Is this a scam?

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rl24

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A cousin of mine has just graduated from highschool and wants to do medicine. Her family has a found a Medical school in the states that takes students right out of highschool and finishes in 5 years. It is originally located in belize but has branches in the states. There seem to be no real admission selection. And just the entire thing sounds extremely fishy to me. I dont want her to go into something that she will regret. I looked at the website for the school and they say they are accredited and get residency here. It is a for profit school and just reeks of suspicion. Does anyone know about this?? Can someone help me figure out if this is real or not? Heres the website for the school. Its called Avicina. http://avicina.bz/
Members don't see this ad.
 
Members don't see this ad :)
Thats what I said. But they say as long as she can practice in the states, he doesn't care how the school is. But I am sure there will be other problems. I mean come on. But I just dont know what problems to point out.
 
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There isn't a medical school or any school at that address in Palos Hills Il. Google the address (10661 Roberts Road Palos Hills Il) and you'll see the building it is in. They have suite 103 or something.
 
candbgirl said:
There isn't a medical school or any school at that address in Palos Hills Il. Google the address (10661 Roberts Road Palos Hills Il) and you'll see the building it is in. They have suite 103 or something.
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I submit that it is impossible to have a medical school in a PO Box!
 
rl24 said:
Thats what I said. But they say as long as she can practice in the states, he doesn't care how the school is. But I am sure there will be other problems. I mean come on. But I just dont know what problems to point out.
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He won't be able to. The school isn't real.

Have him search the World Directory of Medical Schools- it doesn't exist in any form that is recognized by any legitimate authority.

http://search.wdoms.org
 
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I can't believe this is allowed to exist...but then again, maybe I can make my own B.S. unaccredited medical school in the states. Everything done through a UPS box [makes it seem more legit].
 
They offer a free consultation to help you decide if medicine is for you.
Mmmm well it can't be worse than dealing with the average premed advisor.
 
4) PRE MED PROGRAMS vs PRE MED CLASSES


Oh my lanta! I WISH I had of known about pre med programs because then I wouldn’t be so far in debt, and I wouldn’t have wasted so much time on my Bachelors Degree. The pre med programs are AMAZING in my opinion! Oh, what is a premed program, you ask? Basically, you take your 4 year Bachelor degree in one year. A pre med program takes out all the “fluff”. That means no electives, no stuff that isn’t needed, and focuses solely on the medical field. Medicine can be a challenging field to learn, and not everyone knows how to study it, so a pre med program will re-train your brain so that you know how to study medicine effectively.
If I had of know about this option, I would have taken it, but instead, I took a 4-year program. In essence, I wasted 3 years, and went about $50,000 in debt taking premed classes, that didn’t really guarantee me getting into medical school.



Oh, I forgot to mention, if you take a pre med programs through a school, you’re already accepted into that school’s medical program. You read that right, after one year in a premed program, you automatically go into the medical degree program. You’re welcome, man I’m a good friend! Haha.
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This is from their blog: http://avicina.bz/blog/premedprograms

Now, I dont know about other countries, but I thought in the U.S. there's no program that fits this article's description of "pre med programs". This seems incredibly sketchy to me. I'm ready to call B.S. on this program.
 
Avicina appreciates all your support. Sign up for our newsletter and get a code to get a discount on your application fees. If we haven’t answered all your questions in this blog post, please email us at [email protected], and we will be more than happy to answer any questions that you still may have! We hope this helps!
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One more comment - the gmail address they list on the blogs in their website to me indicates that this is 100% sketchy. OP, advise your cousin against this in every way possible. The gmail address indicates that they are not a professional school.
 
So shady... any time people are offering you a free consultation you know they are trying to get money out of you. Seems exponentially worse than the caribs, which are bad enough.

Your chances of getting a residency after that: +pity+👎👎👎👎👎👎👎+pity+
 
tea guzzling traveler said:
So shady... any time people are offering you a free consultation you know they are trying to get money out of you. Seems exponentially worse than the caribs, which are bad enough.

Your chances of getting a residency after that: +pity+👎👎👎👎👎👎👎+pity+
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Must be a scary thing to be a patient in Belize since that's where those clowns will have to hide from the collecting agencies.
 
tea guzzling traveler said:
So shady... any time people are offering you a free consultation you know they are trying to get money out of you. Seems exponentially worse than the caribs, which are bad enough.

Your chances of getting a residency after that: +pity+👎👎👎👎👎👎👎+pity+
Click to expand...

For that matter, getting involved with something like this could impair her ability to get accepted into a real medical school. Having to explain a gap year or two between high school and college where you took correspondence courses from a diploma mill... yeah, adcoms are going to be charmed to hear about her poor judgment and attempts to find shortcuts into the profession. Also, getting her transcripts from them seems a little unlikely, but AMCAS/AACOMAS will still want them to be submitted. Failure to report the coursework attempted will tank her app, just like reporting it and being unable to obtain transcripts.

I had a transcript issue from a legit school that almost wrecked my application cycle. I can't imagine how much worse it would have been if it had been a diploma mill.
 
Our campus is located in Belmopan, the capital city of Belize, next to the largest American embassy in the whole of south-central America. It is the safest place in all of the Caribbean. Also we have the lowest hurricanes in the whole of Caribbean.

But they're next to the largest embassy! And they have the lowest hurricanes!
Sign me up!
 
