Youel Board Prep Series

[Katie1822]

Has anyone ever used Youel Board Prep for step I boards? Dr. Youel gave a persentation today trying to sell his prep class. We have two other vendors coming in to compete but I was curious if anyone had used Youel and what they felt about it?

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[Chillio]

Our class was given Youel prep for free. I didn't find it particularly helpful. His whole thing is to give you one mnemonic after another. Some might be ones you know, but many others are these long ones like lkasjdfisd that you'll never remember. I went to a few sessions and stopped going. I think only a handful of ppl kept with the program by the end of it. Dr. Youel is a nice guy and I think he's pretty smart, but a review course designed by one guy just seemed sketchy to me. Also, his review manuals are pretty hard to read. I never used them.

 

[Katie1822]

Chillio, got any thoughts on northwestern or Kapplan? Northwestern came today, they seemed nice but my class didn't seem too happy with them b/c the last year's class used them and didn't like them plus, the class was a bit worried that they don't appear to reveiw in an integrated format. I actually liked them, they had some silly graphics that were a tad annoying but they might wake me up after 8 hours of being in a reveiw session.

 

[DrQuinn]

My opinion, and remember its just an opinion...
is NOT to take Youel's. Our school has it for free, and a lot of students went, becuase, well, it was a free prep course. A lot of students ended up not finishing up.

Many students told me it was a waste of time.

I would suggest buying the Kaplan books (either USMLE or COMLEX) and study those hard core. And take lots o' questions.

 

[Katie1822]

Thanks guys for the input. I'll be sure to pass it on to classmates. Quinn, you recommend Kapplan? They are one of our 3 options. No matter what we pick, we get it for free, the dean is footing the bill. So since it is a gift of sorts, we want to select well and make the most of it. Thanks again.

 

[yellowhat]

Originally posted by Katie1822
Thanks guys for the input. I'll be sure to pass it on to classmates. Quinn, you recommend Kapplan? They are one of our 3 options. No matter what we pick, we get it for free, the dean is footing the bill. So since it is a gift of sorts, we want to select well and make the most of it. Thanks again.

Go to Kaplan, go directly to Kaplan. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

Try to get them to include a 3 month subscription to kaplan Qbank for you! That is more valuable than any of the lecture or review notes.

Northwestern was not good. I have not met anyone who liked it as a whole. (1 lecturer was good, the rest not).

You are NOT getting it for free. Be confident that you are paying for it, every time you sign those loan checks. A gift? that's a good one! The cost is built in to your $50,000 per year for years 1 and 2.

 

[DrQuinn]

I can't comment on the Kaplan lectures, as I never saw one second of it. But I did buy the 1999 USMLE books... which in my opinion were far superior to the 2001 COMLEX books that my classmates used. The COMLEX books seemed watered-down. Of course I know people who used the COMLEX books who scored 99%ile... so go figure, but in my opinion the Kaplan books are far superior.
Q

 

[Katie1822]

Ok, we saw Kapplan today, they seemed fairly good. They now have this IV Qbank, which is supposed to be integrated vingettes (IV). We only get a month subscription to it. If we go with Kapplan, which is going to be a horrendous headache for all 200 of us to get a decent majority vote for anyone, we are maybe going to work with them to throw out the OMM review and go with more time in the IVqbank. How about the power reveiw at the end of Kapplan? The 50 some hours of review during board break that is? Is that any good or just too much to take in? I was a bit iffy about only having 8 sessions of 6 hours prior to that, especially when only 6 hours goes towards doing all of anatomy, nuero, histo, and embryo?

I think I know what prof was a good lecturer for Northwestern, too bad we couldn't just hire him.

As for free, I know it isn't free or a true gift but this is not coming out of a school budget, this is coming from the dean but he does give them a budget to work in.

 

[Chillio]

I would go to Kaplan too. I liked their book the best. Northwestern's as I recall was in powerpoint format and I had powerpoints till I wanted to puke during 2nd year. I think a big reason our class went w/ Youel was b/c it was free. For Kaplan, we would have had to pay a few hundred bucks extra, but you can get it for free, I'd definitely do that over the others. Of course most of our class went with no review class at all since almost everybody dropped out of Youel and we still passed (for the most part ) One thing I would be sure to do is to memorize the Blue OTM review book. There were so many OTM questions on the comlex and the majority of questions if I remember correctly came right out of that material.

 

[Katie1822]

Thanks Chillio! I've shared much of the advice I have gotten with my classmates, I think it will be a split b/t Youel and Kapplan. I think I've made up my mind...too bad I'm only one vote out of 200

 

[Popoy]

Well done Katie.... and good discussion about the board review.

Katie, you should most definitely try to tell others of this discussion board.... I'll try and spread the word so that people will get a chance to see this discussion....

 

[Katie1822]

Popoy, you see me everyday! You are talking to me through here? LOL, people will begin to wonder about the communication around DMU. I thought you were sold on Youel anyway

 

[Chillio]

Have you guys actually seen Youel's text? I thought it was pretty hard to read and confusing. Many ppl from the class ahead of us actually liked it which is why our class voted for it. Anyhow, it wasnt very popular with us. Who knows, your class might think differently

 

[Katie1822]

Chillio, I looked at all of them, they all looked confusing. It will be picking the lesser of the 3 evils