Hey guys- 1st year here just about to finish up with second semester and the dreadful cardiology blocks. Boy oh boy has it been fun...
Had an applicant ask me about remediation policies and what tests are like and figured the answer could be useful to everyone. PM me if you guys have any questions about the school. See ya later!
"The remediation policy is: the first time you take an exam for a course you can remediate it up to 70%. Mind you this is only applicable towards the first test of a course (most courses are 4 semesters long, so just the 1st test, the 1st semester). With that being said, I'm pretty sure 95-99% of the class has failed at least sections of an exam. The tests are usually on 6-8 different subjects (histology, biochem, anat, phys, pathology, internal medicine, pharmacology, micro, surgery, peds, etc.) and the questions are mixed together. So you basically sit down and take a test for 2-4 hours that is 150 or 200 questions long with all the subjects jumbled. Semester one isn't hard. It might seem really hard but I doubt many had a hard time passing. If you do fail (get under a 70%), you have to go before a board and they decide what to do (look at all your grades, you can explain yourself, etc.). This is really rare. I'm assuming <5% of the class faces this situation. Now to be real, 5 students from last years class failed out and are retaking the year with our class. I think 1 failed 1st semester and 4 failed the 2nd semester. The second semester is ridiculously hard just because of one class- internal medicine. There are no wrong answers per se, it's knowing what's best given a situation, etc. Now our last exam the internal med average was 66% which meant 60-70% of the class failed it. I have friends who got high grades on it- it's just cause it's a different way of testing. Scoring low on internal med tho the first time around is normal (every year the average on the first cardio internal med exam is 60-70%). It does become straightforward and I'd say very few are worried about failing now that we've gotten used to it.
Another thing- 30 on MCAT and 4.0 GPA.. all of that stuff doesn't matter. Everyone here works hard... really hard. Like studying all day every day hard. It's different than undergrad. I mean sure there are a few people who get 100%s on everything and probably got a 38 on the mcat (we have a few who did and are from ivy league schools). But for the average 3.7~ gpa 30~ MCAT person (which is the majority), expect to work super hard and study smart. If you put in the time, watch lectures enough, etc., you will pass, and yes passing is all you should be worrying about. Grades here are almost irrelevant. Your board score makes up 75% of what residencies take into consideration when applying. Also, to put things in perspective, my GPA for the 1st semester was an 85% (had all As and Bs) and my class ranking was 40th percentile. Yeah.. I thought I was doing great cause I did well on all my block exams but everyone here is smart and you have to face reality that grades don't really matter, just do the time and you will be able to become whatever doctor you want to become (if you pass
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