<p>is there a lot of lab work? how hard is it? any other factors?</p>
<p>Pre-med is considered difficult, because you need to be able to balance schoolwork, with research/ECs that demonstrate your interests in both medicine, and possibly other areas you are interested in (eg. music) Also, it can be difficult to get high grades in the courses required for pre-med, because of the grading curve. You also have to study for the MCAT exam, which I believe is a 5 hour exam.</p>
<p>I'm in a major where I have to take all but 2 premed classes (actually orgo II and orgo lab) -- really premed requirments are pathetically easy. They are just first year science courses and orgo (which is second year) let's see:</p>
<p>1 year of english, 1 of math, 1 of physics, 1 of chem, 1 of bio, 1 of orgo so there is basically only 1 year of second year course. I really don't see what's so hard. It's kind of sad to see Juniors taking Physics 101. Overall it seems to be easy -- ofcourse you got to have the EC, and the research and the MCATs but the actual school work is not so bad. I'm just finishing up freshmen year and I've already done calc, physics, chem and the labs in one year.</p>
<p>it depends which university your're at. Some public universities have difficult curves so that only like 20% of the class gets A's. Since you need as many A's as you can get to maintain a high GPA, all the premeds are competing hard for to get into and stay in the top 20%. The material in the basic classes isn't too hard, but its the curves that kill.</p>
<p>I think the consensus is that at most schools, it's not "pathetically easy". It's usually not the hardest track - engineering often is - but it's usually on the harder side.</p>
<p>Perhaps scorp goes to an easy school; perhaps he's a genius; probably a combination. I think he is a considerable exception to the experiences of most premeds.</p>
<p>SYDB, do you know any good pre-med schools that don't have this grading curve? also, i'm probably going to skip pre-med altogether and double major in humanities and business and complete the pre-med requirements along the way (since scorp gave me that suggestion), because, well, aren't med schools all into "helping humanity" these days? thanks for the input guys!</p>
<p>PS. but yes, the grading curve I find complete BS because if you are a good student then you shouldn't have to worry about what other students are doing and if you worked hard to get that A, then basically you should get that A. this kinda bums me out.</p>
<p>Is this grading curve really hard to overcome?</p>
<p>It's farily standard for premed classes. In intro bio and orgo at my school, you have to get one std. dev above the mean to get an A-. That works out to 16% A's.</p>
<p>I don't remember suggesting that people should do humanities and business? Am I misunderstanding you?
As far as me being a genius, I'm actually on the dumber end of the people in my department in terms of how much work I put in to get my grades. </p>
<p>As far as easy, if JHU is easy then I guess it is. As far as the curves hurting people, here at JHU the tests are hard enough that the average always however around 50% but you need to be one Standard deviation above the mean to get an A-/A which is not hard to do at all if you really actually study for the tests. I sometimes see low averages on easy tests and even lower ones on harder tests. It's really not hard to be a straight A student (ok with some Bs) at JHU you have to understand that there are a lot of people in these intro/pre med classes that are going to bring down the curve because they just didn't study. </p>
<p>Another thing about curves is, it seems that you can get B+ on all your tests and make an A- in the course because it's not the same people always getting the good grades in these classes like there was always that one group in Hs who always did well. At JHU it's always changing, some people have good weeks and bad weeks so they might have an A once and a D the next time. You just got to make sure that you stay about that average and you're golden. I really don't think that the premed track at JHU is hard at all maybe Orgo II is real killer but I don't see anything crazy around here. Most classes curve to a B/B- which is very reasonable. Very rarely does anyone curve to a C/C+.</p>
<p>As a side note I think that schools (universities) should reward students for doing well in difficult classes. Like if a guy is a bio chem engineer and he is taking Thermo or Transport and these classes are crazy hard then those should be like HS honors courses and these people should get higher GPAs. That way people won't have to decide between an honest major they are interested in and being pre-med. Basically we got to stop screwing engineers and people who major in difficult things out of their grades.</p>
<p>Anyway forgive the long post if something doesn't make sense, just ask.</p>
<p>JHU is certainly not an easy school - but I maintain my argument that scorp must certainly be very bright if he finds premed at Hopkins "pathetically easy".</p>
