by adjusting the curriculum with student and faculty input. It can be done. So if a large swath of a class does poorly on boards, 2 possibilities. We have enrolled a bunch of idiots, or faculty wasn't doing our job so students could score well. Well, it's not possibility #1because anyone in med school is generally on the right side of the academic curve. So that leaves us with #2. This is why I recommend avoiding new schools unless it's your only acceptance. Faculty and curricula need to be fine tuned for a couple of years. Schools with good board scores and match lists don't come by accident.

 

[Real McCoy]

Continuous faculty turnover at ARCOM is a large part of the problem, IMO.

 

[Goro]

Continuous faculty turnover at ARCOM is a large part of the problem, IMO.

Clinical, basic Science, or both????

 

[Real McCoy]

Clinical, basic Science, or both????

Both

 

[Obnoxious Dad]

Continuous faculty turnover at ARCOM is a large part of the problem, IMO.

Why are faculty members leaving? Are there expectations not being fulfilled? Are institutional policies constantly in flux?

 

[Real McCoy]

Why are faculty members leaving? Are there expectations not being fulfilled? Are institutional policies constantly in flux?

Schools that are run by people who are not educators or physicians make recipes for unhappy faculty and ultimately poor student performance and outcomes. Take that however you like.