<p>Okay, so I was admitted ED to Duke. Now I can have a completely stress-free senior year and summer, right? </p>
<p>Well, no. For the last couple of days I've been thinking about next year.
Everyone is going to be as smart (or smarter) than I am. </p>
<p>How will I ever be able to maintain the 3.8+ I need for a top med school? D: That's like a 5/1 A/B ratio... </p>
<p>Blehhhhhhhhhh. </p>
<p>Can any current Duke students talk about their experiences? How hard is it to get an A in most classes? Even if I may not be the smartest out there, if I work tirelessly, is it possible? Does hard work really triumph innate intelligence in college?</p>
<p>Yeah it’s hard. There will always be kids who will do better than you effortlessly, but hard work definitely pays off. 3.8+ is unreasonable for most pre-meds.</p>
<p>Haha… great… Well, if I had not made it into Duke, I would probably be headed to Georgia Tech, which is reportedly harder and has even greater grade deflation than Duke. </p>
<p>Shaq, which intro classes should I definitely place out of? I’ve heard at Duke, the intro econ and intro calc classes are extremely difficult, and that it’s best to place out of them. </p>
<p>Anything else I should know?</p>
<p>Yeah don’t take Econ 101 (take without a 4/5 on Macro and Micro) as a pre-med unless you really really want to. I’ve heard Fullenkamp (the professor) is absolutely brilliant but the class is brutal. I’ve heard that nobody broke 65% on any of the midterms and this is a class of around 500 kids. And the intro calc classes (Math 111, 112, 122- take with a 5 on AB but not BC) have horrible averages. I took Math 122L (Adv. Calc II) and worked my ass off to get an A-. I didn’t think it was terrible, but most others thought otherwise. Chem 101 (take without a 5 on the AP) was pretty easy in my opinion. Hopefully you don’t need to take it with Deborah McCarthy though. She was our professor for the second half of the course and let me just show you her reviews to make things simpler [Deborah</a> McCarthy - Duke University - RateMyProfessors.com](<a href=“http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=1766002]Deborah”>Deborah McCarthy at Duke University | Rate My Professors). Even though she was abysmal, her tests were pretty easy. Christopher Roy was our teacher for the first half and was brilliant but his tests were slightly harder. The course was pretty easy overall though but try to avoid McCarthy. I haven’t heard much about the intro bio courses yet, but I have heard Psych 101 is pretty easy as well. Of course, this entire post was purely based on my opinion but that’s what I have so far.</p>