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<p>And if he's not recommending humanities and social science majors, I am!</p>
<p>In all seriousness, your major matters to schools only insomuch as it demonstrates real fire and passion. Find a major that you think will make you a better doctor - in my case, economics - and run with it. That's often a science - sometimes it's not.</p>
<p>im pretty sure that almost all colleges have a grading curve in some classes. At times the curve actually helps (on difficult exams) because the 55% you get on the Orgo final will translate to an A. In terms of handing out A's, i think small private universities are best. I also heard that certain Ivy league schools are lenient with handing out A's, but state schools like the UC's definately make you work to earn your grade.</p>
<p>frm what i heard, JHU is extremely hard for premed-scorp probably is an extremely gifted student</p>
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I also heard that certain Ivy league schools are lenient with handing out A's
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<p>now thats just completely false and off the wall. The only classes where they "hand out A's" in ivy league schools is some humanities classes where it is very subjective...but when it comes to your science classes you will have about as many As as you would in any other school and those A's are just that much harder to achieve since all your classmates are smarter and more driven than students in most non-ivy schools. Let me give you two examples...in intro bio last semester, no more than 15-20% of the class got something in the A range (A or A-) and trust me its quite difficult to do. In second semester orgo last year i was pulling about an 85% avg and that landed me with a B+ since the curve was really rough since people are smart and try very hard. </p>
<p>So what you can conclude from this is that you have "heard" wrong SYDB.</p>
<p>Erm I take back the "pathetically easy" remark because they are not pathetically easy but still I believe that they should be harder for future doctors. Overall I don't think it's hard to get a good GPA as a premed but I do think it is hard to get a good GPA and the EC you need for med school. So the overall process is not pathetically easy. I'm certaintly not gifted in any way and I struggle under the load I have in school but I can imagine that pre-meds can have it easier if they arrange their courses properly. Don't let me mislead people into thinking that premed (especially at JHU) is easy. It's not easy. But if you really want to be a doctor you'll be just fine even at the school that people hold up to the light as the "premeds beware JHU is HAAAAARD" school.</p>
<p>bdm, yea some people give me funny looks when i tell them i'm wanna go 2 med school and i'm majoring in humanities/business but my counselor told me that humanities really shows the adm. officers you care about advancing health and etc. and business is always helpful if i want to start my own practice later on. the best part tho is that if the whole med thing doesnt work out, i can always get an MBA. </p>
<p>however, my first choice was to take history (i absolutely LOVE history) but i didnt see how that could tie in with medicine so i was like what the heck...</p>
<p>i know this is kinda silly but anyone know of any "easy" pre-med programs? :D</p>
<p>good discussion guys! keep it goin! lol</p>
<p>at UM the curve just depends on how well the rest of the class does as a lot of people here are pointing out. But it varies 2...in my general chem class 1st term, the grades were set in stone 85+ A, 70+ B, 55+ C...in my orgo class the class avg almost always is the same so an 80+ A, 60+ B, 40+ C but it sometimes fluctuates +- 1 or 2 pts..but that rarely ever happens</p>
<p>same with physics...i guess when you are an undergrad, its better to just beat the rest of the herd in w/e class you're taking rather than go crazy and try and get an A in everything...or at least that's what I think...cause as long as you beat the avg, you will get curved to a higher grade at the end of the term</p>
<p>when i look at what i just said UM premed is actually not that hard...until you take the first orgo exam and they color in your answer boxes after having so much fun ripping your score apart lol</p>
<p>man...this stinks! why can't colleges give out grades just like in high school? it seems to me to be much clearer, easier to understand and fairer for both the students and the faculty. are there any colleges do the regular A, B, C system?</p>
<p>Here at Vassar we’ve got tons of pre-meds and unlike most schools (as it seems), a regular A, B, C system. There’s a college policy of no curving grades so it (usually) doesn’t matter how other students in the class are doing. The only courses in which they do occasionally curve are economics and math. Otherwise, we have an 85% med school acceptance rate and students do extremely well in medical school. So yea, I don’t understand why other schools have all this unnecessary stress with curving and all that…</p>
