I came across some troubling comments about FIU recently:
Please do not go to HWCOM unless you are prepared to spend 4 years hating the admins and knowing you can’t trust them. They act like they’re open to change and student input but they won’t change anything and won’t listen to students.
Don’t buy into their step scores, they’re so high because each year, about 10% of the class is asked to repeat an entire year. And lately they changed the student handbook to make it easier to expel students. Most med schools help you if you fail one course because a lot of students will fail a course in med school. At hwcom, if you fail, they’ll put a mark in your file and be waiting to be able to get rid of you.
Someone else posted to reddit about HWCOM but didn’t say it was HWCOM and then deleted the account. But in case you don’t want to believe me, here’s a screenshot and a link to the full post.
This is the worst MD school in the country.
(source: FIU 2018-2019 thread)
"My school is absolutely horrible. It’s got tyrranical cutthroat policies that are completely disgusting.
It average USMLE step one is in the upper 240s. Good, right? Wrong—this isnt harvard. This is some no name MD school that was started 7 or so years ago. How does my shool get this average then? They actively hold students back. The bottom 5-15 students are selected to repeat every year. If the admins feel you arent ready to take the step 1, they reserve the right to keep you from taking it.
Of those 10ish students that are chosen to repeat, the admins actively try to do everything to have these students withdrawn from medical school (eg they are placed under an academic probation where they must do above average or are withdrawn). Admins look for reasons to give those students professionalism reports, and trap them by twisting things student say just for ammunition to have those students removed to not taint the 240+ average USMLE. This happened to many stidents I know. One of the nicest people I know was accused of threatening a professor and I know he wouldnt hurt a fly. Ultimately he was reported for professionalism; and not because of any comment he made but because of his lower than average grades.
Another student had a meeting with a professor and at one point, the professor lunged across the table to hit him. This was all recorded on camera; my friend was recording the meeting because he previously had tension with this professor. He didnt even pursue this just because he didnt want any problems but he could have easily sued the school with how blatantly ridiculous it was.
They constantly change their student handbook and each year the students are forced to sign the new handbook which has so far given up more and more rights from the students (eg new rules about accepting random drug tests, progessively sticter rules about exam remediations/course failures, etc).
Just two months agor, one M3 student plagiarized a patient note and was caught. The school wanted to kick her out. She appealed the decision, the promotions committee didnt budge. She finally hired a lawywr and appealed to the dean of the whole institution—they finally gave her a chance to continue, under the condition that she repeat the year, and she send a public email to every student and faculty unanonymously explaining what she did and apologizing. Public shaming at this level is ridiculous and many students were roused but afraid to speak out bc how cutthroat the school is, and were unwilling to get put in the spotlight for defending her."
(source:
)
