<p>I don’t think you have a lot of people failing introductory chem courses at Dartmouth. The issue with a class like Chem 5 is it’s just a lot of work and time for a pretty average grade. It sounds to me like the issue, at least w.r.t. your son, Consolation, is that the Chem department doesn’t have many/any courses for people who don’t want that intensity but might be interested in taking a chem course or two for self-edification. Other than a tiny handful of classes (Math 5 for instance) in the math department, there’s a similar issue – you need one to three terms of calculus before you get access to the interesting classes. Those courses aren’t insanely hard, but they essentially function as weeders nonetheless.</p>