DO NOT DO THIS PROGRAM...I am one of the inaugural class members of the class of 2017, and choosing RVU MSBS versus an established MSBS or pre-bacc program has been a mistake for my career. SO much so that I will NOT be putting this program or its classes into my AMCAS application (this program did not help my GPA and actually has hurt it, and the program director is refusing to write positive letters of recommendation for ANY student-he says he will put at least one negative thing about EVERY student in their letters), i.e. instead of this program helping me and my application as I intended ...it has actually hurt my application. Please do not spend $50K plus here, please please please...I urge you to instead consider the more established programs that are already out there. RVU COM WILL NOT give you preference for the COM if you are in this program...they only accepted 7 out of 15 in my class, and they have already been telling us that it will harder for next years class to get into COM (with 50 students). This is NOT a bridge program into medical school.
This program is a mess and is not in a state yet where I would recommend it to other pre-med students, if you are truly interested I would wait at least until 2020 for RVU to work out all of the kinks (otherwise it can adversely impact your future).
They do not have the curriculum ironed out: we are only going to receive a total of 1 1/4 hours in the gross anatomy lab with the cadavers (for the entire year) which means that I am learning Human Anatomy (AT A MEDICAL SCHOOL) in one semester from a textbook and powerpoint slides being taught by a drop-out medical school student who does not hold a degree higher than me; pharmacy was taught in one semester and more than half-way through the professors realized that their class was tailored more for second year COM students rather than students who are not in COM yet and have not had a year of med school already (next year the class will actually be taught in two semesters) yet despite the degree of difficulty of the class and amount of material being delivered in half the time for us there was no curve; block testing (we take a test every month on all five subjects and this alone is the main determinant for your grades and performance in the program and your GPA...translation, it is like taking the equivalent of an MCAT every month (which seems counter-intuitive because the majority of my class did this program to help with our MCAT deficiency); the program director teaches Physiology and he is extremely dis-organized and difficult to follow in lecture, his questions are mostly pulled from the COM question bank yet he does not prepare us for them (the grade in his class since he was program director was one of the main determinants for those who were accepted).
I could continue to go and on, but please know that I am not writing this as a rant or because I am bitter...I am truly concerned for others that may be considering this program. I believe it has the potential to be a great program, but unfortunately it is going to take at least several more classes to get there.
