Sorry for being MIA, we had finals lol. I received an email. To be completely frank, the program and its tuition money is set up to lure people who don't have much of a choice but definitely want to get into medical school. There is no information online because it is a completely new program and administration and the directors of the program are not proactive. I am not trying to put down the program. If you have no choice, you can opt for the post bac but I definitely think quality of education is poor. It is advertised as a flip classroom format but I believe the professors should really come prepared with the material to answer questions. Often times, we learned from our peers who had taken some of the classes previously. The program seemed like an afterthought since most profs were dedicating all their time to teaching medical students. That being said, the reason that students succeeded is because we worked extremely hard DESPITE the program's inefficiency. I don't mean for this to be a negative post but I wish someone had told me these things before joining the program and spending close to 20k. Professors would make major blunders while teaching us or just claim that they don't know the material. Students learn through an online resource of videos. All this being said, the professors are available for office hours but definitely had their favorites, which is natural I guess. However, professors and administration made it seem like they were doing us a favor. This is not the case since we are paying for the program. If the material was immense, we were told that they were prepping us for medical school. However, we did not have the same resources such as tutoring or time from professors. We were scared of the administration and were forced to be sycophantic since for a lot of us, this was our biggest shot at getting into med school. The director would often state deadlines for grades or professors would promise that powerpoints would be up to study from, but everything seemed to come in much later. Part of being a medical school is to be responsible. When the professors or administration isn't, then how can the students learn to be? When it comes to exams, there was a large amount of obvious laziness when it came to writing the questions from some NOT ALL professors. Questions would be repeated so if you got it wrong once, well you got it wrong another three times. We were able to "challenge" questions but the process was time consuming and inefficient since we cannot write down the questions we want to challenge. Additionally, we weren't allowed to see the questions we got wrong. We could only see the topic that we didn't get right. Professors would state that certain material would DEFINITELY NOT be tested and the exam would test that exact material. The program lacks responsible directors, respect for postbacs, and proper education. All of this being said, please be aware of these things and make the decision that best suits you. I am merely stating these points because I do NOT want someone to go into this program as blindly as my peers and I did.
If you guys are able to speak with my peers in interviews, etc, keep in mind that these interviews are monitored by the director of the program so prior students are unlikely to voice concerns especially because we haven't received our exam results and final grades yet. But i promise you, the concerns I have stated hold a pretty strong consensus among everyone in the class.
Hi everyone. This is going to be a very long post regarding the comments the user made about the program and is especially important for those invited to the program but are hesitant about it. The time this reply was written was when it was completely new (I am the 3rd cohort).
The grading and exams make it extremely difficult to achieve the 3.6.
Attaining the 3.6 is definitely possible, it just depends on how much effort and time you put into it. Many people who do super well treat it like a full-time job. Still, they don't study 24/7; they find free-time to workout, hang out, etc. From what I've noticed, the exams can be straightforward, as the questions are directly from the power points. Some may have clinical cases or have you think a little harder or are just unfair, but you have the opportunity to challenge them. Also, from the class who graduated in 2020, 94% of the students received a 3.6. From the class of 2021, it was still over 60%. So, it is very much attainable with effort.
I'm sure some of you reading this may question why the drop from 94% to 60%. From what the director told me, they haven't done anything different on the administrative side. But, what they did do is lower the entrance requirements for the program from a 500 MCAT to a 498 MCAT (obviously with the mandate that students have to have a 500 before they finish the program). So, it “could” be the quality of the student and thus the longer learning curve for figuring out how to test as that does impact GPA. That being said, this class with the lower metrics coming in are also the ones doing the best in the DO program. It could also just be a fluke in the rigor of the exam questions. Our professors are required to make new exam questions for every CHPP exam so they could have just been more difficult on average than the previous years? But regardless, the questions were different, so it’s not really comparing apples to apples on either front.
The director of the program is not very communicative on changes.
