Schools with a pass/fail curriculum?

[riderrapidash]

Hi all, I recently heard that some schools like Ohio and Colorado have a predominantly pass/fail curriculum instead of traditional grading. Are there any other schools like this? And, to anyone experienced with this type of curriculum, do you like it? Any input is greatly appreciated!!!

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[=w=]

I think NCSU does this too

 

[EngrSC]

Virginia-Maryland is pass/fail
The thought is that it will encourage a collaborative (vs. competitive) environment, and I would say that's pretty true. I believe it's technically an honor code violation for us to discuss exam scores with one another, though I haven't heard of anyone actually getting in trouble for it. We are still ranked based on exam scores, but you only know your class rank if you ask for it. So for those that want to go straight into something like GP after graduation, a pass is a pass (passing is 65%) and for those of us that are on the internship +/- residency route we still have a class rank to "distinguish" ourselves.

 

[MixedAnimals77]

WSU does. Essentially you have to pass tests with a certain percentage and they do still use your performance for class rank but you have to go out of your way to find out your class rank. Tbh most of us didn't care so long we passed makes things not as stressful as they could be but you'll always have the high strung people who really wanna be the top of the class. Overall though yes I'd say encourages collaboration and not competition

 

[riderrapidash]

WSU does. Essentially you have to pass tests with a certain percentage and they do still use your performance for class rank but you have to go out of your way to find out your class rank. Tbh most of us didn't care so long we passed makes things not as stressful as they could be but you'll always have the high strung people who really wanna be the top of the class. Overall though yes I'd say encourages collaboration and not competition

That's for Washington right?? I got accepted there for the Lincoln campus thing and I'm reallyh considering it since that's one of my top schools. Do you know if it's pass fail for that one too? Thanks so much!

 

[alleycat03]

I know UMN recently switched to P/F but I don’t know a lot about it. Maybe @supershorty could talk about it?

At KSU we still get traditional grades and in pretty much every class you need a 70% to pass. You have to email the dean and ask for your class rank, which I appreciate. But we know our GPAs. It’s just the class rank that isn’t given to us unless we email and ask.

 

[supershorty]

I know UMN recently switched to P/F but I don’t know a lot about it. Maybe @supershorty could talk about it?

I did not go through the curriculum when it was P/F the way it is now, sorry

 

[supershorty]

I did not go through the curriculum when it was P/F the way it is now, sorry

@vetsquared or @stressy.depressy probably could though

 

[MixedAnimals77]

I assume you mean Logan in utah? Yes wsu is Washington. They also operate on p/f. The way it works is you'll be ranked among the Logan cohort year 1 and 2 and not against any wsu or Montana students until year 3 when you all combine at the pullman campus

 

[FarmGirl2]

UCD (Dublin) is not P/F, but only years 3 and 4 count towards your final GPA and your graduating honors status. This creates an extremely collaborative environment. I am currently a 1st year and I have never been in such a collaborative/non-competitive environment (I have also gone through med school). The work is very challenging, but everyone works together to get through.

 

[supershorty]

FWIW, we never had any issues with a non-collaborative environment at UMN before they changed the curriculum, at least not for my class, and we were a fairly high-strung group that you'd expect a lot of competition from. They emphasize early and often that it's no longer a competition and there's a DVM with everyone's name on it, but it's up to the collective group to help each other over the bar. I don't know the exact reasoning behind the change, but I'm relatively confident it wasn't because of intraclass competition.

 

[stressy.depressy]

UMN is almost entirely P/F for the first semester, with the exception of one “contract-based” A-F course (basically you choose the amount of work you want to do to earn an A, it’s a low course without big exams). This semester they add in two bigger A-F courses (Basic Path and Agents of Disease) and two low credit contract A-F courses. They use it mostly as a way to get us adjusted to the curriculum, I believe next year and third year we have mostly letter grades.

And yeah, my class environment has been super collaborative as well!

 

[riderrapidash]

Thank you all so much for your input! Several of my top schools I'd like to attend operate on it and I'm glad the class rank is still present as I plan to (hopefully) complete an internship and residency following graduation. I've never had any experience with pass fail in any sense and so I really appreciate everyone's insights and experience.

 

[WonderingStudent]

Tufts only has a few P/F classes each semester but in generally mostly graded courses and we do have a GPA. We do not know our class rank unless we email the administration to ask for it. No one I know knows their class rank. My class isn't really competitive even so.

 

[SparksAndStripes]

I am so jealous of everyone in pass/fail curriculums. I went from an undergrad that did the straight forward A/B/C/D/F grading scheme to vet school (Oregon) that does the whole A, A-/B+/B/B- etc. grading. 70% minimum to pass. The only exceptions are electives in 3rd/4th year that are pass/fail. I never appreciated how much +/- grading can screw up your GPA and man is it STRESSFUL worrying about every grade down to the percent. An 82% impacts your GPA differently from an 85% which is different from an 87%, and I hate it.

To anyone who had + and - added to A/B/C grading scheme in undergrad, I don’t know how you did it. I had a good undergrad GPA, but if A- had been a thing it would have been significantly worse.

We also get stats on each individual assignment or exam through canvas, where we can see the average score, the high, the low, and the quartiles. Sometimes this has made me feel better, sometimes worse 😅 But we can compare how we performed to the rest of the class without knowing who had what scores. I do actually appreciate having this available.

I do consider it a plus that we have to actively seek out our class rank from the dean’s office if we want it, it’s not readily available. I’m not sure that’s something I want to know, honestly.

That said, I don’t feel like we have a particularly competitive class environment. I feel like we all get along and cooperate well.

 

[WonderingStudent]

Tufts only has a few P/F classes each semester but in generally mostly graded courses and we do have a GPA. We do not know our class rank unless we email the administration to ask for it. No one I know knows their class rank. My class isn't really competitive even so.

This is only referring to the pre-clinical curriculum. In clinics, it's pass/fail and doesn't affect our GPA. Unsure if any school at this point does grades for clinics.

 

[BigCats]

This is only referring to the pre-clinical curriculum. In clinics, it's pass/fail and doesn't affect our GPA. Unsure if any school at this point does grades for clinics.

UF is switching to pass/fail clinics as of the class of 2025! I definitely think this is a positive change and I don't think anyone would cry if we did eventually switch to pass/fail classes as well haha, but even with A-F classes I've never really experienced any competitiveness in my class.

 

[vetsquared]

UMN is almost entirely P/F for the first semester, with the exception of one “contract-based” A-F course (basically you choose the amount of work you want to do to earn an A, it’s a low course without big exams). This semester they add in two bigger A-F courses (Basic Path and Agents of Disease) and two low credit contract A-F courses. They use it mostly as a way to get us adjusted to the curriculum, I believe next year and third year we have mostly letter grades.

And yeah, my class environment has been super collaborative as well!

I second all of this. They really want to ease people into vet school and therefore make the majority of the classes P/F. More classes become graded second semester of first year, and by second year, the majority of classes are graded. Last semester, our P/F classes were just Clinical Skills and Professional Development and the other 9 were graded. This semester we have mostly the same thing, but got the option of taking Large Animal Surgery as P/F or A-F. I think only around 20% of my class has elected to take it for a letter grade.

I’ve noticed no change in terms of competition between students as we went from mostly P/F last year to mostly graded this year. My class has never been competitive at all, at least from my perspective. If anything, we actually care less and less about grades as this year goes on and beats us down lol 😂