From my experience, most good engineers don’t find law that challenging or desirable in my opinion, unless they go into specific patent law area; that’s the reason for their not going into law, not because of any other reason. Generally, they are pretty strong in logic so they tend to do well at law school, but law school learning does not appeal to many of them.
I want to see grades of whoever wrote this article.
“Nortoriously” based on those, at a variety of colleges, which are intended to be weeders. It’s not the general materials, but the expectations and, at some, testing on materials not covered in classes or readings.
There are those pre-meds or med students who claim they were a breeze. But that still depends on the college, the classes, the profs. And the resilience of the students.
@Creekland, I was going to let your post go by and for the most part, I am. I don’t know why you are personalizing something that is not aimed at your children and becoming so defensive. I’m speaking only of my own thoughts and feelings ** without regard to my own children ** about the way in which professional schools look at applicants and about some of the gaming that I have seen. We have a lot of doctors in both families and they are the ones expressing the most concern over the trends in medicine. (We also have a lot of lawyers and in that case, they shake their heads over the worth of following that path at all, high GPA or not.)
I’m not dissing high achievers per se. I would never paint with such a broad brush to say that all kids earning 4.0s are dishonest or strategizing or brittle. I merely see the point being made. The article may not be the best vehicle to make this point but the issues raised are worth discussion. That’s all.
Perhaps I misread your final comment. Are you suggesting that my post “reeks of jealousy?” If so, I can assure you, there’s no jealousy. It’s offensive of you to suggest this so I’ll hope that was not what you intended.
@3girls3cats I’m not specifically aiming anything at you. This thread has plenty of people dissing high achievers - talking about how they aren’t good at this or that or don’t have a life. That’s what reeks of jealousy.
Someone’s GPA and who they are as a person character-wise aren’t related. For every person trying to game the system for an A there’s at least one trying to game the system for a C (or passing grade that’s useful). I know of plenty who were happy with D giving us the phrase “D means done!” They’d do extra credit or basic pleading to get that little bit extra to get it. What’s the difference in that sort of gaming? It happens all the time, often with admin even coming down on teachers to make passing possible. Admin never comes down on teachers (where I work) telling them to make an A possible.
If I had to take a pure guess on two applications that seemed similar, I’d take the one with the significantly higher GPA over lower because what I’ve seen from thousands of students at school, the odds are better with that person being “better” for the job or position. (For med school this means the same MCAT score “equalizing” base knowledge/thinking ability.) It’s definitely not a perfect correlation though. This is why other things on the applications are looked at.
Totally unrelated to the above, my current med school lad decided to be a doctor when he was eight. Out of the blue he told me he was going to be a doctor or lawyer when he grew up. Filling my “mom” job I said something to the effect of, “That’s nice dear,” with no plans to hold him to it. Immediately afterward he asked me, “What’s a lawyer do anyway?” I stifled a laugh and explained a bunch of lawyer tasks to him. He replied, “Ok, a doctor then - definitely NOT a lawyer.” I guess even then my STEM boy was bored at the thought.
My curiosity had me asking him what brought the topic up anyway. He told me his (third grade) teacher told him, “You need to be a doctor or lawyer someday.” He took it to heart. Never underestimate what an offhand comment can mean to a young lad, though it also shows that people automatically think about such professions when they see a “smart” kid doing well in school.
http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/pre-med-topics/2058785-confessions-of-a-med-school-app-reader-p1.html may be worth reading for pre-meds and those wondering about the admission process.
No, you do not need a 4.0 GPA to get into medical school, but you can only afford a limited number of grades lower than A (especially B+ or lower) in order to get a college GPA that will get your application read in a timely fashion*. However, once you get there, it becomes holistic, where academic strength among other things might matter (though it is likely that a typical medical school application reader will be unfamiliar with which courses are known to be hard or easy at your college, unless s/he attended the same college).
*Note that a 3.7 college GPA is generally considered a lot harder to earn than a 3.7 high school GPA.
Seems like most pre-med required courses are those suitable for biology majors. For example, “physics for poets” courses are not allowed, but “physics for biology majors” courses that are less rigorous than “physics for physics majors” courses are allowed.
This weeding business IS a problem for plain old bio majors or anyone else trying to cover their academic bases for other goals.
Any holistic program, UG or prof school, means choices and experiences matter.
You can read the specific requirements on the websites of different medical schools. The usual requirement is a basic course that covers material on the level of HS AP (organic chem is an exception), regardless of whether it’s the best option for biology majors or not. For example, Johns Hopkins Med School was mentioned earlier. Their physics requirement is quoted below.
The least rigorous and slowest level of freshman physics offered by the college that does use any calculus to solve problems usually meets this requirement, which is in what my experience most pre-meds choose. Engineering majors often are required to take a freshman physics class that uses calculus, so there would often be a division by major in this case. However, for other pre-med courses, the division by (non-premed) majors often doesn’t go the same way. For example, it wouldn’t benefit the typical bio major to take the slowest and least rigorous freshman chem class, yet in my experience most pre-meds choose this option.
