Midwestern University

Review: So I had decided to attend Midwestern University at the Glendale Campus in Arizona. Firstly as soon as I finished interviewing, they let me know the same day that they accepted me. During the interview they were much more concerned with if I was eligible for financial aid, but there were serious questions about research interests, ethics, clinical experience, etc. They said they were going to try to have a cohort of 12 people during the interview. They also lied and said they had a 100% APA match rate. Oddly my interview was in August (the year before I started) as well. Then I received an email saying I had to pay a $1000 seat deposit within 30 days or I wouldn't be able to accept my offer. I did not hear from them until class started.

The first day of class I noticed several things. There were 24 instead of 12 people. Some of these people have graduated from For-Profits, like the University of Phoenix, [redacted] University, and [redacted] University. They could not write a coherent sentence for their lives. Midwestern was supposed to be focused on "integrative healthcare teams". What that meant was that we watched a 5 minute video for each profession and their corresponding degrees that the school offered and then did not speak with the other "professionals". This is not what they promised. We should have been working together with students from other programs. As for the lectures we did not receive instruction of any sort. We were told to look up information on Wikipedia and we had little 5 question quizzes to test us on that information. All that we had access to was Ebscohost, which was hardly a comprehensive database. They did not even test us on information from the books or what they spoke about during lecture (which was often about their lives at home - stuff that was way too personal). I literally didn't have to open a single book that quarter (but I did read them all). We had to teach ourselves the WAIS and the professor thought it would be great for us to learn the WIAT even though they did not know how to administer it. This carried on the whole time I was there. I asked for research opportunities and was denied the first quarter and the first half of the second quarter. Afterwards I got a hold of two professors and they told me if I could come up with something in their interest area (and I read some of their work) they would work with me. I wrote the manuscripts and the professors would not get back to me (For about 14 weeks - safe to say they gave me the work so I would shut up about research, but did not intend to follow through). Another interesting thing to note, the professors did not have office hours even though they had offices. I had to schedule a time for them to stay after class or for them to show up at their office.

During the second quarter we have a thing called clerkship. It was a mini practicum (which we were not ready for) for one 8 to 10 hour day a week. Initially I was placed with this quack:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/drfanninphd

He uses EEG's to align chakra's. Seriously. So I fought with the administration from the school to place me at a new site.

Next they placed me with this guy:

http://www.doctormcgowan.com/michaelmcgowan

Now this seems ok, until you realize that he gives MEDICAL advice, uses crystals and aromatherapy to heal people, and that he has given 3 people since I have been there a diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder. He says not to worry about the DSM, that none of the diagnoses are right anyways. We have done all of his CE's for him (yes that is unethical). He will not give the practicum student individual intervention hours (only co therapy) and the guy only has 25 assessment hours in almost 10 months. He did not understand T scores or baserates and had been giving the wrong diagnoses from the MMPI and the MCMI. The last WAIS he gave was the WAIS-III, he makes the practicum student give all subtests, not just the core subtests even though it is not needed and charges for it. He only gives EMDR even though he advertises CBT and other therapies. He said it is the only therapy that "cures" clients (I realize that "cure" is subjective and we are teaching clients to cope with their issues). There's more, but that is a cursory experience so far.

Further we only had one VA related placement at a Veterans Center (for Clerks and Practicum Students), the supervisor was from [redacted] Phoenix and only took one student a year.

It is the third quarter, I've noticed people failing their papers and reports, but they get A's on their transcripts. They don't care if you are getting an education, but that you can pay. Also the teachers are personally attacking students, calling them stupid and unsophisticated in class and telling them that they will not be good psychologists. One day to the point that the girl started crying and ran out of the class room. I can take verbal "abuse", especially if I deserve it. But don't down the students who write good reports. There is so much more wrong with the program, but you get the idea.

Here are the faculty: [redacted]

They all either worked at or graduated from [redacted] Phoenix. All of our practicum placements are supervised by people from [redacted] Phoenix that were either students or professors there. The professors are incompetent and should not be professors. They are not there to teach, but simply to have an extra paycheck. Included in this complaint are:

I have no problem with [redacted]. as they did try to provide an education and were completely professional. They recently hired [redacted], Ph.D. who has been a professor at [redacted] University Phoenix for many years. Further they recently hired [redacted] Psy.D. from [redacted] as well. They are heading in the wrong direction. They have continuously lowered their APA match rate and over the past four years they have only maintained a 16% match rate. Their EPPP pass rates have hovered at 55% over the past four years as well. This means that one out of every two people fail their licensure exam the first time around. To give you an idea, without an APA internship, you can't get a Federal or sometimes even state government job. Without that you can't get PSLF. Meaning you'll pay $1,500+ a month out of your already low $5,000 a month income to pay the loans off. They have tried to combat the issue with captive APA internships at their school and at Arizona State Hospital, and Southwest Behavioral Health. Their internship was initially denied accreditation.

Furthermore, they have been exposed by the Washington Post to be the 6th highest graduate school in the United States and one of the schools responsible for the ballooning amount of student loan debt:

h[redacted]

Other schools listed are [redacted] University and [redacted] University. Lastly I would like to point out when I wrote a review online, I was intimidated by one of their employees and threatened.

I cannot give a review of Midwestern University as a whole. However I can review the Psy.D. program. The program is falling apart at the seams. They need to look into firing the above professors and revamping their curriculum. They need to take out the writing classes and clerkship and focus on stronger training. They need to start hiring reputable professors who have both research and practical experience, which the above mentioned professors do not.Desired Settlement: I would like Midwestern University to only refund me the $5,026 towards the student loans that I have paid back thus far. Further I would like a letter of apology from the University, explaining how they will correct the issues with the program, including removing the professors that are holding the program back. If they do this I will remove all reviews of the program that I have posted in hopes that the University will repair their broken Psy.D. program. I have nothing, but respect for this University and their other programs, but the Psy.D. program needs a serious amount of work.