College physics is generally a med school requirement; calc-based physics is not.
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I don’t see this analogy at all. Unlike online physician reviews, all students are requested to fill out teacher evaluations, possibly providing a more valid snapshot of overall performance (more valid, certainly not completely so). And like all teachers, Dr. Jones is offered a means of responding to those evaluations.
This is not the case for online physician reviews. While even ratemyprofessors allows for instructor response, there is no such recourse offered to physicians at the receiving end of negative online reviews. To respond would be a HIPAA violation. These are the reasons online physician review platforms are coming under scrutiny.
Teacher reviews are not comparable to physician reviews, IMO. Further, the suggestion that “what goes around comes around” is chilling to me in this context.
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The ironic thing about calculus-based physics is that if you can handle the calculus, it actually simplilfies the math, as opposed to complicating it. That was my experience.
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There are quite a few combined BS-MD programs in the United States. Many students who are selected into these programs end up being among the best performing medical students at their institution. Overseas, there are many countries in which medical students are selected directly from high school as well.
Although the traditional US standard relies on a college education first, it’s not absolutely necessary to rely on college grades and MCAT scores to determine the “intellect/academics piece” of which candidate is best suited to attend medical school.
BTW, organic chemistry, biochemistry, and pharmacology have almost nothing in common. You can take 1 class without taking any of the others and not be disadvantaged in any way.
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IME, the challenge with calculus based physics is the class is full of engineering students (or students in other majors requiring calc-based physics) who often have an AP Physics C background and will wreck the curve
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But, broadly speaking, medical training in the past hasn’t done a particularly good job of identifying and educating those best suited to be doctors, because the requirements and demands weren’t closely correlated to one’s potential to become a competent physician. One glaring example is female physicians, which used to make up less than 10% of the total physicians in the US. This wasn’t because females didn’t have the potential to be good doctors. Rather it is because females faced hurdles that males (particular wealthier, well-connected, white males) did not face. Education shouldn’t be about creating artificial barriers that adversely impact some students and not others.
Further, Organic Chemistry isn’t competently designed to fairly measure all students ability to overcome unfair obstacles. It should be about teaching and learning Organic Chemistry. If doctors need an ‘overcoming unreasonableness’ characteristic, then they should be trained and tested in this, but in a way that doesn’t unfairly advantage certain students and disadvantage others.
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You just described my chemical engineer son. At his state flagship, he took physics with other engineering majors. Pre med, straight chem majors, etc. had different courses geared for them.
Engineering majors tend to have among the lowest GPAs at most universities.
If the average pre-med took the same science classes with engineering majors and received their average grades, he/she probably wouldn’t get into medical school because the required GPAs are too stringent. Medical schools typically don’t differentiate applicants by their course rigor.
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Out of curiosity, why not?
Don’t know. From what I can tell, they all seem to have pretty well-defined GPA cutoffs. It doesn’t seem to matter what school you attend or what your major is. If someone knows better, feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
This is a quote from the link I posted earlier in the thread.
“What does this mean exactly? Your MCAT and GPA are the two criteria that will earn you a foot in the door. Assuming these two metrics meet minimum cut offs set by a medical school, your application will actually be reviewed by a human being. If not, your application can be automatically rejected.”
Kind of sums up why premeds are so grade conscious.
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Are you saying that there are more women attending medical school now bc the admissions standards were changed to accommodate them? Or that more men used to be admitted because they had connections that gave them an advantage in the med school admissions process?
I didn’t identify any singular reason why the educational process was failing to identify and train females who had the potential to become competent physicians. Nor do I believe there is a singular reason.
In general you are correct. But schools want diversity, which also includes diversity of majors and geographic regions, so being, for instance, an RTF major from BYU, with everything else being equal, might be more appealing to, say NYU med school than another NYU biology major.
And as long as the science classes are not taken at a community college (which is viewed as less rigorous).
In general, it’s also the 10% rule. It doesn’t matter where you go or what you do, just be in the top 10%. Which is why another poster said that it doesn’t matter for these students - they’re probably not getting in regardless of this OChem class, because, and I know I will get backlash, but the reality is they’re probably not at that top level.
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Does the diversity evaluation occur before or after the GPA cutoff is made?
My understanding was that the GPA/MCAT score was the first cut (with exception of special populations). After that cut, the admissions office starts to hone in on what makeup is important for their next matriculating class.
You are correct that there are filters. Schools cannot go though 10,000 applications. If an applicant doesn’t have the GPA and MCAT level required, it won’t move forward. Then there’s other things. Everyone is in a club. So what? We’re you president? Everyone has research. So what? We’re you first author? Everyone has clinical exposure. So what? Was it several years with meaningful impact? Then there are the people with unique experiences - worked at NASA for 10 years, stay at home mom returning to school, worked in the Peace Corp, worked as a judge for the X games, etc
But there are a lot of 4.0s out there with low MCATs. What does that tell you?
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The irony, though, is that they might easily have been in the top 10% had they gone elsewhere. NYU has become very selective. The premeds fighting the curve to get As in Dr. Maitland Jones’ 350 person O-Chem class probably have plenty of potential as measured by their high school grades, rigor and ACT scores. Had they gone to a small and nurturing LAC, they would be receiving the academic resources they need in order to shine.
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It tells me that this is really just a big game.
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I wholeheartedly agree! It doesn’t matter where you go. Go where you will be at the top. Same for medical school and wanting to get into residency. Go to the school with less competitive classmates to make it easier to be at the top.
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Grade inflation. Everyone gets an A. But when it comes time for the MCAT, well, I guess it’s more of an equalizer.
And in a way it is a game, you’re right, and some people are calling for a lottery system. I just don’t see that happening. Physicians want to interview and be able to be a filter to try to parse out those with unsavory personalities which will be detected in those interviews.
But since this is veering off topic, I will leave it at that.
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Residency is different from medical school. Residency directors will differentiate what medical school an applicant is attending. The most competitive residencies will not consider students who attend certain medical schools. But yes, many also use board score cutoffs, too. But they have recently changed to a pass/fail system. Not sure what that means now.
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