In case you don't know, Falcon Review is a commercial review course like Kaplan review for the step 1 exam. Falcon costs about $5,000, much like Kaplan. Falcon Review is only held in Dallas, Texas. I came here to Falcon Review on Feb. 7th. I graduated Basic Sciences on Saba in December, 2006.
The following is what I wrote to a friend today.

Next week is our last week of Falcon review.
Falcon is a good review. The lectures are delivered in powerpoint format just like on Saba, Monday through Saturday, 8am to 4pm. You get a big book (or two) for each subject that contains all the powerpoints that the lecturer is going over, so there is no need for a laptop in class. The review is focused only on what is high yield for the step 1, so lots of tiny details are left out, but then Falcon asserts that we won't be tested on a lot of the tiny details we learned in basic sciences. So Falcon is NOT as detailed as Kaplan review. Many of us from Saba here at Falcon have remarked to one another that it would have been more proper to do Falcon first, and THEN do Kaplan review. However, we've already had Kaplan review on Saba. I didn't see what advantage there would be in doing a live Kaplan course with a professor standing there, since I rarely don't understand something when I hear it. Instead, I just need repetition for memorization. So I decided to try a different course to get in the repetitions.

The food served for breakfast and lunch here at Falcon is good and the accomodations are luxurious (double tree hotel, market center blvd in dallas) compared to living on Saba for two years. If you work out a lot, the gym here is inadequate (just 2 treadmills, a recumbent bike, stationary bike, and one working stair climber - no weights at all). Many students have paid an extra $190 to excercise at the huge super nice Hilton Hotel next door (for two months) that has a full gym and indoor pool, boxing classes, etc. The DoubleTree Hotel here has a nice outdoor pool, but of course we can't use it here in the middle of February. I know it's Dallas, but we had snow flakes today!

The main complaint I have about Falcon Review is that there are no real questions - we don't really do questions here. The question set Falcon claims they have is actually just a subscription to ExamMaster, which we already have through Saba. If you have tried them, you know ExamMaster really sucks...many of the questions are meant for Phd's in whatever topic, not MD's studying for step 1. Kaplan Questions are much better, but then we already have access to those, too, through Saba and they tend to be too easy. To overcome this one glaring weakness here I shall be doing questions for 3 weeks when I leave here, probably Usmleworld.com questions, which look very, very good. As a matter of fact, this is exactly what Falcon recommends that we do, anyway. If you can't commit time to doing questions on your own for 2 to 4 weeks after coming here, don't do Falcon. We cover too much material here to study each night in order to do questions at night on top of that. In case you don't know, the "patented Falcon method" is reading the powerpoint notes into a digital or tape recorder out loud, and then listening to your notes again later the next day. I was unsure about this method at first, but it DOES work better for me than my usual blitzkrieg method of reading powerpoints several times on my laptop screen on Saba and writing down notes.

(As an aside: Falcon recommends tape recorders, but I don't. I got a tiny Olympus Digital Voice Recorder that can transfer audio files to my laptop, and it's awesome. I see everyone with a digital recorder being very happy with their purchase, but I see students who bought the old-fashioned tape recorders hemorrhaging $$$ as they buy tons of tapes, tons of batteries, and even new recorders because theirs broke in the middle of studying.)

We cover roughly 150 - 200 pages (400 powerpoint slides) per day. Sometimes I honestly feel like I could have done more faster by just reading BRS series and First Aid books on my own and doing questions; actually, I know I could have. But I do need the structure and discipline this environment provides to MAKE me study and not just rely on sheer talent to take me through as I do all too often. Just eeking out a 210 on the step 1 is not my goal. (That's what my Kaplan Qbank score correlated to, without any studying.)
Another weakness of Falcon is that there are some typographical mistakes in their books; however, the lecturers we've had are on the whole excellent and are always quick to fix them in class - another reason NOT to skip class! Also, I don't think there are enough color pictures, but in this respect Falcon should be better than Kaplan because we are going to get a pathology book next week that has full color micrographs and gross photos. I recall our Kaplan path book on Saba didn't really have any pictures - certainly no color pictures.

Finally, I am proud that as a Saba students we know as much, if not more than other students who are here from St. Georges, Ross, Spartan, St. Matthews, MUA, and even several U.S. schools like Tufts, Wake Forest, and Wisconsin. If I fail to do well on the step 1 it won't be Saba's fault, or even
Falcon's fault, but my own fault for not making enough time to do more questions on my own.

Ok, there ya go, my 2 cents about Falcon from a Saba student's perspective. I gotta go study now.
Ciao,
~W

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good luck Our school did teach us very well!! We are very fortunate to have picked it

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W... what a nice guy... nice post.

Salutations "wolfvgang22":

Thank you for the very informative post. It's good to get another student's perspectives when studying for Step 1. All the best to you and hope you rock the exam. Ciao.

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"To achieve success, you must first define success."

I think you hit the nail on the head when you suggested that you needed the structure. It doesn't change when you finish your residency either. SABA was started by my old Ross psych prof dave *********s. You are right, you do know as much as anyone but the question what is the standard by which you will be judged. I always felt as an IMG we had to be near 1 standard deviation from mean or better to pass. Something to remember they (program directors) will be more impressed if you pass your exam the first time by a small margin than fail it and pass it big next time. Anyway good luck it sounds like you are heading in the right direction and are willing to put the time in. I am sure you will do well!!

Great post!!! Thanks for taking the time!!!!

hmm it would be better to write step 1 first and then comment on how useful it is... from what i heard.... lots of ppl complained about it... but well i just heard.. didnt do that course so... next post from you ...would probably be super useful...
later!

'Wolfvgang22',

That is an awesome post - very informative. I have 2 questions:

1) Could you exapnd on this recoring your notes business - doesnt that take long (400 slides would take hours to read into a recorder, and likewise hours to listen to again).

2) Many of us have seen the Kaplan books before. How would you rate the quality of Falcon's material (esp for things like Micro, Immuno, Path, Pharm, Physio)? Could you compare their books to Kaplan's? [saw what u said about the mistakes in their notes].

Good luck when you take the test - I think you're gonna do SABA proud

I was wondering if you were happy with the Falcon Review post Step 1 ? Thanks

thanks for the info sir.