I am a current medical student at Nova and after reading comments at a previous thread about the academic failures of my school I thought it would be helpful to attest that everything that has been written in such great detail is still 100% correct and a reality for many of us. From the beginning, I distrusted every piece of information presented to me through lectures as they either were completely not on FA, partially correct or flat out incorrect as per that source. The faculty is steadfast in not accepting feedback for their mistakes or inaccuracies as it seems to hurt their egos that a medical student is pointing out their slip-ups. They give you an insane amount of school work to complete coupled with mandatory "mental health lunches" or some other worthless workshops that are irrelevant to board studying and force you to choose between getting good grades in your classes and satisfying school reqs vs studying for boards all the way up to early June. I have no idea what this administration is gaining by this approach except low student board scores --> which have sadly become a continuing reality ---> which forces its students to pursue PC.
The admin has since adopted some scare tactics to prevent students from speaking up or expressing their displeasure with this situation by forcing students to identify themselves when presenting feedback, suggestions, or questions during "dean hour" which effectively ended all the constructive discussion. Threatening the use of "poor professionalism" whenever students continuously address a problem that is ongoing like how irrelevant the curriculum is to board exams. My personal favorite is using the "Corona Pandemic" as a blanket excuse for why 3 or so great rotating hospitals have severed ties with the school this year and are only accepting MD students now.
There is even a rumor going around that the admin utilizes a "black list" where they place students who speak too loudly or too often about issues and the dean writes them unimpressive dean letters which screws them out of a residency, however, I can't confirm this.
I don't know how many times I've heard the phrase "Students need to be resilient" whenever they run out of excuses for the issues I've listed above. I tried my best to balance this conflict of interests and managed to escape preclinical years with mid 230s and 550s on my standardized which I personally count as a personal failure as I was really interested in pursuing either derm or orthopedics. Anecdotally as it may sound, I know several people who have fared much worse and have gotten scores so low you might only hear about them in a forum setting despite having great medical school grades lol. I find this to be ironically hilarious as they trusted the path Nova set before them, perhaps even believed they are ready for boards all to be gutted at the end. Obviously, there is a measure of personal responsibility here and everyone is in charge of their own future or lack thereof. It just simply feels that I am competing against peers with 1 hand tied behind my back that's being held by Nova since day 1 and no matter how creative or methodical I try to be in my management of being a student here it all leads to the same exact mediocre result or worse.
The admin has since adopted some scare tactics to prevent students from speaking up or expressing their displeasure with this situation by forcing students to identify themselves when presenting feedback, suggestions, or questions during "dean hour" which effectively ended all the constructive discussion. Threatening the use of "poor professionalism" whenever students continuously address a problem that is ongoing like how irrelevant the curriculum is to board exams. My personal favorite is using the "Corona Pandemic" as a blanket excuse for why 3 or so great rotating hospitals have severed ties with the school this year and are only accepting MD students now.
There is even a rumor going around that the admin utilizes a "black list" where they place students who speak too loudly or too often about issues and the dean writes them unimpressive dean letters which screws them out of a residency, however, I can't confirm this.
I don't know how many times I've heard the phrase "Students need to be resilient" whenever they run out of excuses for the issues I've listed above. I tried my best to balance this conflict of interests and managed to escape preclinical years with mid 230s and 550s on my standardized which I personally count as a personal failure as I was really interested in pursuing either derm or orthopedics. Anecdotally as it may sound, I know several people who have fared much worse and have gotten scores so low you might only hear about them in a forum setting despite having great medical school grades lol. I find this to be ironically hilarious as they trusted the path Nova set before them, perhaps even believed they are ready for boards all to be gutted at the end. Obviously, there is a measure of personal responsibility here and everyone is in charge of their own future or lack thereof. It just simply feels that I am competing against peers with 1 hand tied behind my back that's being held by Nova since day 1 and no matter how creative or methodical I try to be in my management of being a student here it all leads to the same exact mediocre result or worse.
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