<p>Hey guys,</p>
<p>Well I am a high school senior and I am coming to Emory next year as part of the Class of 2014. I want to follow a pre-med track, taking chemistry and bio courses and the like. I was wondering how difficult it was to get As in these science type courses. What percentage of the class might achieve As? Thanks a lot for your help!</p>
<p>I’m sure someone who is actually pre-med might be able to help you more but I’ll do my best to answer your question. I have many friends who have great science GPAs and have done well in their pre-med courses. That said, I have incredibly smart friends who have had a great deal of difficulty with the way those classes test (the questions tend to be more applications of the material than the material itself). I think it really depends. </p>
<p>The tests are not curved down, only up. If the average of a class is ‘too high’ for a test, however, the next might be more difficult. What this means is that if you are doing well, you will get a good grade (i.e. there are no caps on how many people can do well). There are also numerous out-of-class resources to help: individual tutors, supplemental instruction (SI) sections, etc.</p>
<p>OK, I basically take all the pre-med courses, but am not pre-med.<br>
Stop worrying about how many people get As. Do your best to learn the material and you’ll get a solid grade. If you can retain the info. from many of your pre-med courses, you may do better on the MCAT. Don’t fall into the trap of the Emory students who get high GPAs and low MCAT scores. Typically the peer institutions with higher percentage of med-school admits have the opposite. I’m not pre-med (but an NBB or Bio major), but after witnessing their mentality about grades, I don’t believe this is solely Emory’s (as an institution) fault. By the way, I concur with amadani. The ability to get an A depends on the person. Unlike Georgia Tech, where science courses are on par(their exam are really similar and the orgo. exams are easier than ours many times) or more difficult because of the excessive amount of mandatory homework assignments, the curves aren’t harsh, so its easier for lots of people to do well in the more difficult classes. I won’t say its easy because lots of people barely slide by with As or A-s, like me in orgo. and bio 2 and. And then there are classes where you just downright won’t get one. </p>
<p>Gonna let you know now that curves are kind of rare in gen. chem and bio. In fact it only happened this past semester in bio (my friend was in it) in one profs. class who knew that he had designed a horrible test which got a 69 average, so the average was curved up to a 75. Bio can be tough, but a 69 average is not common anymore. They used to be common like 4-5 years ago when one prof. oversaw the test-making process. They reformatted the class and now the average for each test is similar to gen. chem’s, about 75-78 on each. </p>
<p>It also depends on the line-up of professors. Like in bio, the line-up was pretty tough. Two NBB profs. and Spell (the teacher behind the tests 4-5 years ago) taught, so many people had trouble. Normally the line-up 2nd semester is better. One prof., Victor Corces (new Dept. chair from John’s Hopkins), yielded like a 91% average on each test when I took bio II. It wasn’t because the students were super smart, his tests were really compared to mines.</p>
<p>So I guess if you only care about grades, choose profs. wisely. However, when you get to orgo., you are somewhat screwed. Emory orgo. is just hard. Not even freshmen orgo. is easy (I took it). It’s the same level as the upperlevel classes, and the finals are brutal (as in way harder than the upperclassmen classes).</p>
<p>I’ve only taken one science class so far.</p>
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<p>I couldn’t agree more with this. I had a high A- going into the final.</p>
<p>… and then I got a 38.</p>
<p>So I ended up getting a B in the class. So I switched out to a different teacher, because I couldn’t stand my freshman orgo’s abstract teaching style.</p>
<p>Are you Weinshcenk’s (fail at spelling) class? Yeah, I stuck it out in Jose’s class cause I was a fan of the teaching style. However, I was not a fan of the fact that his exams, especially the finals, were just as abstract as his teaching. lol
I got a B first semester(probably because I didn’t have AP credit) and did much better second semester. </p>
<p>And don’t be ashamed or annoyed, lots of people have the same sentiments on his teaching style. Weinshcenk’s style is most accommodating (fits with most students), but you can’t get away from the fact that his or any 222 class will be hard. Oh well, 2nd semester is the time to get out of there. You really don’t get an easy test next semester if you stay in Jose’s. All are abstract to a somewhat large degree.</p>
