Falcon Review

[Stillgoing]

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Has anyone taken the Dallas class lately? Can anyone comment on the classes, hotel, food they serve? What is the class structure like and how many people per class?

I'm trying to decide if it's worth the $5000, to get a good score.

Thanks.

 

[NREMTP]

Here is a link to a guy who wrote about his Falcon experience. He is pretty open and honest about it. It's under My USMLE Experience.
http://slevit1.blogspot.com/

 

[Stillgoing]

Thanks for the link. Has anyone else gone to this lately or is planning on going to Falcon soon?

 

[madscientist50]

I won a Falcon Online Review at a Family Med conference, and it was a pretty intense amount for online, but the videos were pretty good. The books that came with were not the most helpful, as they are in ppt format and hard to follow unless being viewed with the video, and I just didn't have time to watch all the videos. Hope that helps some good luck with your boards!

 

[Stillgoing]

I've decided to go ahead with Falcon. I'll tell you guys how it was after it's all over.

Is anyone else going to the Dallas class on Aug 17th?

 

[docunno]

I will be going on Oct 09. Do provide ur experiences at falcon.

 

[Pangaeus]

OMG. If you are looking for a review course to take, don't sign up for Falcon Reviews. I'm in the process of taking it and the admin here is totally lame.

They will tell you anything to get you to sign up for the course and then basically ignore you once the class starts and they have your money. There is no internet provided despite what they will tell you so you can't do your question bank at all. Big boo to them. 😡

Has anyone taken the Dallas class lately? Can anyone comment on the classes, hotel, food they serve? What is the class structure like and how many people per class?

I'm trying to decide if it's worth the $5000, to get a good score.

Thanks.

 

[TekkenDanser]

I personally felt that the Falcon program was ineffective and disappointing. My opinion is that the professors are competent but that the administration is difficult to reach, unhelpful, and somewhat sloppy with their responsibilities. April Smith is a director of some sort and she had to apologize in front of the whole class for disclosing one of the student's personal correspondences. The email, which contained his discontent over low NBME scores, was accidentally forwarded to all the students. Through that email, we also learned that April emphasizes no monetary refunds despite a student's complaints. Pretty embarrassing incident but very revealing.

When choosing a program, I would also consider that many of the students who attended Falcon (at least in my session) were from questionable medical schools, so it implies a degree of business-driven principles over instructional value. I found myself in the midst of some students who were far more than odd. There was a student who lost his cool and began threatening other students' well-being. April also expelled one student for what I consider egregious grounds, a silly drawing of her I think. The student was sent away so fast, everyone was confused and concerned. Perhaps it seems like trivial drama that could occur at any program, but I feel that 7 weeks is a long time to be unhappy and/or unsatisfied.

Best of luck to all the Step 1 test-takers and please be aware that there are other programs that also offer academic assistance (PASS, MED HELP, KAPLAN, etc.).

 

[kandyps]

do u think the falcon online review was worth it or would u have selected Kaplan or other program?

 

[7atem]

http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=332644

I red this thread and there are always people who just complain and people who do hard work and get benefit.

but about the internet and they ignore you this is new,

I think every program has disadvantages,

I'm considering falcon in Jul 16

 

[lDanny]

Anyone have more recent opinions of the program?

 

[dr seuss]

Anyone have more recent opinions of the program?

A lot of people from my school did Falcon online and most thought it was terrible. I'll admit that some actually did like it, but I think if they had something to compare it to they wouldn't.

I've sampled all the reviews (Falcon, DIT, Kaplan, Kaplan HY, FA Express) and I think Falcon is by far the worst.

Most American students don't really need a review and if they do, it should be a short review of FA - Kaplan HY, DIT, or FA Express. DIT is a little better than the others but takes longer. A lot of my classmates liked DIT, but it takes a long time and you aren't learning as much as you think you are. I think my time was better spent focusing on UWorld.

IMGs or people that didn't learn anything the first too years should do Kaplan and Pathoma. They have the best lecturers (by far), but take too long for most people. Falcon is long like Kaplan, but the lecturers are terrible.

 

[lDanny]

Thank you for the feedback.

I was debating on taking the Falcon course (the live one), but its a considerable amount of money. I just don't want to waste time or money if its not worth it.

 

[dr seuss]

Thank you for the feedback.

I was debating on taking the Falcon course (the live one), but its a considerable amount of money. I just don't want to waste time or money if its not worth it.

The Goljan week of the live one is probably amazing but I don't think I could ever justify spending that much money.

