Are certain schools easier than others

[shanequin]

Hey all,
I was just wondering, are schools easier than others. Would a state school be easier to get a better grade in than a top 10 school. I know the competition would be greater at a top ten school, but would the actual tests be harder. Just wondering, the answer in no way will dictate where I go, just putting a question out there.

Shane

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[powermd]

Hey all,
I was just wondering, are schools easier than others. Would a state school be easier to get a better grade in than a top 10 school. I know the competition would be greater at a top ten school, but would the actual tests be harder. Just wondering, the answer in no way will dictate where I go, just putting a question out there.

Shane

That is tough to say, unless you've attended two medical schools, or spent some significant time comparing class materials vs. exams at two or more schools. My guess is that ABCDF schools are harder than schools using P/F because the letter grade system fosters greater competition, so students probably work a bit harder simply for fear of getting a "C". I know if my school had P/F I would not have worried at all about doing "C" work. Let the gunners have the honor grades. Just FYI in case this comes up, ABCDF does not always equal H/HP/P/F, because the cutoffs are usually different than what you expect for a straight letter grade system. Of course, sometimes they are the same, and you may as well have an ABCDF system.

 

[BassDominator]

I think this is a hard question to answer.... considering most people only know what it's like at their school. I'm guessing it might be a little easier to get a better grade during the preclinical years because of a steeper curve or an easier test. I don't think it will make much of a difference in the clinical years. You're either honors material or not. That's just my thoughts.... I'm more than willing to be proven wrong.

 

[Back34]

I don't know about state schools, but I attend a lower tier private school and have found it extremely difficult to get decent grades. The material itself is actually somewhat easy; however, the lecturers are the absolute pits and their exams, minutiae - laden pieces of crap -- I can count on one hand the number of really inspiring prof's I've had in the last 2 years. Case in point: we finished our GI module not too long ago and I knew the "Big" Robbins chapter cold and did pretty well answering the questions in the Robbins question book. I wound up pulling a 62 on the exam because I couldn't decipher the crap she was feeding us and figured if I knew Robbins, all would be well. Frankly, it seems like it's been going that way all year. True, my method isn't really that conducive to doing well our exams, but I did pretty well on the NBME comprehensive science exam (1 SD above the class mean).

As I understand it, last year's class performed relatively poorly on a certain part of Step I. Those who I spoke to attributed it to the poor teaching and lack of coverage of high - yield subjects. Many of them did well in the class, but got smoked on the boards.

Sorry, didn't mean to go off on that tangent. I guess my advice would be to go wherever the professors care enough to put the extra effort into teaching and ensuring the students' understanding of the material. Whether it's a top 10 or somewhere else, that's where you'll get the most out of the experience.