<p>To all MCB students out there, are almost everyone in this department pre-meds? All the posts I read seems that almost all MCB students are pre-meds and it's like some twisted sort of Darwinian survival of the fittest. What are the spread of grades in a typical science course that MCB studenta take? Thanks.</p>
<p>Its pretty top heavy IMO. The mean may be a 70 or 75 many times but that mean is pulled down by the outliers who fail (wheras the top scores can only be 20 points higher, people can easily score much more 20 points lower without proper preparation). Here's one distribution from MCB 160: <a href="http://mcb.berkeley.edu/courses/mcb160/grades.htm%5B/url%5D">http://mcb.berkeley.edu/courses/mcb160/grades.htm</a>.</p>
<p>It's a pretty big class so I'd treat it as representative of MCB. Its also not a requirement so the mean is a little higher than normal (lots more people take the premed requirement MCB classes which drag the mean down).</p>
<p>The mean will be pushed down lower for harder classes; especially a good ochem teacher where the mean will be a 50%. </p>
<p>Its time-consuming most of all to make A's. Many mcb upper div classes are essay/short answer format which requires a very good understanding of the material the professor wants.</p>