<p>Nah, I got Morkin TTH. I think Weinshenk (I don’t know how to spell it either) seems REALLY cool, but having the Morkin class makes me not have a Friday class (and makes my Mondays and Wednesdays start at 4 pm).</p>
<p>I just really couldn’t stand Jose’s style. He would just write a reaction, ask us for what we would think the products/mechanism would be (and have a string of "I don’t know"s) and then explain something. Right after that I would think “Wait. What did I just learn?/What was the point of him writing that?” It was never really: Here is the reaction, here is the mechanism, here is why. That would be too logical and organized for Jose. :P</p>
<p>The only con is that I may be NBB for a possible double major (Psych is my main major), and so I’d need credit for 142. But then I may be pre-med, so I’d need to take Gen Chem anyway [I’ll probably do it junior year, as I have to take Bio sophomore year… and I don’t want to double up on sciences). I like Gen Chem anyway. BUT, I may not be pre-med because I HATE HATE HATE HATE HATE Physics and Math.</p>
<p>Math (as in intro. calc. courses) is not too bad here. Of course some professors have strange styles, but most are pretty generous in terms of grading. I was supposed to do really poorly in Calc 1., math 111. Next semester I’m doing 115 b/c the profs. are better and there are more applications to garner my interest. When I’m bored, I don’t do well. Anyway, it was curved up a lot especially after his 3 question final lol. As for physics, if you aren’t good, take Physics 151 and then maybe go down to 142 for the next semester. Why 151? The teachers for it are almost always horrible, but each exam is curved so much (especially if you get a low or mediocre score) that you’ll still do decently in the class. And Rasnik sucks, but his tests are not too bad. He even says that they were harder in the past. And trust me, I’m a non-premed who hates physics and math. From my understanding, this year physics 141 had like the good professors; which meant that they ended up having hard exams that don’t curves. The curves per exam in Rasnik’s class were sometimes over 20 points if you scored poorly (I messed on the first exam) because so many other people would score poorly and then he’d curve to a B/B- to make himself look better. I’ll say this again, math and physics here are often not real weeders. This isn’t Georgia Tech where every science and math class is somewhat of a killer. Bio, Orgo, and gen. chem are potential killers here. Sometimes, I look at test from my friend’s chem 141-142 tests, and I think, wow, this is hard even if you got a 4-5 on the AP exam. The problems integrate more components than those on the AP, and that makes for more interesting exams. However, most professors for gen. chem are “at least” decent, which makes doing well a lot easier than say bio if you picked the wrong professor. It’s in gen. bio where they tend to may tests significantly harder if their averages are too high w/exception of some profs. (like Corces)</p>
<p>As chem 141/142, If you knock your math and physics credits out they normally still allow you to take NBB 301. In fact this is what a fellow friend from freshmen orgo. did. She was actually co-enrolled in physics and 301, and it turned out fine (I think she did better in NBB than physics 141 though). I think they bend the rules on the chem. thing.</p>
<p>bernie, or anyone else, what is someone does not have a physics background… due to scdheduling problems, I could not take physics in high school… is there like intro physics… for beginners in the subject.</p>
<p>I don’t understand why NBB doesn’t take 222 instead of 142.</p>
<p>But realistically, I’ll probably just major in Psychology and minor/double major in Film. That sounds like a waste of money and a welfare check in the mail in 10 years, but I’d love to just do research in Psychology my whole life or be a clinical psychologist. I really may only do NBB because my parents would push for a science major.</p>
<p>Math and Physics stress me out way too much. Like you said, some tests have 3 problems. I can’t handle that anxiety. I took Physics C last year and I would nearly have a panic-attack before every test (and I did worse than most people). Same thing with BC Calc in 11th grade. And I got 3’s on both (though, I got a 4 on the AB part luckily). [I got four 5’s and four 4’s for the rest of APs). Clearly, anything with math, I fail at (minus Gen Chem, but I still hated equilibriums and ph because of the math).</p>
<p>Psych tests are more multiple choice, or explain-it questions. I love that, and so I do well. It goes off of what you know, not your skill in logic. And film, I haven’t taken a film class yet, but film is my favorite thing in the whole world so I wouldn’t care if the classes are hard (which I really doubt).</p>
<p>Alam, Intro Physics is 141 or 151 at Emory. The only difference is the latter is calc-based.</p>