Since the program is relatively new, the director has told us that they take professor evaluations very seriously to improve for future years. It could be the case that past students have criticized the lack of communications, so she and the faculty took them into account to improve for classes and the program moving forward. From my experience, communication has been good with the directors and professors. During my year, all students are required to meet with the Program Director at least once a semester for advising and she always asks if there is anything that we feel the program could do to improve, so I think this was likely just an issue with the first year’s class.
Midterm and final exams have several questions that were unfair and were counted towards the grade.
The exams may have unfair questions, but the class has the opportunity to challenge those questions and have them dropped from our grade. Many of the questions we have challenged from last semester and this semester got dropped. Exam challenges are decided on by the entire class, so a consensus vote of exam questions being unfair must be made for those questions to be submitted for administrative review.
The administration is using the guarantee to med school to lure students with no other options.
While many of us have been into this program because we were rejected from many other schools, there have been other students in my class and previous ones where they got into the program but applied to other schools still. Some students have gotten into medical school while in the program and have chosen to finish it for the extra preparation. Still, others have gotten into the program without applying to other med schools and have Nova’s DO school as their top choice.
The program seemed like an afterthought since most profs were dedicating all their time to teaching medical students. Students learn through an online resource of videos. We did not have the same resources such as tutoring or time from professors.
The professors care about us since they want us to succeed. Heck, one of our professors is even having a meeting for those interested in doing research over the summer to have a head start in publications. Even with me, I had a long zoom meeting with him to help me study for my final. When it comes to exams, they made a lot of time for us for many review sessions and even one-on-one meetings with them. Many of their power points have things in bold/highlighted to indicate that this material is definitely high-yield. Their open door policy is definitely helpful too if you want to talk to them physically, and many even give us their cell phone numbers.
It is true that we use an online source, but it helps us to be familiar with the material before we go to classes. This is actually a requirement because this program utilizes a flipped classroom model of instruction, so reviewing the material before class is necessary and this helps give students the feeling of having had a lecture before going into class and being required to have some knowledge of the material. In addition, the med school uses the same videos as resources to help students learn and as a supplement to board review. For tutoring, we had one of our student leaders reach out to some M1s and M2s to review for anatomy and they helped a lot. From this, medical students also want you to succeed and are willing to help you. It just takes the effort to reach out to them. I also know that next year’s class will have a Big/Little program between CHPP students and CHPP alumni who have matriculated into the DO program, so that will be available as well.
If the material was immense, we were told that they were prepping us for medical school.
Someone compared our power points with the med students' and they are very similar. So, this program does help us prepare for med school since we'll be more familiar with the material as opposed to students who didn't do the program. It is, after all, a post-bac program that is designed to be a feeder into the medical school. It should be preparatory. Besides this, you'll be familiar with how the professors ask questions. The director of the program did an analysis of CHPP alumni who have matriculated into the DO program, which is being presented at this year’s AACOM conference, and noticed that CHPP students did much better than non-CHPP students, so that definitely says something about the success of the program and how they teach.
The director would often state deadlines for grades or professors would promise that power points would be up to study from, but everything seemed to come in much later.
The late power points have rarely happened to us. The few times it has happened were because the ppts were published but accidentally not visible to students or the professor had to modify their power points.
When it comes to exams, there was a large amount of obvious laziness when it came to writing the questions from some NOT ALL professors. Questions would be repeated so if you got it wrong once, well you got it wrong another three times. We were able to "challenge" questions but the process was time consuming and inefficient since we cannot write down the questions we want to challenge.
From my exams, I haven't seen repeats. As for challenging questions, our vice president was able to do an efficient job of allowing students to challenge, so it possible that this student's class didn't have the most efficient method for voting, but I'm not too sure. We were able to challenge questions by remembering the questions we found unfair.
Additionally, we weren't allowed to see the questions we got wrong. We could only see the topic that we didn't get right. Professors would state that certain material would DEFINITELY NOT be tested and the exam would test that exact material.
I think not seeing the questions is due to not wanting to allow future students to cheat, which is understandable. So far, professors have not blindsided us like that. It could be that they took into account the evaluations previous students gave them.