 

[Keona]

I got back at the beginning of June. This is their first year at this new hotel in Dallas, and I hated it, the hotel, not Falcon. They hardly ever fed us meat, and I think we had red meat maybe 5 or 6 times. Breakfast for a while was pancakes and then cake, no protein! we complained and April made sure we had some form of eggs with breakfast. The hotel was very liberal with what they considered proper and appropriate food. We also never had any berries. The hotel also rationed towels, my roommate and I asked for 4, this was on a friday and they didn't come clean the rooms until Monday, he said we could only have 2... The guy eventually brought us 4, but it was ridiculous.

Now the 3Ps program is the one where you just go down for physio, pharm, and pathology. They were kinda' disorganized about it, we didn't find out our schedule of days and times until we actually showed up, and then it was just the name of the class, and sometimes the start date. Different professors wanted different things though, so that was okay.

Physio was awesome, except for this horrible kidney guy, but they had someone else come in and redo kidney after that. Pharm was okay, the guy knew exactly what he was talking about, but since it is so much straight memorization there is only so much they can help you with it. Going through the pharmacodynamics, and mechanisms were quite helpful.

Pathology=GOljan=AMAZING! It was worth every penny to be there for him. The 3 ps costs less than the 7 week course, but I would have paid for the 7 weeks just to hear him. Many of the concepts heavily emphasized at Falcon were on my USMLE, so it was worth it.

the 3 ps had online access to all of the videos for every subject, some were amazing, others not so much, but I watched them all, except for path and pharm. The basal ganglia section of neuro was great, I really liked the micro and immuno.

The hotel for Falcon was in a perfect area though, it is in Addison and we all felt very safe there. There was free garage parking as well, and it hailed one day that we were there.

I'm still not sure if I passed or not, the whole exam experience was crazy, after falcon my nbme pre conversion score had increased by over 100, this was before I'd done questions as well. I spent the weeks after falcon and before my exam just doing world, Kaplan questions, and trying to memorize lots of drugs and micro. Goljan is worth it, if you think you need it.

 

[njmedstudent973]

Just did the program in Dallas. Honestly speaking I was expecting more high yield and tips to approaching questions than meerly being taught everything from medical school in a short amount of time. Their emphasis on anatomy seemed a bit much compared to their emphasis on other high yield topics , especially of pharm. Their physio SUCKED like beyond horrible. This program seemed so disorganized in the way they run their operations to the consistency of the quality of teaching. Like other people said once you send them the check you are just a paid customer to them. They can careless at that point once its cashed. The food was horrible. Besides egg beaters in a different form everyday there was like nothing else to eat. The TA chick seemed absolutely clueless about anything and seemed more interested in befriending the people in the course and going out with them. The staff at the hotel for the most part were genuinely nice except a few April is a bitch with a permenanet stank face. I would never recommend this program to anyone. And about Goljan..I know people are most likely going to disagree with me but dont waste your money to see him in person. He seemed worn out from teaching the 3ps before our course and he did say that so i felt like the aw inspiring goljan with his high yield knowledge was absent. He spent a good chunk of his time telling us more about his life stories than telling us tips and high yield things to know and look out for. He'd say that certain things are unimportant and are for step 2 when they have been emphasized heavily on step 1. I'd say his audios are probably better. And he would most often just say refer to his rr book. I was pretty disappointed seeing that I signed up for the fact that I thought I'd get something out of being taught from him that I didnt when i was in school. The pathoma guy > goljan. Bottom line if you have 5k to waste use it on a vaca after you finish this exam then on doing their program. The books that they give to you are not really worth it either. And the fact that you paying like almost 6K for this you'd think they pay the extra $10 when they give u the NBMEs for the extended feeback version. But like dont bother trying to argue with them about that cause that's a lost cause. The TA pretty much said that she thought NBMEs were useless anyways.

 

[sanj238]

Disclaimer:

I've never done this program

But that said, I wouldn't recommend spending 5k on your preparation for the USMLE. No one program is comprehensive enough to avoid real hard work on your own with as much variety in preparation as possible.

Uworld, Kaplan qbank, and a few other programs themselves cost a lot. Just adding up the review books makes it an expensive process.

There is absolutely zero justification for ever spending 5k on a prep course.

The only way I'd suggest that is if you've taken the USMLE already and failed it once. Then perhaps you need something else.

Otherwise you're wasting your money-even if its loan money. These guys know you can pay and they'll charge what the market will bear.

Common sense should dictate that its most certainly not worth the investment.

 

[jlmucci]

The Falcon online course for Step 1 is excellent. This course along with First Aid and UWorld question bank was all I needed. Scored a 240.