Almost ...but not good enough

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InternationlDoc

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Really,

I missed an A yet again by a margin of 1 multiple choice question. Unbelievable. Why? does this really mean I am really dumb. I am posting to get some help here because I dont want it repeating. I am not a gunner dont want derm (I do want cardiology or something in IM) but I had back to back classes where I missed A's by 1-2 multiple choice questions.

Story is always the same...i need like around 94 to get an A and I end up around 92.5-93!

How do you guys do it all? I have anatomy coming up and great...i have a ditto 90! dont wanna lose that...if anybody else is in the same boat or shares my pain do post. Help is welcome.

Also, I think i am getting the hang of this...pretty much I almost pulled an A in physiology (the one i've been talking about) after scoring 86 as final score last term hence needing 93.5-94 on both midterm and final. Avg this term a good 93. So ...If I turn it around by getting all A's in second year...you think all B's/1-2 A's of M1 year could be offset and I could be in top 10% or AOA?

what do you guys think?
 
yea but it wasn't good enough - I need like 94.2 or something for that A...came up short

well essentially, I'm fine with this terms performance...but hey I f****d up in the first quarter...so eventually a 14 credit big fat B.

What I am trying to get sdner's to tell me is that if I can just get more A's then B's in M2 year, then would this B in physiology matter? I am not freaking out, just every other person tell me "oh physio is soo huge" so just wondering. As I said, I'm starting to understand how to study and stuff, but it took me like 5 months to settle down, by then pshhh..too late for physio grade atleast.

here was my break up

85.64 (first quarter) --> needed 94.22 this term to get 89.5 for A overall in physiology.

This term --> 93.5 final...so yea..missed it!

so boo. whatever man. now all this defuses the hell outta me and i dont even feel like studying for Anatomy.
 
I agree that you need to chill about a 93...that's pretty good! 🙂

As far as your question about making AOA/top 10%: at my and many other schools (from other posts I've read/students I talked to), third year is the biggest determining factor in rank/AOA. Getting all A's in second year will never hurt, but if AOA is really your goal, you need to really pull out all the stops and do great during third year. Try Googling AOA admission criteria; many schools have a website that outlines how they select students if you are that concerned, but I think you will see most schools put the weight of the decision on third year performance. Having said that, you may not NEED to make AOA with your current grades (which, again, is pretty good!) and the fact that you are planning on applying to a less competitive specialty (IM).
 
Dude, I totally know the feeling and feel for you for missing the grade by such a slim margin. This has happened to me TWICE in medical school, and it really leaves you feeling like you got the wind knocked out of you. Keep on keepin on, if you are that close you will be bound to succeed many times.
 
You have to be kidding. Find the people in your class who are struggling to pass and then help them. Maybe by helping them, you will boost your average the extra two points.
 
vtucci said:
You have to be kidding. Find the people in your class who are struggling to pass and then help them. Maybe by helping them, you will boost your average the extra two points.
Click to expand...

good idea. maybe good karma would also factor into the equation.
 
vtucci said:
You have to be kidding. Find the people in your class who are struggling to pass and then help them. Maybe by helping them, you will boost your average the extra two points.
Click to expand...

hahaha...i've actually done that as well!

Appreciate the comments guys. Specially on AOA...yea. Gotta keep on trying. Ok back to Anatomy.
 
i have a question for you, International Doc..

so if you're the type of person who gets 93s and 94s in medical school where only the best and the brightest gather, what kind of person were you in undergraduate years?

i'm not trying to mock you or mean anything negative. I just want some idea, or the ballpark of comparison.

If you don't mind sharing, could you tell me how your undergraduate years were like? (such as GPA, how much you had to study, difficulty etc 🙂 )
 
Was a 3.95 GPA in engineering ...

ofcourse, so far i'm a flat 3.0 after back to back B's in 2 classes. Only solace may be will be anatomy. we'll see.

Medschool IS different. Basically from the past 6 months i learnt this: Brilliant ppl are not making the highest grades, its the hardest working.

Its a whole new ball game so forget about ball park figures.
 
so you were an engineering major in undergraduate? Just out of curiosity, which engineering were you?

i'm in mechanical engineering right now, in my last semester. Can you tell me how different the med school is, compared to your undergraduate engineering classes? 😀
 
yes it's frustrating to miss out on getting an A by 1 point. At my undergrad school they definitely would have rounded you up. But come on! If you get 89.5%, just be thankful that you know that much of the material and move on. Let it go! Do you think that it's really gonna matter in 10 years if you got 89.5% or 90%? Do you really think any residency program is gonna care?
 
This guy just wants someone to stroke his ego.
 
yea, I am an international student and not from canada. Internation"a"l but i think i couldn't add that "a" in there for it was getting too long of sn for sdn or something.

erm not an ego thing. As i said, it was a big class. sure residency directors wouldn't care for a class, but I just wanted to konw a few stories. As in people learning from their mistakes. I took it easy the first quarter and had to play catch up. shouldn't have done that right? yea.

