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Midwestern University NOT what it says- AVOID!!


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It is my deepest regret choosing to go to Midwestern (Glendale) over the other 4 schools that I was accepted to. 

I was lied to at my interview and lied to at orientation. The “compassionate,” “flexible,” and “high-caliber education” that I decided to pay an extra $30,000+ a year to receive, was a sham. I regret not choosing my school based on finances alone.  I will provide a few of the broadest examples that I can, although there are so, so, so many more that I could provide. 

I was very open during my interview about how important Midwestern’s welcoming atmosphere and open-door policy were in my decision-making. However, when I emailed one of our faculty members during didactic year, asking if I could meet with them in person to discuss questions that I had, I was accused of not going to class, which left me feeling ashamed and unintelligent for having questions to ask in the first place, when I had in fact, gone to class. This closed the door for me to ask any questions in the future.

As far as the high-caliber level of education that I was promised, I have had to teach myself most of medicine during both didactic and clinical year. UpToDate, Pance Prep Pearls, 5 Minute Consult, and Access Medicine are far more organized than most of our lectures were. The quality of our lectures, or lack thereof, has inspired me to want to one day use my own organized notes to teach PA students in the future. 

During clinical year, the administration was all over the place. I can’t stress enough how frustrating it has been to have been paying SO MUCH money, and continuously be told that we are wasting their time and do not have a say in any decisions made moving forward.

The PA program’s lack of consideration for students and inflexibility only worsened since the beginning of the COVID19 pandemic. To illustrate, when COVID-19 peaked in our state, many of my classmates reached out to the clinical team asking if they had considered adjusting our final practicals to be taken online rather than in person. They adamantly denied all requests. One week before our scheduled exams, (which we had all been studying for), they realized how unrealistic and unsafe it was to force students to gather on campus for this assessment. However, because they refused to make adjustments beforehand, they were unprepared to transition the assessments to an online format and pushed all assignments back by a month and a half. Assignments that we had already been preparing for for months. They pushed these assignments back to right before we were scheduled to take boards. This was an enormous misuse of valuable time. We should have been able to take our assessments on the date scheduled, online, if the clinical team had simply listened to not only the students, but the governors around the country, and public health officials. It was inflexible and beyond irresponsible. 

I am posting this to spare others. I want to spare others the disappointment of such highly unmet expectations, TREMENDOUS debt, and disrespect from faculty. If they refuse to change how they teach and interact with students, the minimum obligation they have is truth in advertising.

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On 1/25/2021 at 8:21 PM, srhbrwn3 said:

It is my deepest regret choosing to go to Midwestern (Glendale) over the other 4 schools that I was accepted to. 

I was lied to at my interview and lied to at orientation. The “compassionate,” “flexible,” and “high-caliber education” that I decided to pay an extra $30,000+ a year to receive, was a sham. I regret not choosing my school based on finances alone.  I will provide a few of the broadest examples that I can, although there are so, so, so many more that I could provide. 

I was very open during my interview about how important Midwestern’s welcoming atmosphere and open-door policy were in my decision-making. However, when I emailed one of our faculty members during didactic year, asking if I could meet with them in person to discuss questions that I had, I was accused of not going to class, which left me feeling ashamed and unintelligent for having questions to ask in the first place, when I had in fact, gone to class. This closed the door for me to ask any questions in the future.

As far as the high-caliber level of education that I was promised, I have had to teach myself most of medicine during both didactic and clinical year. UpToDate, Pance Prep Pearls, 5 Minute Consult, and Access Medicine are far more organized than most of our lectures were. The quality of our lectures, or lack thereof, has inspired me to want to one day use my own organized notes to teach PA students in the future. 

During clinical year, the administration was all over the place. I can’t stress enough how frustrating it has been to have been paying SO MUCH money, and continuously be told that we are wasting their time and do not have a say in any decisions made moving forward.

The PA program’s lack of consideration for students and inflexibility only worsened since the beginning of the COVID19 pandemic. To illustrate, when COVID-19 peaked in our state, many of my classmates reached out to the clinical team asking if they had considered adjusting our final practicals to be taken online rather than in person. They adamantly denied all requests. One week before our scheduled exams, (which we had all been studying for), they realized how unrealistic and unsafe it was to force students to gather on campus for this assessment. However, because they refused to make adjustments beforehand, they were unprepared to transition the assessments to an online format and pushed all assignments back by a month and a half. Assignments that we had already been preparing for for months. They pushed these assignments back to right before we were scheduled to take boards. This was an enormous misuse of valuable time. We should have been able to take our assessments on the date scheduled, online, if the clinical team had simply listened to not only the students, but the governors around the country, and public health officials. It was inflexible and beyond irresponsible. 

I am posting this to spare others. I want to spare others the disappointment of such highly unmet expectations, TREMENDOUS debt, and disrespect from faculty. If they refuse to change how they teach and interact with students, the minimum obligation they have is truth in advertising.

Thank you for sharing your experience - would you be willing to speak over the phone? I am also curious if any of your classmates might share their thoughts as well. Thanks again!

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I always wanted to updated this topic but since I hadn't actually finished the program I didn't want to contribute but since I am about to graduate I wanted to add in my two cents.

1. I had literally committed to MWU Glendale the month prior and declined my MWU Downers Grove acceptance when this was sent making me very nervous but I ended up asking I believe at least one person from the class of 2017 I believe to class of 2022 apart from the class of 2020 where I believe was the class of the original poster is from if this post was true and I was told that the person's experience was not what they experience. Again I am not invalidating this poster's review or anyone who has replied agreeing because I have talked to some people in my class who were not completely happy with the experience whereas I can say that I was happy with my experience and so far do not regret my decision. 

2. For my class there were some major changes we are now down from a 27 month to 24 month program and we had a change in not only program director but also clinical director. No disrespect to our previous program director but I have more positive feelings regarding our current director. I can't say much about the change in clinical team as the former clinical director left in the middle of my first quarter there and I did interview with her and got an acceptance. We also added two more new faculty and I'm not sure how they are at teaching but I've met them and they seem to be nice. 

Overall the school is not perfect by any means but that can be said with any school and not only and no one person going to have the same experience. If anyone would like more information feel free to dm me just note that since becoming a student especially one who is about to graduate I am not on here very often so I might be late in replying.

 

Edited by Christine616
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