"We're the first class to use the quartile system of grading. In the past, the school used the traditional A-B-C grading, but for our year [the class of 2008] they introduced a new quartile system. Students who earn above a 70 get a "P" for pass; below that it's "F" for fail. Within the passing group, the top quartile are ranked "P1", the middle 50 percent is "P2/P3", and the bottom 25 percent is "P4".
"So now you're not just trying to get an A -- you're trying to be in the top 25 percent. I think it's introduced some additional competition but people here are very willing to help you out. If you don't understand something and ask a classmate, they're not going to refuse to tell you or misinform you to get an advantage".
"From what I understand, the adminstration noticed that how students perform in school is very well correlated with how they perform on the boards. The school wanted to delineate where that bottom 25 percent was so that those students were award that they were going to have to work hard to make it through. Another reason was that a lot of residency match programs were pushing for a more objective rating system from medical schools so they could see where students were compared to their classmates.