Again, I post to learn more man - I do care about being a good doctor.

Appreciate all the responses guys.
 
Numbers are inaccurate. I do worse in tests than some of my classmates but I remember what I learn for a longer time. That's worth more in the long run.
You're doing well, keep on fighting. You could study instead of posting on this forum 😉.
 
MartianOddity said:
Numbers are inaccurate. I do worse in tests than some of my classmates but I remember what I learn for a longer time. That's worth more in the long run.
You're doing well, keep on fighting. You could study instead of posting on this forum 😉.
Click to expand...

I also have this problem, and have my whole academic career. I get lower grades than everyone else, but I always walk away feeling like I learned the material sufficiently, and am more than able to keep up with classmates. For example, I got a B in Anatomy (solid, middle-of-the-road B), but I was a TA for the incoming 1st years and got great reviews. I have no idea why that is, but in the end, 1st and 2nd year grades are pretty far down the list when it comes to matching. Learn what you can, put it into practice well 3rd and 4th year, do decently on boards, you'll be able to get into pretty much whatever you want (save derm and ortho).
 
pretty sad you studied that much and didn't get an A. you're like a nerd who sucks at school. keep striving for mediocrity.
 
wow, i usually miss getting an A by at least 15 POINTS!!!! seriously, dude, this isn't the right place to complain about this.

OH BOO HOO! DO YOU WANT A HUG?????????
 
oh, poor baby, you only got a 93? 🙄 dude, you're probably near the top of your class. keep some perspective.
 
If you are doing IM, you don't need AOA. Not even for cardiology (but of course it won't hurt).
Third year counts as much as the first two years combined in total grade weight at some school, be sure and factor that in.
 
TheProwler said:
oh, poor baby, you only got a 93? 🙄 dude, you're probably near the top of your class. keep some perspective.
Click to expand...

Not as my school where the top 1/3 of the class all have straight As. If his school's like mine, I can get his frustration. Also, I think he got a 93 on the last exam, not for his total grade. Since he needed a 94 on the last exam to raise his overall grade to an A, he's not being as petty as you guys are making him out to be.
 
AOA is not just about being in the top x# of the class. There are other qualifications including volunteer work and leadership. Just keep that in mind.
 
Doctor Bagel said:
Not as my school where the top 1/3 of the class all have straight As. If his school's like mine, I can get his frustration. Also, I think he got a 93 on the last exam, not for his total grade. Since he needed a 94 on the last exam to raise his overall grade to an A, he's not being as petty as you guys are making him out to be.
Click to expand...

Jesus Christ!!! At my school, one of the people in our top ten had less than a 92 overall average for our first year. 1/3 of your class have As- wow. I was happy to pass three of my classes last year.
 
vtucci said:
Jesus Christ!!! At my school, one of the people in our top ten had less than a 92 overall average for our first year. 1/3 of your class have As- wow. I was happy to pass three of my classes last year.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I don't really know what's up with our grade inflation thing. I sort of think it jacks up the pressure because you feel like making a B or even *gasp* a low A is bad.
 
Doctor Bagel said:
Yeah, I don't really know what's up with our grade inflation thing. I sort of think it jacks up the pressure because you feel like making a B or even *gasp* a low A is bad.
Click to expand...
ha! we have honors/high pass/pass/low pass/fail (ABCDF 😛), and the mean for biochem was set in the PASS range, and anatomy and embryology were both set for HIGH PASS. your school is pretty generous with the grades.
 
Our average this year is an 82 in every class (so a B-). That is what my law school's average was as well.
 
vtucci said:
Our average this year is an 82 in every class (so a B-). That is what my law school's average was as well.
Click to expand...

You know, our averages are generally around the 82 range. However, our grades generally turn out with lots of people making As, lots of people making Bs and a significantly smaller number of people making Cs or lower (very, very few make lower than Cs).

Oh yeah, editing to add that we don't have any type of curve, so nothing gets set to anything.
 
We don't have any curve either but our break is not as odd.

If 1/3 of your class is averaging an A and the class average is an 82, then either you have a lot more people with Cs in your class than you realize or there are some people's averages that are so abysmmal (i.e., 20) that it drags the overall down to that extent.
 
vtucci said:
We don't have any curve either but our break is not as odd.

If 1/3 of your class is averaging an A and the class average is an 82, then either you have a lot more people with Cs in your class than you realize or there are some people's averages that are so abysmmal (i.e., 20) that it drags the overall down to that extent.
Click to expand...

Actually, my comments about the grade breakdowns on based on the official data that we get from the professors. We just have straight A/B/C grading, though, so the mean could work out all sorts of wacky ways. Here's the breakdown for our last physiology exam. The mean here was 85, though.