If you look at the grade distribution for highly selective colleges in pre-med classes, it’s usually not that bad, particularly when you consider the level of rigor and percentage non-majors. At highly selective colleges, the median grade is usually A- or B+ (there are exceptions).
“Yes, the premed classes are difficult. I don’t know that they are all notoriously difficult. Ask an engineering student how they feel about it. From what I understand the hardest premed classes are no more difficult than engineering classes or tough math classes, both of which impose more deflated grading.”
You only need one weed-out class to make a major difficult. I said this before, I’ll say it again, I know some people that took ochem at my undergrad and told me what the professor said, As are for gods, Bs are for geniuses C’s for grad students and Ds and Fs for the rest of you. Of course he’s exaggerating but a weed course by definition is supposed to get people to switch the major.
I was an engineering major and there were weed out classes in engineering as well, electricity and magnetism for EEs, switching theory for computer engineers, etc, but if you get a C or D, you can still get a job. If you get a C or D in ochem, you’re not applying to med school.
My dr went to undergrad at Berkeley and he said the Chem class for pre-meds was 1800 freshman year, the pre-meds went down to 600 senior year. No other major or discipline has that kind of attrition.
Pre-meds aren’t the only ones who take chem classes at Berkeley. I assume you mean Chem 1A – General Chemistry for non-majors and/or students who scored poorly on the AP exam? Many students take this class besides just pre-meds, so trying to calculate attrition rate based on combined class enrollment over multiple semesters is ridiculously inaccurate.
That said, yes pre-med has a higher attrition rate than most fields. For example, one recent news story at Stanford reported that an average of 363 entering students at Stanford expressed some degree of interest in pre-med, but only 294 students (81%) applied to medical school during this period. While the number applying to med school was clearly smaller than the number of entering students expressing an interest in pre-med, I wouldn’t assume this means the other 19% were all “weeded out.” There are lots of reasons students choose to change their mind about what field to enter between freshman and senior year besides just “weeding.”
For example, I had high enough grades that I expect I would have been accepted to med school, but I thought pursuing graduate school in engineering instead was a better fit for me. I know multiple classmates who have made similar decisions in spite of having excellent grades, many of whom went on to earn PhDs, rather than MDs. While in college, many students learn about new fields and career options that they did not know existed during high school and change their mind about career plans they had during HS. Along the same lines, there are no doubt some students who applied to medical school, even though they did not mention any interest in pre-med as entering freshman.
I highly suspect Engineering has as many who opt for a different career path due to grades as Pre-meds, maybe more.
Not all schools allow the “easiest” course to be taken by pre-meds. I know URoc required Calc based Physics. That said, I don’t see where it’s a big deal to take non-Calc based Physics instead. I don’t think someone should be weeded out of becoming a doctor merely because they can’t do well in Calc based Physics. Physics is a tough course for many people and if their brains are wired more toward the Humanities taking it at the Calc based level is unnecessary.
I have no problem with basic Bio/Chem being weed out courses. If students can’t do well in those classes they are unlikely to do well in med school. I don’t know that many folks consider those courses notoriously hard at many colleges though. They’re just weed outs. (BIG NOTE: At some schools they are harder than others, so again, select according to the student’s ability. My own lads compared Bio 101 classes by sitting in on each other’s. At my one lad’s CC class they were taught, “there’s an enzyme that helps with this process.” At my other lad’s Research U they had to know 8 or 9 enzymes by name and what they did for the same process. If one isn’t big into Bio, that’s a large difference. If doctors need to know the enzymes, they will get taught them in med school.) Overall though, when I hear notoriously hard used with pre-med classes it’s pretty much always with OChem and sometimes Physics/Calc.
The simple issue with becoming a doctor in this country is that there are very limited spots in med school and even more limited spots for residencies. As it is now with essentially only high grade/MCAT students applying, roughly 60% won’t get in to a US MD school anywhere. It makes sense that med schools select for the best candidates they can simply because they can. When one gets thousands of applications and can only interview hundreds, one has to make the cut somehow. If folks out there think the 3.0 candidate should be interviewed instead of the 3.7 candidate, how do you propose making that happen. How do they figure out which 3.0 candidates to fill the interview slots - remembering that there will be oodles more of them if more think they have a realistic chance of getting in?
It isn’t “just” those with the highest grades/MCAT scores getting in. The “no admissions at all” rate among the top of the top is still around 9% last I checked. One needs hours of shadowing, volunteering, and other ECs as well.
I read a response to the original article in the Washington Post today, making sure we all know that in HIGH SCHOOL As matter a lot.
Making the grade still matters — at least in college admissions
…where he begins by discussing hte important of HS GPA. But then he goes on:
[quote] ...it’s not only applications with all A’s that rise to the top of a pile in an admissions office. Officers look for students who challenge themselves by taking courses outside academic areas where they are strongest.
