There is a difference between the natural attrition which affects probably every major, and a course intentionally designed to cull the herd. I was a Physics TA one semester for an intro course which had a large number of Pharmacy school hopefuls. The Pharm school was getting too many applicants, so we were designated as a weed out course. The exams were so difficult that the TA’s (all grad school Master’s or PhD candidates) had difficulty with them. The students were decidedly unhappy with the whole affair, and pity the poor engineering or pre-med major who got caught up in this attempt to weed out the pharm wannabees.
I may be repeating some of the important stuff mention earlier, so I apologize to anybody who already mentioned any and all of the stuff I’m posting, for both repeating what was written, and not mentioning the people who already wrote this stuff.
When you are looking as grades alone, you see very little of the intellectual ability of a student.
First, not all A’s are equal.
- You don’t know what courses that student took. As many have written, a straight-A student may have only taken the easiest courses, so they wouldn’t fail.
- Then there is the school itself. There are many schools with widely different standards for what deserves an A grade. In some schools, grade inflation is rampant, and in others only the very best students get As.
- Finally, it depends on what is required for an A. In some classes and some schools, a teacher requires perfect memorization and regurgitation, while other schools and classes require going beyond mastery and into creative thinking if you want to get that A.
Second, some very smart kids who love learning are not driven to get As in any topic that doesn’t interest them, while others have an psychological need to do their best at everything.
Third, there are all sorts of mental and social issues that can help or hinder a student, from mental issues to socioeconomic issue. A poor kid in a school dominated by wealthy kids is almost never going to be valedictorian, for the mere fact that they cannot afford much of the academic support system that the school assumes that all the students have. They cannot afford expansive computers and software, extra tutoring, etc.
In general, highly and profoundly gifted kids rarely have the drive to succeed in anything about which they do not care. That is why few of them ever are valedictorians. They are, however, the leading scientists and thinkers. It is important to remember that these people are rarely “slackers” or drop outs. they tend to have high GPAs, excellent SAT/ACT scores, and their brilliance is generally seen in things like extracurricular activities
Conversely, there are people who are generally known as “high achievers”, who have intelligence which is above average AND have drive to do well. These generally are valedictorians. They also tend to be lawyers, MD’s and, most importantly, politicians. So, while very few of the tech visionaries were valedictorians, you’ll seem many senators, supreme court justices, and presidents who were who were at the top of their class in high school and in college.
The intersection between the two tends to be in engineering. It is very difficult to be an amazing engineer with both brilliance and the ability to slog through the more boring parts of life. Also, engineers tend to be perfectionists, who have little tolerance for things like B and C grades. That is why it is so difficult to get into engineering majors, because even in relatively low ranked schools, the GPAs and SAT/ACT scores of the applicants are incredibly high. At the same time, the innovation and creativity that is coming out of the top schools, like MIT, Caltech, etc., is amazing. You won’t hear about most of these innovations, even though they change the world.
@MWolf I know a guy who got kicked out of college after barely getting in (open admission school practically at the time). He only got some good grades senior year once he figured out what he was interested in. Top researcher in the world in his field now. Unfortunately, we don’t make a lot of room for those types anymore.
I think for a class to be a “weed out” class followed by easier classes, you have to set up the class to be artificially difficult, and then force students to drop or fail. We definitely do not do that. We offer all kinds of help and support for students who are having difficulty. Also, for a class to be a weed out class, the faculty would have to take the view that some of the students just didn’t belong in the major, regardless. The stereotype I have of weed-out classes is one where the professor announces at the beginning, “Look to your left, look to your right, etc.”
There have been some posts suggesting that after the supposed “weed out” classes to discourage students, all of the subsequent classes are easier. Anyone believing that at my university would be in for a very rude awakening.
We are not trying to discourage students. I think that is an inherent component of “weeding students out.”
We would be happy if everyone excelled. The introductory classes are generally graded on a pre-announced scale with guarantees of x grade if the % total is greater than or equal to y. In principle, it would be possible for everyone to get an A.
In addition, we enforce the math prerequisites pretty stringently now, because analysis has shown that if students try to ignore the math pre-req, they are extremely unlikely to do well in the class. If we wanted to weed students out, we would just let in “all comers.”
It seems to me that this is actually quite different from the typical view of weed out classes. I think that students may imagine that the faculty are trying to weed them out, when actually we are trying to encourage them to stay.
