<p>legen_dary- Sub Organic Chem for physics
Some Stanford pre-meds find SCU’s physics classes easier going
By Shelby Martin
Mercury News
Article Launched: 07/22/2008 01:38:35 AM PDT</p>
<p>Santa Clara University instructor Guy Letteer can’t always distinguish between the students plugging cables into voltmeters in his crowded physics labs this summer. But some days the differences are obvious.</p>
<p>“There’s always the handful who have the Stanford cap, Stanford shirt, Stanford sweatpants,” he said, and “Stanford flip-flops.”</p>
<p>Every summer, Santa Clara’s science buildings become a sort of adjunct Stanford campus, as pre-med students flock to the Jesuit school to cram a year’s worth of physics into three months.</p>
<p>It’s not just because Santa Clara is cheaper - though it is, ringing up at $3,800 for the physics units compared with Stanford’s $9,400. The word is that Stanford pre-meds see it as an easy A, allowing them to protect the high grade-point averages they need for medical school applications.</p>
<p>Forty-five Stanford students are enrolled in Santa Clara’s physics course this summer. They outnumber the actual Santa Clara students taking the course - and are more than double the number of Stanford students taking the equivalent class at the Farm this summer.</p>
<p>At Stanford, home to the Linear Accelerator Center and 16 Nobel laureates, science courses are considered extremely tough. “The lab classes are notorious for ripping you a new one,” said one Stanford pre-med, who took physics and organic chemistry at Santa Clara. She asked to be identified only by her first name, Ashley, so prospective medical schools wouldn’t recognize her.</p>
<p>No one knows how long the annual exodus to Santa Clara has been going on, but Jennifer Mason, student services coordinator for Stanford’s biology department, said Santa Clara - especially the physics series - is “the most popular summer destination.”</p>
<p>No ‘gaming’ suspected</p>
<p>Stanford officials are doubtful students are “gaming the system” by taking classes they think will yield easy A’s. “I don’t think that’s the reason,” said Gabriel Garcia, associate dean of medical school admissions at Stanford. He added that admissions officials would be suspicious if an applicant’s grades were glaringly different in classes outside their home institution.</p>
<p>Still, the phenomenon has its critics.</p>
<p>“The Stanford students go there because it’s a guaranteed A,” said Gerald Fisher, who teaches physics at Stanford and has only 20 Stanford students this summer, compared with more than 100 during other quarters. “That completely astounds me.”</p>
<p>What’s more, Fisher said, the Santa Clara instructor “is a high school teacher!” (Letteer teaches at Sacred Heart Prep in Atherton during the regular academic year; Fisher is a consulting professor at Stanford.)</p>
<p>Santa Clara students await the annual migration with trepidation.</p>
<p>“Everyone was nervous,” said Megan Stinar, a Santa Clara senior who took the summer physics series last year. “We thought the curve was going to be messed up.”</p>
<p>Santa Clara students “feel like they’ve been invaded by these brainiacs,” said Letteer, who would not divulge who earned what grade in his courses. But he said classes weren’t easy. Students sit through 14 hours of lecture and two lab classes each week.</p>
<p>‘Outstanding’ program</p>
<p>Rafael Ulate, assistant dean and director of the summer program at Santa Clara, said he was proud of the college’s “outstanding” physics series and its professors. Letteer has a Ph.D. in physics and has been teaching at Santa Clara since 1991.</p>
<p>Letteer wins points among Stanford students for approachability. “He made an effort to learn everyone’s names,” marveled Kate Fernhoff, who just finished her sophomore year at Stanford but is studying physics this summer at Santa Clara.</p>
<p>Still, congeniality is not what motivates most students to drive 17 miles south about four times a week.</p>
<p>“Physics at Santa Clara is much easier,” said Stanford alum Kirsten Hornbeak, who took physics at Santa Clara last year after sitting through a few physics lectures at Stanford. “That’s just how it is.”</p>
<p>Noah Syme, who is sending in his medical school applications this week, got an A in the Santa Clara physics series last summer. The average science GPA for some competitive institutions is 3.8, he said, so “getting an A anywhere helps.”</p>
<p>Well, not anywhere. Stanford pre-med Zesee Mekonnen chose Santa Clara physics this summer after her adviser told her it would look awkward if she didn’t at least select a school that had standards comparable to the University of California system.</p>
<p>Not everyone is ducking south. Mary Qiu, co-president of Stanford Premedical Association, said her pre-med advisers told her that applicants “get an extra gold star” for tackling all of their classes at their home institution. Qiu not only took physics at Stanford - she took the advanced course for engineers.</p>
they have nothing to complain about, their classes are easy so they don’t have to be smart, and the LSAT doesn’t even require “studying”, just practicing the stupid test over and over. If Bob sits next to Mary and Jenny is behind Charlie and Mary is on top of Bob…haha the questions are ridiculous. </p>