A 55
B 73
C 22
D 6
F 5

Here's our distribution for gross anatomy last semester. The average here was high -- 86%. So yeah, I guess our averages are higher than 82. You can get the basic idea that getting an A doesn't mean all that much, though. 🙂 Supposedly, though, things drop off after that to about 40 people making As. So the 4.0 students make up the top quarter, not the top third.

A-64
B-77
C-17
D-3
 
So 11 people failed. When they say F, they don't say how bad the F was-- so if there are people who got a 20 on the exam, it could bring down the overall.
 
Doctor Bagel said:
You know, our averages are generally around the 82 range. However, our grades generally turn out with lots of people making As, lots of people making Bs and a significantly smaller number of people making Cs or lower (very, very few make lower than Cs).

Oh yeah, editing to add that we don't have any type of curve, so nothing gets set to anything.
Click to expand...

Yeah, same here. Avg usually around 85. A bunch of A's, a ton of B's, some C's. A few failing grades.
 
Doctor Bagel said:
Not as my school where the top 1/3 of the class all have straight As. If his school's like mine, I can get his frustration. Also, I think he got a 93 on the last exam, not for his total grade. Since he needed a 94 on the last exam to raise his overall grade to an A, he's not being as petty as you guys are making him out to be.
Click to expand...

Oh wow I didn't think so many would reply!

Yea u got it right Doctor Bagel, I needed a 94 on final and came up short.

Again, its ok. Learnt many things regarding study habits. But yea, even though averages are around 77'ish, alot of my friends seemed to have just goten A's. meh.
 
wow, now i see marks really mean nothing when we're all coming from different schools.

in my school, each year there are only roughly 15 students in a class of 300 who can get over 80% in either 1st or 2nd year. 94%? it's something unheard of in the history of my school....
 
InternationlDoc said:
But yea, even though averages are around 77'ish, alot of my friends seemed to have just goten A's. meh.
Click to expand...

Your focus on what others are getting is probably not the right approach. This isn't really a competition, the point is to learn the material the best you can for the boards and clinical years. Just keep your eyes on your own plate. This is the hardest lesson for folks who are used to grades being so important in undergrad, but there is no curve in med school (usually). Many schools do all they can to limit competition by P/F grades and the like, but still folks have a hard time taking the hint. Your step 1 and clinical year stats are what is going to get you that residency spot -- in the long run no one is going to care if you got an A or a B in a basic science course.
 
Yep .Thats what I hear from alot of people and frankly thats pretty much what I got out from these past 6 months. Thanks Law2Doc, much appreciated. I had a whole slew of other questions relevant to time managment/family...but all that after the exam.
 
InternationlDoc said:
Was a 3.95 GPA in engineering ...

ofcourse, so far i'm a flat 3.0 after back to back B's in 2 classes. Only solace may be will be anatomy. we'll see.

Medschool IS different. Basically from the past 6 months i learnt this: Brilliant ppl are not making the highest grades, its the hardest working.

Its a whole new ball game so forget about ball park figures.
Click to expand...

So true. I've experienced this myself. It's about hard work, and putting in the time.
 
we don't have letter grades, but I can sympathize with the guy. when I'm at the mean, it's like, yeah, whatever, but when I was one point below honors I was like !@%O(@*#%. I wanted either honors or all that time back. 😛
 
tomatoattack said:
Dude, I totally know the feeling and feel for you for missing the grade by such a slim margin. This has happened to me TWICE in medical school, and it really leaves you feeling like you got the wind knocked out of you. Keep on keepin on, if you are that close you will be bound to succeed many times.
Click to expand...

Thanks man. Thats exactly what happened today. Honored in Anatomy.

I do have a questions to the veterans of sdn form

so doing well and all that is fine, but once we all go ahead in life, we'll have families and stuff how really to become efficient at managing time?

I SUCK AT IT!

Motivation for studying well now is for the boards, but regardless, shouldn't it encomapss a more substantial reason?

I am not the best at articulating my point but simply put

how to become efficient/good/ in different aspects in life which i think depends on time managment and motivation and what do other people think of when they study late hours or wake up 7:15 everyday to go to that 8:00 class (the ones that do go..i'm 70% regular).

Thanks guys.
 
Honoring (90%, no curb) is hard at my school.

The averages for midterms are:
~80% for biochem
~84% for anatomy
~82% for immunology

Most people in my school would agree you practically can't miss hardly anything during the midterms (4) to honor because you got to consistently score in the 90s (0-2 questions wrong) the finals are usually more difficult than the midterms and with lower averages. Also, this year, the threshold for honoring is probably not going to be lowered unlike last year because last term no one failed any course.

So, when you are like .1-.5% below honors, it blows hardcore, but when you are 0.1-.5% above honors, you are elated (on 2 courses last semester).
 
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