Preclinical grading at your school

SDN Members don't see this ad. (About Ads)

So, besides the whole P/F thing there are variations. Honors/Pass/Fail, Honors/High Pass/Pass/Fail. Some schools even have "Marginal Pass."

What is your school's system?

How is the number of people receiving something above a pass determined? Absolute cutoff vs. percentage? If so, what is the absolute cut-off or what percentage receive something above pass.

Just curious and bored!

Originally Posted by socuteMD

So, besides the whole P/F thing there are variations. Honors/Pass/Fail, Honors/High Pass/Pass/Fail. Some schools even have "Marginal Pass."

What is your school's system?

How is the number of people receiving something above a pass determined? Absolute cutoff vs. percentage? If so, what is the absolute cut-off or what percentage receive something above pass.

Just curious and bored!

We do Honors/High Pass (near honors)/Pass/Fail. Pass is 70% correct for the semester but can be lowered if needed. Honors is usually the top 15% and near honors the next 15% of the class (although honors is also usually 90% correct, so occasionally > 15% get honors but they try not to let that happen).

Marginal pass here is not an official grade. But, if you are within a few points of failing, they note that it was marginal. If you're failing other classes and only marginally passing the ones you do pass, it builds evidence that you might not be promoted.

Ours is Honors, High Pass, Pass, Low Pass, and Fail. In otherwords ABCDF. The cut-offs are different for each class, depending on how people have historically done. So it's curved essentially based on a few years of grades, but it's not really curved within the class, so there's not really competition. They tell you on the first day that you need to get 92% to honor, and that percentage might possibly go down, but it won't go up.

Honors, Near Honors, Satisfactory, Marginal, Fail

...(ABCDF)

First year it's entirely P/F. Second year, it goes to H/HP/P/F. They set percentages for each thing before the class starts. Those don't change. Occasionally they curve the test so more people get H/HP or whatever. It is not unusual for 50% of people to honor a class. In one class we took, only 3 people passed, everybody else honored or got a high pass.

Originally Posted by Syranope2

First year it's entirely P/F. Second year, it goes to H/HP/P/F. They set percentages for each thing before the class starts. Those don't change. Occasionally they curve the test so more people get H/HP or whatever. It is not unusual for 50% of people to honor a class. In one class we took, only 3 people passed, everybody else honored or got a high pass.

Damn, what the ****'s the point? All that really does is stigmatize people who only passed. Though I might prefer 20% honors rate to 15%...

P/F with a reported grade along with the class median. P>70%

Systems-based curriculum, standard ole' A-F grading, with >75 overall and >70 per class required to pass for the year. Most of the classes are curved, but not all.

All students scoring above 70% are divided into quartiles. Top 25% is P1, Middle 50% is P2/P3, bottom 25% is P4. School is considering changing to straight P/F, but still tracking numerical grades to be able to assign class rank.

When I was a preclinical student, my school was:
Honors: 94+
High Pass: 86-93.9
Pass: 70-85.9
Conditional Pass: 65-69.9
Fail: <65

The numbers were set, and test grades curved upward as necessary to put the average score somewhere around 80-82. Tests were never curved downward, no matter how well the class did. What they'd do instead is make the next test insanely difficult to bring the overall course average back down.

Now it's just P/F, and the Dean'f office keeps actual numbers for ranking purposes.

For pre-clinical, we have:
Honors (generally 90+)
Pass (generally 70-90)
Conditional (generally 60/65-70)
Fail (less than 60 or 65)

They also have mentioned that in the dean's letter they have histograms showing where you are relative to your class both by class (e.g., a 80 is in the 50th percentile) and by total number of honors (e.g., 6 of 12 honors is the 70th percentile).

First year: P/F (Pass is Mean - 1.5-2 SD)
mean for the class is mostly between 82-87 and SD about 6-7

Second year: H/P/F (it is either top 15% or top 25% of the class ... not sure)

Hopefully there will be P/F for 2nd year as well....we are trying (that is what 2nd years told us).

P/F both years, strictly no rankings
mean in 70s SD ~8 +/-, have never seen a mean above 80 or below 70
90 plus scores are rare but not unheard of
55 minus scores also rare but not unheard of
pass ~65 +/-

mean step 1 ~227, strong linear correlation to test scores

We use Honors/High Pass/Pass/Marginal/Fail

We are z-scored against each other. The top 10% get honors, which ends up being about the top 10 students in the class give or take. You are at risk for marginal if you have a z score -1.5-2.0 and at risk for fail if you have a z score <-2.0 It doesn't really seem too cut throat competitive but it seems to be about the most competitive system you could come up with. Sometimes, in some of the easier cores, 1-2 points can separate honors from pass.

A AB B BC C, all 4 years. Class rank is determined by GPA.
The cutoff for A is between 92 and 96 percent, depending on the course. Means usually come in around 88-90. They don't report SD to us.

Originally Posted by liverotcod

A AB B BC C, all 4 years. Class rank is determined by GPA.
The cutoff for A is between 92 and 96 percent, depending on the course. Means usually come in around 88-90. They don't report SD to us.

That is a nice mean, our means are usually closer to 78-80