If I were nominating weed out programs, it would be in music performance, with juries to determine whether someone can continue in the major or not, and a record of forcing students to change majors.
To speak directly to post #95, we are not trying to get students to drop the major. We are trying to encourage them to stay. The second sentence of mine that was quoted did not immediately follow the first in my earlier post; rather, it was intended to explain the fact that the grade distribution in the higher level courses tends to run higher. That is not because these courses are easier. It is because there are better students in them. That is not by design, however.
The post by the former physics TA who wrote that there were too many students trying to become pharmacists and so the intro physics course was made very, very difficult is describing a situation that I would consider “weed out.” We don’t have that.
Suppose a student is contacted by a professor after the student has difficulty on the first midterm, and advised about a variety of options for assistance with the class, including coming to office hours frequently. (I have given such advice to a number of students.) Some students pick up on the advice and move into the A/B range. Others do not take advantage of any of the suggested forms of assistance. If they later drop or fail, have they been “weeded out,” or have they essentially opted out. I think the latter.
I have often pointed out to my students that they are probably much closer to “getting” the material than they imagine, and that if they would meet with me or with a TA, we could probably pinpoint the issues they are having. It does genuinely help. If we were running a “weeder,” I would let them founder.
Low ranked less selective schools (e.g. non-flagship-level state schools like SFSU and CSULA) are often not difficult to get into for engineering, but the students in engineering may be stronger than those in other majors due to weaker ones being scared off by engineering’s “hard” reputation. However, many engineering students still change out at less selective schools after discovering that it is too hard.
And your school, QM, is why so many on CC encourage kids to take a hard look at their options besides top prestige lures. We might characterize your programs as cooperative, as opposed to competitive. And that makes sense. From what I understand about your U, you want the max number to be offered a solid chance to succeed, on their merits and work.
Weeding can be brutal. On CC, we used to speak more of classes where the material in tests wasn’t covered in class, isn’t covered in the textbooks and easily available materials. This sort of thing aims to cull ferociously. And they do.
It’s not always discovering a new, ardent interest in college. Or being a hs dreamer who never took higher math or AP physics. It’s being prepared for the college studies and then blindsided.
That’s not some side discussion about high school grade inflation or average grades in some survey of classes or public vs private colleges. Or this insistence many pre-meds take the easy route.
“Weeding” may be due to requirements external to the course.
For example, at a college where the biology major is not filled to capacity and allows students in with C or higher grades in the prerequisites, the lower level general chemistry, general biology, organic chemistry, etc. courses are not necessarily “weeder” courses for prospective biology majors. However, if the prospective biology majors or other students in those courses are pre-med, then they become “weeder” courses to them, since the acceptable grade for a pre-med is much higher than C.
I.e. two students in the same course may have very different views on whether the course is a “weeder” course. The non-pre-med biology major may feel perfectly comfortable and satisfied earning a B grade in a general chemistry course, while the pre-med may see the possibility of the same B grade in the same course contributing to his/her getting “weeded out” of the possibility of medical school.
That may be so, but it still supports my contention that people who are successful as studying engineering are both very smart and inventive, while also having strong grades and standardized test scores. The difficulty at being accepted was was based on info that I got from a number of faculty in engineering at non-flagship schools like U of I Chicago, and may not be as widespread as I assumed.
As others have noted there are multiple types of “weeding.” There is “weeding” by design and “weeding” by common attrition. In both cases, the crux of “weeding” is course grades , not how well the exam material is covered in class/texts. Lack of high grades limits options for med school, a top law school, some engineering programs, etc. Course grades and how well exam material is covered in class and textbooks can be quite separated from one another, particularly in large intro pre-med classes.
For example, in my freshmen chem class, the average grades on major exams were in the 30-40% range. This was a highly selective college full of studious kids who had never received a grade below A and most of whom aced AP chem in HS, yet most could only get about 1/3 of the questions correct on the exam. The grades were so low because the exam was challenging. Answering questions correctly often required original thought and true understanding of the material that expanded on the ideas of the text/class, going well beyond simply regurgitating textbook and class material. There were also issues with the time limit.