They do have programs like this in European countries however. I have a close friend who stopped undergrad after 1 year because he didn't want to bother with it, went to Ireland, and finished his MD (or MBBS I can't recall) and now is doing an IM residency at a Tufts affiliated hospital in Mass. It's risky and VERY expensive but he did become a doctor several years before he would've otherwise
 
membername24 said:
They do have programs like this in European countries however. I have a close friend who stopped undergrad after 1 year because he didn't want to bother with it, went to Ireland, and finished his MD (or MBBS I can't recall) and now is doing an IM residency at a Tufts affiliated hospital in Mass. It's risky and VERY expensive but he did become a doctor several years before he would've otherwise
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This is the norm in UK, Ireland etc and the medical schools there are at well-established universities . The MBBS (not MD) programs are usually 6 years for high school student. The school OP is talking about is not even on the same page as EU schools.

I.e. University of Oxford in UK http://www.medsci.ox.ac.uk/study/medicine
 
sb247 said:
I'm going to go against the grain here, anyone willing to send them money deserves to lose it
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Sure, but the high schooler deserves to receive a little guidance at least. No one was born knowing all about this process and she is at a point in her life where she doesn't even know what she doesn't know! Her parents, though, are another story. They might not know everything, but they are the ones who would be shelling out, and so have the responsibility of due dilligence.
 
membername24 said:
They do have programs like this in European countries however. I have a close friend who stopped undergrad after 1 year because he didn't want to bother with it, went to Ireland, and finished his MD (or MBBS I can't recall) and now is doing an IM residency at a Tufts affiliated hospital in Mass. It's risky and VERY expensive but he did become a doctor several years before he would've otherwise
Click to expand...

A "Tuft's affiliated" hospital lol. Let me guess, St E's?
 
The scrolling marquee advertising free consultation should have been a red flag.
 
membername24 said:
They do have programs like this in European countries however. I have a close friend who stopped undergrad after 1 year because he didn't want to bother with it, went to Ireland, and finished his MD (or MBBS I can't recall) and now is doing an IM residency at a Tufts affiliated hospital in Mass. It's risky and VERY expensive but he did become a doctor several years before he would've otherwise
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Even Carib grads can match into general IM.

These programs are a bad choice.
 
membername24 said:
They do have programs like this in European countries however. I have a close friend who stopped undergrad after 1 year because he didn't want to bother with it, went to Ireland, and finished his MD (or MBBS I can't recall) and now is doing an IM residency at a Tufts affiliated hospital in Mass. It's risky and VERY expensive but he did become a doctor several years before he would've otherwise
Click to expand...

You're just describing how people become doctors in countries besides the US. You don't do "undergrad, med school, residency" in most other countries, you just decide on medicine after A levels and essentially start med school.

Avicii med school or whatever their name is is not that at all.
 
There are some Carribean med schools that still require the 4 year undergrad + 4 year md route
 
Pusheen said:
Our campus is located in Belmopan, the capital city of Belize, next to the largest American embassy in the whole of south-central America. It is the safest place in all of the Caribbean. Also we have the lowest hurricanes in the whole of Caribbean..
.
But they're next to the largest embassy! And they have the lowest hurricanes!
Sign me up!
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For anyone who knows their Central American history, Belmopan only actually exists because Belize City was basically wiped out by a hurricane in the 70s, and the Belize government decided they needed to move municipal operations inland.
 
I transferred to Avicina from another Caribbean school and I can assure you that it is not a scam nor is it a diploma mill. Instead of trying to talk your cousin out of it based on your thoughts/perceptions of the website and the form. I suggest you sit in a class in the pre-med center or a USMLE review class and talk to some of the students and if you still think this is the wrong school or if it's still a scam then you'll be able to give your cousins facts such as they don't teach you anything or that no one has actually passed any of the USMLE exams, etc...

But if you'd like to continue to listen to the people on this form saying it is not accredited or that the website looks sketchy or whatever then by all means do that. Unfortunately that is not research.
 
ab_10_28 said:
I transferred to Avicina from another Caribbean school and I can assure you that it is not a scam nor is it a diploma mill. Instead of trying to talk your cousin out of it based on your thoughts/perceptions of the website and the form. I suggest you sit in a class in the pre-med center or a USMLE review class and talk to some of the students and if you still think this is the wrong school or if it's still a scam then you'll be able to give your cousins facts such as they don't teach you anything or that no one has actually passed any of the USMLE exams, etc...

But if you'd like to continue to listen to the people on this form saying it is not accredited or that the website looks sketchy or whatever then by all means do that. Unfortunately that is not research.
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why did you transfer?
 
ab_10_28 said:
I transferred to Avicina from another Caribbean school and I can assure you that it is not a scam nor is it a diploma mill. Instead of trying to talk your cousin out of it based on your thoughts/perceptions of the website and the form. I suggest you sit in a class in the pre-med center or a USMLE review class and talk to some of the students and if you still think this is the wrong school or if it's still a scam then you'll be able to give your cousins facts such as they don't teach you anything or that no one has actually passed any of the USMLE exams, etc...
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You seem to be under the delusion that this place is real.


It's okay, the walls are closing in on me all the time too.
 
ab_10_28 said:
I transferred to Avicina from another Caribbean school and I can assure you that it is not a scam nor is it a diploma mill. Instead of trying to talk your cousin out of it based on your thoughts/perceptions of the website and the form. I suggest you sit in a class in the pre-med center or a USMLE review class and talk to some of the students and if you still think this is the wrong school or if it's still a scam then you'll be able to give your cousins facts such as they don't teach you anything or that no one has actually passed any of the USMLE exams, etc...

But if you'd like to continue to listen to the people on this form saying it is not accredited or that the website looks sketchy or whatever then by all means do that. Unfortunately that is not research.
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Please post data to support this assertion.
 
I attended a few of the classes and was convinced that this was a better school as I was learning nothing at my previous one. As for everyone else that has commented about what I said I could careless about what you people think. Go do some proper research instead of trolling the form because you have nothing better to do.
 
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