<p>I believe pre-med is difficult for me because it is something that i constantly think about, and it just consumes me, even while not taking classes. i’m also a humanities major, yet i always think about my science courses, and just about all of my ecs are non-science related. it’s just something that takes over your life if you let it, and it’s easy to let it control you…at least that’s been my experience with it.</p>
<p>as for class difficulty, i go to penn, and pre-med classes have the hardest curves of all courses, with about 10-15% or so getting As (A+/A/A-)…i’ve found that you get back what you put into your courses. if you study hard, youll get some type of an A. if you slack off, you’re gonna pay for it. and most class averages on tests come to anywhere between a 50 and an 80. i rarely have gotten one SD above the average, and i’ve gotten As in classes despite this because of what scorp said, some kids don’t do as well on every exam. if you’re consistently “close” to the SD, you’ll do just fine. perhaps scorp doesn’t find it exceedingly difficult because he’s accepted everything he must give up to do well, but that’s just speculation. i find it difficult because there are lots of other things id love to do other than sit and study all the time.</p>
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<p>I went to a big state school for undergrad, but I doubt grading’s way different. </p>
<p>If by “regular A, B, C system” you mean “A=90-100; B=80-89; C=70-79” you probably won’t find that in many upper level science classes (and even some intro classes, but my experience is that intro level classes tend to stick to stricter grade cutoffs). </p>
<p>Instead, you’ll probably find that your professors will say something like “Grading for this course is done on a standard curve. In the past, students with >88% earned As; >79% earned Bs; >70% earned Cs; etc.” My professors typically posted grade breakdowns after every exam–so for a really tough test, with the class average around…say, 65%…you’d earn an A on that test if you got >85%. For an easier test with a higher average score, then you might have to get >90% to get an A. In the end, as long as you’ve basically stayed in the same bracket of scores for the semester, you’ll get your A. [*I totally made up these numbers, but I hope you get the gist]</p>
<p>For a class that’s really hard, having a curve can be great because it allows you to still get a good grade even if you have a low score. In the above example, if the professor stuck to the rigid system like high school, a score of 86% on the first test (where the A cutoff on the curve was 85%) earns a B regardless of what that 86% represents. By curving the class, the professor can adjust the grades to fit a different range of scores depending on the exam (or assignment or whatever). </p>
<p>Most of the time, I think it’s a fairer way to grade provided the professor’s pretty transparent and tells the class what the cutoffs are for each exam (which is typical). Grading on a curve allows the professor to decide “the top 25% of my students will get As in this course” and then allows students to compete for that top 25%. And I’d be willing to bet that if the curve’s skewed, you’ll have more people helping the curve (getting scores in the 40s and 50s, thus lowering the class average, and making the A cutoff lower) than you will have people killing the curve (getting scores in the mid-nineties, thus raising the class average, and making the A cutoff higher)–and most of the time, they’ll even out.</p>
<p>All in all, the grading system of your courses is something you can’t really do anything about–so your best bet is to read the syllabus, understand the system, and ask the professor if you have any concerns. By and large, profs are looking to help you succeed in their classes, and every one I’ve talked to about grading strategies has been quite helpful. </p>
<p>In my experience, this curve strategy seems to apply to either really large classes (some of mine were 600+ spread out over a few sections) or really tough ones. I’ve had some small seminar classes where the entire class gets an A, and I’ve had some mid-sized (~80 students) lower-level classes that stick to strict grade cutoffs like high school. It really just depends on the professor and the course.</p>
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<p>And to the original question, how hard is pre-med exactly?, I’ll contribute this: I don’t think the classes themselves are particularly daunting. Of course, some will be harder than others, and some will be a total joke. But the majority of them are manageable as long as you’re diligent. I think pre-med is hard because it requires some pretty exquisite time management on your part–you have to juggle excelling in academics, authentic volunteering, meaningful leadership, clinical experiences, some sort of scholarly endeavor (like research), some hobbies, your social life, and your personal life. (I’m sure I’ve left something out, lol.) Is any one of those elements particularly difficult? I don’t think so. But putting together the entire package–which is what med schools are looking for–takes a ton of work and almost relentless dedication.</p>