<p>Any ideas on why they love to kill students in Organic Chem? Is it the students not studying hard enough (which I really doubt) or is it the teachers?</p>
<p>The harder teachers are too creative with the exams. Jose, for example, through lots of curve balls that were difficult to handle even if you studied a lot. Weinschenk’s test are very detailed oriented.</p>
<p>^From my experience I definitely say detail-oriented is easier than those curve balls. Curve balls confuse you and makes you think that either you studied the wrong way or the teacher sucked at teaching you the right way. And in that case I have to say both share the fault.</p>
<p>Those threes in Calc. and Physics are not bad, chill. That’s good enough background/exposure to be successful in any Emory intro physics or calc. course, rather it’s 141 or 151. Trust me, Emory calculus, at least the non-life science calc. classes are easier than AP. Well, actually I heard 112-Z can be tough. But you have a choice of taking 112 instead (and you got a 3 on B/C, so you can do well). And don’t get it twisted, my calc. professor had abnormally short tests. My friends in other calc. courses say that there are normally 8-10 problems per exam, while ours were 4-5 on the mid-terms and 3 on the final. Calm down, this isn’t Tech.</p>
<p>I’ll agree, making a free-response exam tricky is lame. Often his curveballs are down-right hard or actually had a simple solution that didn’t seemplausible based upon what was taught. Jose’s class was all about exploring alternatives to expected solutions that remained chemically sound. Problems had to be approached differently I guess.</p>
<p>Yeah, and it’s really misleading. The first two tests in Jose’s (Chem 171) class were really easy. And then the 3rd one is like ***? And then the final is like “WHAT THE HELL? THIS IS ALL MECHANISMS AND SYNTHESIS. ■■■.”</p>
<p>Were the mechanisms tough? Just wondering, cause if they were, the second semester final is gonna be really bad. Our first semester final was only like one mechanism, a tricky predict the product question (with a follow-up telling us to draw low-energy chair conformation with an intramolecular H-bond). The hard part was the “explain this phenomenon” part. There were like three really hard ones, and there was no synthesis on the first final since we didn’t cover it. I guess Jose went really fast after y’alls second exam. 172 may be hell (it normally is for most, but this time…). It’ll be harder than most 222 sections, but you get a "1"72 on your transcript, which may be questionable to some med-schools(for those who are pre-med).</p>
<p>There were 4 mechanisms. They were REALLY tough. There were 3 or 4 explain this phenomenon parts on our 2nd and 3rd tests. Only one on the final.</p>
<p>Why does it seem like he made it harder for my class? (this may not by true, this is just an inference)</p>
<p>The difficulty of first semester apparently differs from year to year from my understanding (from some fellow INSPIRE members of mines 
). For example, my class (last year) was the first in quite a while to not cover synthesis. Also, for us, Jose dramatically increased the difficulty of the exams starting with exam 2 (unlike y’all w/exam three). Bonus points saved us on that one, but not on exam 3 where we screwed up as much as y’all for the most part. I do admit that the second semester could have probably been even harder if we came into with knowledge of synthesis and aromatic chemistry, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t hard enough. </p>
<p>As for specifically your class. 1st semester final/ 3rd exam difficulty may have to do w/some students from my class claiming that 1st semester was easy. When that got out to him, he made the second semester exams pretty tough (no buffer exam) and the final brutal. Also, he may have tried to weed out people w/your first semester final because so many people dropped 172 (only after exam 1 at that) even after doing well on the first semester final. And he also had several in my class who scored really poorly on the first exam, and then “claimed” that they would try again on the second even though they had already convinced themselves that they would drop; this would lead to the student scoring the same on the second exam and then dropping. Guess Jose wanted to rid of these types early on. I don’t think he want students merely concerned about grades from what I notice (he hates when ppl completely drop when they have like a B). He values motivation, improvement, and perseverance a lot. He knows that the first semester final can be a tool to rid of those only concerned about grades (because if they do lame on the final, they won’t continue. Thus less students in 172 be like the student I alluded to above, who will basically give up after failing once). I think he realized that with our class.</p>