85 = c???

[flower1983]

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Just got my final grade in a 3rd year course today. Made an 85 average, but the course has a bell curve policy...everyone did well, so my 85 became a C on the transcript...first C I've ever made...Does this seem fair? Does anyone else's school do this? 😡

 

[Mayhem]

Fair? Yes. They didn't exactly single you out. Everybody had to deal with the curve and unfortunately you were on the less fun side. We don't have curves here (well not under ordinary circumstances) so I've never had this particular problem but from the little info you gave it doesn't sound like an injustice. It sucks for sure but then many things about 3rd year do. I wouldn't be pleased either.

 

[BigRedBeta]

Did you actually make to this point in medical school without understanding out a grade curve works? I mean, I know people confuse using a scale and a curve, but if that's the grading policy your school uses, you should be able to understand the implications of what that might mean.

To answer your question, it's completely fair. You did completely and utterly average, so you get an average grade.

 

[flower1983]

Of course I understand the implications of a bell curve. Our school uses them all the time. However, it has always been understood that if the entire class does well, standard grade cutoffs (probably what is used in your school) are used instead. What if the lowest grade had been in the 90s? Would that have seemed appropriate for a person to end up with a C? I simply would like to hear if anyone else has had this experience at their medical school....

 

[PeepshowJohnny]

Of course I understand the implications of a bell curve. Our school uses them all the time. However, it has always been understood that if the entire class does well, standard grade cutoffs (probably what is used in your school) are used instead. What if the lowest grade had been in the 90s? Would that have seemed appropriate for a person to end up with a C? I simply would like to hear if anyone else has had this experience at their medical school....

Personally, I'd be petitioning my school to drop the use of the curve for clinical rotations. It's silly.

I know in my 4 years I've seen high variability between different class years and even between groups rotating through the same rotation at different times.

This system (if I'm understanding correctly) could lead to a scenario where something like the following happens. 20 students who are interested in surgery rotate through it as their third rotation (so they have some experience in the hospital). They all work hard, are motivated, but their grades are compared against eachother and put on the bell curve. Rotation slot four has 20 students who don't care about surgery at all and slack. You could end up with a scenario where a "C" student in the third slot rotation was head and shoulders better than an "A" rotation in the fourth slot rotation but was awarded a lesser grade. Seems silly.

 

[mercaptovizadeh]

There are attempts to quantify third year by assigning scores to random things like enthusiasm (how exactly can one quantify enthusiasm when one can't externally distinguish the genuine thing from false enthusiasm), so that it would seem objective.

The only objective thing about third year is the shelf exam. Everything else is a product of the students' *perceived* behavior and knowledge and the random expectations of attendings.

 

[BigRedBeta]

Of course I understand the implications of a bell curve. Our school uses them all the time. However, it has always been understood that if the entire class does well, standard grade cutoffs (probably what is used in your school) are used instead. What if the lowest grade had been in the 90s? Would that have seemed appropriate for a person to end up with a C? I simply would like to hear if anyone else has had this experience at their medical school....

No, my school uses Class Average and Z-scores to calculate grades, though we use pass/HP/honors, and in the clinical years, it takes a lot to get a marginal or fail. As for peepshowjohnny's concern, my school takes clinical grades and adjusts them at semester's end to make the overall %ages of Passes/HP's/Honors grades meet the targets suggested by the administration (60/20/20). We have sequenced semesters (ie one semester in you're in the Family/Peds/Surgery block, the other is Med/OB-GYN/Psych) so you're with the same overall cohort (half the class) for the whole year, and at least in the Family/Peds/Surgery block, with the same group of classmates in each rotation. The idea is that in a semester's time, there's enough variety of professional aspirations to avoid an ultra-competitive group creating an outlier rotation.

There's nothing spectacular about a %age score that makes it any more valid for assigning letter grades than a bell curve. If an A is supposed to represent superior performance, then it needs to be assigned to only those people who actually performed at a superior level compared to the rest. If the class average was a 98%, there still needs to be some way to differentiate who did better than the rest.

 

[johnsmith777]

med school is all about playing the game and pretending you give a **** about some PHD's usually crap research in M1&2 and then pretending you give a **** about the rotation your on for 4 weeks in M3&4.

 

[flower1983]

Peepshowjohnny, you are totally right. We have that exact problem in our school. We are allowed to schedule our rotations in whatever order we'd like, so many times the exact scenario you depicted happens.

 

[flower1983]

No, my school uses Class Average and Z-scores to calculate grades, though we use pass/HP/honors, and in the clinical years, it takes a lot to get a marginal or fail. As for peepshowjohnny's concern, my school takes clinical grades and adjusts them at semester's end to make the overall %ages of Passes/HP's/Honors grades meet the targets suggested by the administration (60/20/20). We have sequenced semesters (ie one semester in you're in the Family/Peds/Surgery block, the other is Med/OB-GYN/Psych) so you're with the same overall cohort (half the class) for the whole year, and at least in the Family/Peds/Surgery block, with the same group of classmates in each rotation. The idea is that in a semester's time, there's enough variety of professional aspirations to avoid an ultra-competitive group creating an outlier rotation.

There's nothing spectacular about a %age score that makes it any more valid for assigning letter grades than a bell curve. If an A is supposed to represent superior performance, then it needs to be assigned to only those people who actually performed at a superior level compared to the rest. If the class average was a 98%, there still needs to be some way to differentiate who did better than the rest.

...says the person who goes to a school with no bell curve...it is so easy for you to sit there and state your opinions...unless you are going to a school who has this policy, you really cannot understand how frustrating it is.

 

[BigRedBeta]

...says the person who goes to a school with no bell curve...it is so easy for you to sit there and state your opinions...unless you are going to a school who has this policy, you really cannot understand how frustrating it is.

Do you not understand what class average and z-scores are? The grades I've received my entire med school career have been based on how many standard deviations I am away from the mean...that's a curve. Believe me, we've had exams in my class where the class average was a 91% and the standard deviation was 0.68%...which means if you got an 89%, you were more than 2 standard deviations away from the mean, and at risk for a failing grade.

Again, there's nothing inherently spectacular or better about a number percentage based grading system that makes it any more valid as a method of assigning grades. I mean, if the class average was a 35% and you got a 40% you wouldn't be complaining about getting an A or Honors for superior performance would you? Why does the fact that you knew 85% of the material matter when apparently EVERYBODY else knew about 85% of the material.

Unless it's in your syllabus or memo from the curriculum committee that moving to standard percentage based grade cutoffs be used when everyone does well, then I don't see where there's a problem. If it's simply been a tradition, but never codified, then that's unfortunate, but your clerkship director isn't obligated to work by gentlemen's agreements.

 

[Mayhem]

Of course I understand the implications of a bell curve. Our school uses them all the time. However, it has always been understood that if the entire class does well, standard grade cutoffs (probably what is used in your school) are used instead. What if the lowest grade had been in the 90s? Would that have seemed appropriate for a person to end up with a C? I simply would like to hear if anyone else has had this experience at their medical school....

Ok so my experience has been a little different. Like I said we don't curve regularly but on the rare occasions that it does occur, it's usually BECAUSE everyone did well. As far as TPTB are concerned we can't all Honour a rotation, even if we cross the numerical grade threshold. I think the max they'll allow is 50% of the group after which the weight shifts to the OSCE and (if more than 50% still honour) they curve the grades. They haven't had to go as far as a curve in a long time so it's never actually happened to me.