<p>What is the med school atmosphere like? I've heard from some current students that it's like high school in terms of things like overall class size. Is there "homework" in med school or is it mostly just studying for exams? How is it different from college?</p>
<p>Every school will be different. Some campuses are “chill”; some are “intense”. </p>
<p>Med school class size will run anywhere from ~60 to ~300 students. Individual class sizes will depend on the teaching approach the school uses. Lecture oriented schools may have every single student in 1 lecture hall w/ 1 lecturer for classes. Small group learning approach schools may break students into groups as small as 5 or 6 people.</p>
<p>Yes, there is homework in med school. D1 was over at my house emptying my pantry/refrigerator Sunday afternoon (Her version of cooking/grocery shopping…) b****ing about a homework set she had to turn for her endocrine system unit. (Can you believe the gunners, mom? Turned in 8 page papers to answer 2 short answer problems–overnight. Even the course graders asked them to knock it off.) You will be writing research papers, analysis papers, critical response papers, summaries of assigned readings, patient charts & reports, case study write-ups and other things. (Like a work diary kept for a clinical site.) </p>
<p>Plenty of studying for exams too.</p>
<p>From what I’ve heard, the main difference from college is the sheer amount of material covered.</p>
<p>yea there is homework. For me, it’s mainly for the nonscience classes we have to take. 500 word essay a week for 6 weeks… not cool</p>
<p>bigreddawgie, if you don’t mind me asking, what types of "nonscience classes are taken in med school?</p>
<p>ethics, patient doc relationship, social science, etc. i think my school requires more of these classes than most schools.</p>
<p>Every med school requires ethics. 4 years of ethics.</p>
<p>D1 also a doctor-patient class that cover stuff like power dynamics and how to deal with common communication issues and stuff like that.</p>
<p>My school lets you take free classes in whatever you want (anything available at the university at large), but has specific courses in ethics, philosophy, stats/epidemiology, and one humanities course.</p>
<p>interesting. homework at my school is very rare unless you count weekly quizzes as homework.</p>
<p>In college I spent 2-3 hours a day in class and some semester I had labs. In med school I usually spend probably 6-8 hours a day in class, small groups, or labs and the classes move at a pace MUCH faster than my college courses (e.g. 100+ powerpoint slides in 50 mins). In the first semester of my second year, I had an exam every week. In college, I usually did no work except for a few days before the exam. In med school I do work every day.</p>
<p>Socially, in college most of my friends did not study the same stuff as me, and there were 1400 students in my year so I definitely didn’t personally know every classmate. My med school is 1/10 the size and we spend the 6-8 hours together every day with the same people so I know all of them.</p>
<p>I go to a pass/fail school so everyone is super eager to help everyone else out. My friends at graded schools do not have the same experience.</p>
<p>no quizzes, tests once per 8 weeks, but twice-weekly “homework assignments” that involve researching a specific, relevant topic and preparing a 10-15min oral/powerpoint presentation on it. </p>
<p>my school’s pass/fail, i’d consider the environment to be quite collegial/collaborative, and i’d say we value community a lot. i know each person in my class of 100 very well, and would consider the social environment to be similar to high school (my hs class was 75).</p>
<p>is there a list of the pass/fail schools?</p>
<p>P56, I suspect there isn’t that kind of a list available, but is that information listed on the MSAR per each individual school?</p>
<p>limabeans…i didnt see it in msar…but it probably would be on each schools website?</p>
<p>Huh. I thought it was in MSAR. I will use some google-fu.</p>
<p>Here’s a thread from 2009 right here on CC. I do not attest to the accuracy of the info contained therein. Even though it appears I posted in it. 
</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/676415-pass-fail-medical-school.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/676415-pass-fail-medical-school.html</a></p>
<p>Interestingly (to me at least), the two schools I posted about in that pre-application thread were her final two med schools standing. lol Now that is a successful app list. ;)</p>
<p>And a sdn link to a thread from this year that has a link to a spreadsheet. [pass/fail</a> schools | Pre-Medical Allopathic [ MD ] | Student Doctor Network](<a href=“pass/fail schools | Student Doctor Network”>pass/fail schools | Student Doctor Network)</p>
<p>Sift through carefully…and resist the urge to post on your kid’s account. They tell on you when you goof the password. Ask me how I know. ;)</p>
<p>thanks curm! the new msar is only available online and i hate comparing things online… still old school and want paper pages and spreadsheets :). so the msar i have is a 2010. and i avoid sdn…makes a person break out in a sweat!</p>
<p>sdn is a wonderful resource. But it’s kinda like one of our rattle-bugs, you can deal with it, you just have to keep your foot right behind his head.
Specific school app threads are especially useful.</p>
<p>in my opinion, pass fail ranked isn’t better than having actual grades.</p>
<p>^ very true and brings up a good point, always find out EXACTLY what a school means by “pass/fail.” I remember one school advertised itself as pass/fail which revealed that it was high pass/pass/fail. Or as big red points out, some schools are p/f but still rank the kids based on their test scores which defeats the purpose. My school for example is true pass/fail during the first two years, with our final ranking based on things like clinical year grades/evals, research, step 1, leadership, volunteer, etc. In other words, 1st/2nd year academics are nowhere to be found in the ranking although obviously your performance on step 1 is a proxy for your performance during the 1st 2 years.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Ditto. </p>
<p>Our dean’s list (or whatever they call it now) is apparently typically a few pages long; performance in preclinical years is distilled down to one measly paragraph, and the rest of the letter is about the things iwbb mentioned.</p>