I doubt that chem class was aiming to “cull ferociously”. Instead it was more a particular professor who likes to give challenging exams that go beyond the textbook. He does the same in other classes he teaches. Like many college exams with average % correct, the exams were not scored on 90%+ = A, 80-90% = B scale. Instead the more challenging the exam, the more generous the curve. If the exam was especially challenging, a 30% grade might be an A-. With such a large a portion of the class receiving A’s and very few receiving C’s, few of the class would be “weeded” out of pre-med in spite of the exam being on a far higher level than the textbook and some students feeling blindsided by the exams. This class actually had the reverse weeding effect for me. When I started college, I had originally planned to go in to engineering, but the chem class inspired me to continue with the pre-med track as well.
All of this is related to the grade discussion as well as pre-meds choosing the “easy route.” Most of the larger colleges we frequently discuss on here offer a variety of course options for the intro math/science classes that are part of the pre-med requirements. They typically have placement exams and/or placement advisers to help students choose what course option is the best one for them, given their HS background, so that they are capable of being successful as measured by both course grade and learning the material well even if they did not have a strong HS math/science background, and won’t be bored repeating things that they already know… The slowest and least rigorous math/science options are often intended for students with relatively weaker HS math/science backgrounds, rather than students who feel the need to play it safe and protect their GPA.
Very true. Many eons ago I had to take the same lab based physics as pre-meds in order to apply to architecture school. I sort of got into the paranoia about getting an A, and then sat back and realized actually some sort of B would be fine. But I also found that the course was set up in a way to make it almost impossible to get an A. The last unit of the course had something I didn’t understand so I went and talked to the TA about it. He said, “Well you learned this in Chem 5.” Well, no I did not. It was not a pre-requisite for the course and since I was not pre-med, it was not a course I had taken. The TA just through up his hands, there wasn’t really time to learn whatever it was I needed to know. I did my best, but basiscally I went into the final with an A- and came out with a B+. I got into architecture school, so no harm no foul. But I was annoyed.
Well, that’s not very nice to have unlisted prerequisites that not all students can be expected to have.
@ucbalumnus if it was the “premed track” though you can’t blame the professor for assuming. A course designed for premeds makes sense for their sequence even if there are no official prereqs.
Pre-reqs are supposed to be designated for the class itself, not whatever students they think will sign up.
However, @mathmom noted that it was needed for architecture majors as well. In any case, physics for biology majors that pre-meds commonly take normally does not list any chemistry prerequisites; the usual prerequisites are high school level math, sometimes single variable calculus, sometimes high school physics.
Pre-reqs aren’t always listed for intro courses. Weeding is weeding. Some kids may be fine with a B or C, but we can’t assume only premeds have further goals than the college degree, goals they feel do depend on grades.
Agree that, unless a college course is designated for premeds only, there can be a variety of kids enrolled. That doesn’t change the difficulty for that kid tackling a gen ed requirement or hoping for a major that will benefit from the course.
I’m not sure why some dispute that some courses are crazy competitive. It exists. It can have a spillover effect on more than premeds. Nor am I sure how this relates to the original post.
I guess it depends on how it’s listed in the catalogue. Some schools are more explicit about expectations of prior knowledge than others. I feel like CC is the twilight zone with so many As. I know there is grade inflation but, around here, we don’t see it much. My daughter’s physics class in HS had kids averaging in the 40s on tests. There was some level of curve that ensured the whole class did not fail. She just completed Calc 1 in college with no graded assignments other than the final. The students just had to figure out themselves what to study and how to correct their own assignments and if they were correct or not based on the lecture. And take the final cold with no idea of how you were doing in the course at all. You get what you get and you don’t get upset!
This really isn’t about hs grade inflation (which doesn’t even apply to all high schools.) It’s about college courses artifically made more difficult. Your D could very well face courses in her future four-year college she simply cannot “figure out” how to do well in.
Someone (or two?) made an earlier comment that he didn’t have a problem with pre-med courses. Someone else mentioned her college doesn’t weed. Another decided to be happy with a B. That does not mean weeders don’t exist. Nor is this about whether subsequent courses are easier or harder.
That sounds awful. Why even have a professor?
Are there schools which require high school physics for the intro physics course? Or just “high school level” i.e. algebra-based physics? Usually, college intro physics is offered as algebra-based or calculus-based, with appropriate math as pre- or co-requisite. There is no reason to require a lower-level of physics, since they all start at the bottom anyways. Requiring someone to have high school physics first would preclude some students from ever getting into the Intro course, since they could not go back and take a hs course. Myself, for example.