Current, past and prospective students at IAUPR or NOVA

[London22]

Edit: not applying to IAUPR.

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[percyeye]

If you want to practice anywhere in the U.S. don't go to IAUPR. They did terrible on National boards as you saw. So their education must be sub-par. You may pay up to $250,000 in student loans and not be able to pass boards. Terrible idea.

 

[TheREALoptometrist2015]

Edit: not applying to IAUPR.

Heres the honest to God truth from an OD who graduated more than 2 yrs ago from IAUPR. If you can get into another school, DO SO! now the island itself has some of the most amazing beaches ever and great food but the school and the surrounding environment is not beautiful and hand up to god you will be teaching yourself and that is not what you want when you are becoming a Dr. You may learn Spanish but only because English is so poor. Exams are poorly written and in terrible English. Professors are sensitive and blame you when you point out that something is not proper English. The school is currently under review by the ACOE for terribly low board pass rates and unfortunately for favoritism towards Puerto Rican students( literally calling the police to visit students who badmouthed native students ) There is a large cheating culture in the school and admin knows all about it. the part 1 pass rates (first time taking) are somewhere between 10-20% and about 95% of students take some or all parts of boards 3 or more times to pass (part 1 has the lowest pass rate of all optometry schools). At least 5-7 students are dismissed after first yr EVERY YEAR and then another 10-12 are held back another year. 15-20 students fail optics, pharm, anatomy and systemic first yr (it happens EVERY single year and still occurs) They make an extra 7-10,000 bonus for teaching in the summer. the Spanish teacher will not teach you anything useful. You start clinic in 3rd while other schools start 1st yr seeing patients. You will be puppets for the school so they can due "vision screenings" to refer back to themselves (you only do minimal vision screenings for two years before you ever get into real clinical settings performing eye exams). and these are just some of the academic/clinical faults. You have certain professors making inappropriate sexual advances towards students, drs sleeping with students, heavy drug use in the dorms (cocaine and marijuana) and more than one student tried to commit suicide. I don't mean this to discourage anyone from going there I simply wish these were things that someone told me before I went so I knew what I was getting into.

 

[optostudent2017]

IAUPR class of 2017 alumni here, passed boards part 1 and 3 first time! The purpose of my post is to offer positive feedback to those who are curious about the school program. People need to realize that you are coming to an island for school ... Power outages are not fun or ideal, but the school has no control over natural disasters and how fast the electricity company works to fix things. I lived through a drought and a major power outage. Its what happens on an island - if you think this is something you can't handle, go somewhere else. You do have to make the most of your four years out here, but if this school is your only option (it was for me) you need to be more grateful for the given opportunity and complain less. If people spent as much time studying than complaining about language barriers, our board scores would probably be better. I would say the class of 2017 was made up of people who failed out of other optometry school and needed a second chance, people who did not do well in undergrad but were now serious about school/future/education and young new college grads who were more focused on partying ... and lets not forget the small chunk who were just naturally gifted with intelligence. All of our professors speak English. English might not have been their first language, but this is what you should expect when coming to school here. Don't come here if you are narrow minded and want things to be spoon fed to you. Spanish class teaches some basics, but you need to take imitative and ask the professors how to say certain things in Spanish so you can better communicate with your patients during 3rd year. I understand that some people come from areas where there is not a large Spanish speaking population, which is why they don't make any effort to learn Spanish. Majority of your patients prefer to speak Spanish, so it is important to take initiative to learn the language because you decided to come to school in PUERTO RICO. It takes ALOT of hard work and self teaching. I truly do believe that the students are provided with all of the necessary information to pass the boards. If you party a lot, "wing classes" and use "old exams" to cheat to barely pass classes ... (it is pretty obvious to me that you will not be passing boards the first time around). Those who were dedicated and put in work to learn concepts and not just memorize facts were most successful. It is do-able, you just have to put in the work.