While grades play a critical role in getting into college, as Grant noted, they play little to no role at the other end — when college graduates are looking for jobs.
[/quote]
Not really disagreeing with the original piece, that last bit.
Oh, great, another guy writing a book about admissions. Another guy interviewing adcoms, no experience of his own.
URoc doesn’t offer freshman physics without any calculus. Pre-meds generally take the lowest level and least rigorous option available to them. The point was not specific to physics – it was pre-meds and others who feel the need to protect their GPA often taking the easiest and least rigorous course options available to them whether it be in physics, chemistry, or electives. Some pre-meds at highly selective colleges go so far as to take their pre-med courses over the summer at less selective colleges, such as Stanford pre-meds taking intro freshman science classes at Santa Clara Univsersity, as discussed at https://www.mercurynews.com/2008/07/21/stanford-pre-meds-spend-summer-at-santa-clara-university-where-physics-is-much-easier/ . The author writes,
*“The Stanford students go there because it’s a guaranteed A,” said Gerald Fisher, who teaches physics at Stanford and has only 20 Stanford students this summer, compared to more than 100 during other quarters. “That completely astounds me.”
What’s more, Fisher said, is the Santa Clara instructor “is a high school teacher!”"*
While there is a good amount of variation from school to school and professor to professor, I think the degree of “weeding out” by design is often exaggerated. STEM classes with objective grading tend to be graded more harshly, as do intro freshman classes where most students are not majors, as do the lowest level and least rigorous versions of those classes . However, even with all of these effects, median grades are often in the high B or low A range at highly selective private colleges, with very few earning C grades. Less selective colleges with fewer students doing A quality work tend to give a smaller portion A grades, but a similar pattern with a shift in all grades. There are some Kamen Amai like professors who want to only let a rare few through to the next level, but that is the exception, not the rule.
For example, a summary of the most common grades given out in classes at Stanford as reported at edusalsa.com is below (grade reports are general from several years ago). When there is a sequence of courses, I summed across the full sequence. Comparing with other non-premed intro STEM classes, there often does appear to be a difference. In others the most common grade is usually A and next B like several below, but the percentage earning A’s is often higher. Nevertheless, a large portion of students are generally getting A’s in these classes and very few are generally getting C’s. Also note that these classes are not specific to just pre-med students. For example, Hum Bio is the most common major among both pre-meds and recruited athletes, so I’d expect there are a good number of non pre-med recruited athletes in the HumBio classes.
Possible Pre-med “Weeder” Classes
Low Rigor Freshman Physics – Most common grade is A, next is B+
Low Rigor Freshman Chem – Most common grade is B+, next is A-
Organic Chem – Most common grade is A, next is B
Bio and HumBio – Most common grade is A, next is B
I didn’t see any posts suggesting taking 3.0 applicants. I think the root of the problem is various failures in the health care system of the United States, which influence supply and demand at a variety of levels including university level. However, I won’t go off topic and discuss here.
But isn’t that what most journalists and authors do? The interview and research people in the field and then draw conclusions and write a book?
The major issue relates to performance vs mastery oriented motivations for academic achievement & impact of the current academic climate but nahh About the weed out classes…most disciplines start with survey classes packed full of facts and material about a broad range of topics. The intention is to build a strong foundation upon which all other learning about the topic can be supported. Almost every major has those entry level classes. And they are almost always more difficult than the subsequent classes. In fact, by the time a student gets to the 400’s the GPA will usually have improved substantially. But some topics are inherently more difficult for most students than other topics. Those that serve as the basis for a pre-med major are more difficult tan many other topics. I don’t hear people say that the 100 and 200 level classes in philosophy, psychology or sociology are “weed out” classes but they are the same as those described as “weed out classes” for pre-med topics. It’s just that they tend to be easier because the subject matter is more easily digested by more people. Content different form the same.
“Weed out” is not about the courses themselves, but about how much better a student has to do than passing the course (with a C grade) to continue with the desired path.
At many colleges, majors like philosophy and sociology are open (not capacity limited) majors, so that any student who can pass (with C grades) the introductory courses can study those majors and graduate. However, pre-med is inherently a “weed out” process, because a very high college GPA is necessary to have any chance of admission to a medical school; while C grades get degrees, they will not lead to getting into medical school.
I’d say weeding is very much about these initial classes, themselves. That’s why students with solid past learning and abilities get waylaid.
Social sciences and other humanities draw on another form of thinking and processing. There generally aren’t the twists (and, to some extent, sabotage,) of the early math-sci courses, at some colleges. Don’t make them out to be simply easier.
I agree that getting straight A’s requires conformity. So do most ways of making a living, including (I speak from experience) being an entrepreneur. For the most part, adulting means following the rules. Intellect and creativity don’t hurt, but meeting deadlines matters more.