This has happened since the beginning of media. But even 4 decades ago when I was in school plenty of classmates hadn’t done the reading prior to class. It was common, and I was in the higher level classes where many of my peers went to Ivies or other “respected” schools.
Otherwise, I’ve skipped over a couple of hundred posts in this thread with no plans to go back to read them, so if more has been written about this, I apologize for missing it! My attention span had shifted to enjoying time with my family, etc.
Absolutely. I have a friend who was premed at a top competitive LAC and learned this trick too late. She was a B student in a number of STEM classes there, but the summer she took STEM classes at her local directional state college she got all As. Too late for her STEM GPA though, and it killed her chances. Too bad, as she would have made an excellent doctor. She had wanted to be a psychiatrist.
I wonder if this is parent or location dependent. I’ve never seen a single student in our lower level classes or below par in our higher level classes even remotely consider becoming an MD. I work in an area where <20% of adults have a college degree, which is why I wonder if it’s a parent push elsewhere. It isn’t here.
I taught at a high achieving suburban Boston high school. Many very entitled students. Seems like opposite of your situation. Vast majority of parents have college degrees.
Maybe I just know more overly optimistic students; a friend’s child is confident she will be admitted to med school despite her sub 3.0 college gpa and failure to take physics, ever.
Lots of students have been told to follow their dreams.
This is Albert Einstein’s HS equivalent report card. Notice that his grades ranged from a 3-6. If we are using our current academic standards, he would have been rejected by most of the top academic universities in our country and he certainly wouldn’t have gotten into medical school.
If his teachers subscribed to the philosophy that it’s important to be well qualified in every class you take, they would have told him that he wasn’t cut out to be a physicist.
Instead of “follow your dreams,” I tell kids to “follow your talents.” But again, that’s pretty basic and well-known around me. Where it isn’t is when a student could be doing more than they think they can and need some encouragement/guidance/financial aid to get to that path.
Yes, things were different 100 years ago. And maybe people who are unsuited for med school at 22 will blossom and become wonderful med school students at 42. It is not the norm, however.
Most people who cant do physics at 20 can’t do it later, either.
That may more of an indictment of the rigid educational systems of that time. Even in Germany today, we had an exchange student who was science-oriented. Problem was, mom had to decide in grade 4 what “track” he would go into. She chose the liberal arts, which it turns out did not suit his abilities. He spent his year at our US high school taking just about every science course he could squeeze into his schedule, and he stayed after school doing additional science projects. We all felt sorry for Max—a left-brain kid forced into a right-brained curriculum.
@roycroftmom , don’t get me started lol!! Kids who fear physics can do math in math class, in a vacuum, but can’t apply, i.e. use math in science settings.
That’s been my pet peeve forever, kids are not taught math is simply a tool to be used in physics, economics, statistics, etc. They “learn” how to solve for x but never how to apply it.
You can’t judge a book by its cover. Some truly outstanding physicians graduated from osteopathic medical schools. Some terrible physicians also graduated from highly ranked medical schools.
That Einstein wasn’t a good student is just a popular lore. The only subject he scored 3 in was French, which presumably wasn’t what he was interested in or relevant. He surely excelled in math and the sciences. He’s obviously special, or even unique, that any comparison with us mere mortals is likely to be very problematic.
What I was comparing are Caribbean med schools and their promises for results to US med schools (MD and DO). Anyone can google to see if a student’s odds are similar (or not).
Hint to those with short attention spans: They aren’t, esp for some specialties.
Those facts say nothing at all about individuals and how talented they are.
Agree that teaching methods must evolve with the way students digest information. Although there is also great variability in the effectiveness of professors/instructors to communicate/inspire students, no matter their mechanical methods.
What I would be concerned about is that expectations of the students’ mastery of the subject are being lowered. There seems to be pressure on this as students and their parents are treating higher education as a means to get “credentialed” for a better job, professional or grad school vs gaining substantive mastery over chosen subjects.
I must say it is also disturbing that in your experience students complain about pre class reading/preparation. Maybe I am too old school, but there are certain aspects of learning that come from passive intake of information that do not require instruction or interaction with the professor or other students. We then build on that base of knowledge through class from the professor and classmates as we get insights on the material that we may not have absorbed passively. Seems to be a misuse of class time and resources to conduct basic instruction that could have been done in advance. Students are busy taking notes/absorbing new concepts vs advancing their thinking.
I think in this interview, Professor Jones addresses the majority of comments in this thread.
In life, fair or not, everyone has to jump hoops and check-off boxes to get some of the things they want. OChem is a requirement for medical school. Just because it’s a requirement for medical schools doesn’t mean professors should lower their standards to make it easy to get an A.
Failure isn’t the problem. The problem is a lack of resilience among some students that prevents them from retaking the class, which is something allowed at most universities including NYU.
Approximately 38-41 % of applicants get accepted to medical school. Even if we could give everyone an A in OChem, the number of available slots won’t increase significantly, and more aspirants will be disappointed than successful.
“Failure isn’t the problem. The problem is a lack of resilience among some students that prevents them from retaking the class, which is something allowed at most universities including NYU.”
While retaking the class may be allowed at most universities, when applying for med school, ALL grades must be reported. So a D or F the first time around doesn’t go away.
True, but a D or F in a required course gives two reasonable options: retake the course or forget about med school. I’m sure there is some rare exceptions, but I do believe those are the realistic options.
