I agree with @CU123 . Chem and then Organic Chemistry at the highest ranked schools are more difficult because of who is in your class. When I was at Northwestern (years ago), the class was graded on a curve. I was a star student at my Illinois high school, graduated fifth out of 600 kids, and got a C in Orgo at NU. And, if I remember correctly, my average in the class was something like a 42%. That was a C. These classes are nothing like you see in high school.
The advice I’m always heard for better chances at med school admission is to attend a school where you will be a big fish in a small pond and then rock your classes.
Each school has a different set of “weed out” classes, for premed, in one school that might be orgo, in another school that may be bio, it depends on the school and the professor, but it won’t be easy for pre-med track either way. I totally agree a big fish in a small pond syndrome for pre-med, to venture into a top school with premed track is self destruction because you are competing with the best of the best for those A’s. My D went to a top school with the intention of being a researcher in Bio studies. But she changed her mind after two years to pre-med track, as a result, her GPA was not protected. With the hardest classes in the school on her belt, she ended up with 3.5 in gpa and 34 in Mcat. She did not get into any MD school and had to settle in a DO school.
For pre-meds, all courses are “weed out” courses, since a pre-med can afford to get very few non-A grades and still have a chance of being admitted to a medical school.
I was never pre-med, but my impression was that organic chemistry was THE weed-out class for pre-med pretty much everywhere.
I took the 2-semester intro. biology sequence and can’t imagine how that could be used as a weed-out class. Biology was one of the easiest classes I took in college, and I’m sure as heck no Einstein.
The first weeders are first year (or intro) chem, bio, calc. Orgo comes later. Any kid can find her/himself over challenged. It’s not just about being tops in hs. Your hs could be more lenient or not train in the critical thinking.
Friend’s daughter failed orgo at an elite LAC. Prof had said, only the best of you will get through this. For FA reasons, she transferred to another top LAC. Decided to retake orgo. First day, that prof said, my goal is your education. We will get through this together.
It’s not always about an individual prof. They don’t operate in a vacuum. It’s the dept. And the college.
@simba9
It does not mean you had an easy pass in bio that every school has the same standard. D took a one year series of “intro” bio classes that are open to only those got AP 5 in HS bio class. They were the hardest classes in her life and got B- average whereas she got As in orgo.
I can only speak for classes at my school, where there are mostly science majors:
“Weed out” courses are general courses like Chemistry, Biology, Orgo, and Calculus that are meant to see who passes and who fails. Those who fail often drop out of the school. For example, my friend was a biomedical sciences major and he withdrew from Pre-Calculus because he was doing really poorly. That put him in a really tight position because he couldn’t advance to Chem II. Ultimately, in order to stay on track and not fall behind, he transferred to University of Scranton. The more advanced the courses get, the more likely people drop out, leaving only the best and brightest to compete with each other. Think of it as survival of the fittest.
I don’t think schools weed students out on purpose. They don’t want you to fail at all but it’s just the classes do tend to get harder each year of college. Some majors definitely aren’t easy. I always hear Engineering majors being weeded out a lot but did you really think the highest paying majors would be as easy as something like Communications or Sociology?
@bhs1978 Yep, me too. The world needs all kinds of people, and there are all kinds of skills and types of intelligence.
An engineer could thrive in a technical environment but be an absolute disaster in a boardroom. Respect should be had for all who are the tops of their respective fields. At D’s school, engineering students can definitely be full of themselves, but the business school is uber competitive and tough to get into, so it is no consolation prize.
I don’t think certain lower division classes are designed to make most students fail or drop either. Schools want you to succeed, achieve your dreams and graduate. But if a student can’t get through the lower division requirements to get into a certain program, how are they going to expect to get through the upper division requirements of it? It’s just going to get harder junior and senior year. Not everyone is cut out for really hard majors such as Business, Engineering and Nursing. I was a Business major but I hated Microeconomics and the stuff just didn’t click so I switched to Sociology. Being weeded out probably was the best thing that happened to me since being in college. I have much less stress now being that it’s a straight forward subject for me.