average GPA for the first year

[spdvm99]

I feel like this is a repetitive question so sorry if it has already been in a thread, I couldn't find it but by all means send me a link if someone knows of one 🙂 What were yall's GPAs looking like from first year? Everything I try to find says "only pass/fail and class rank matters" but I really just want to get an idea of generally how people do. I'm sitting at about a 3.0 ending my first semester, but I've heard whispers of classmates that have already failed a class (but obviously I don't want to be nosy and just go around asking "what is your GPA right now"). The way my teachers talk about us not needing to strive for A's, I would think that a 3.0 would be average for most students but it seems like most of my classmates still sit around 3.5. I've never been a "top of the class" student so I'm not too worried about it, but I just want to see how my grades right now line up with people that have gone ahead of me. 🙂 Also, for a bonus question so I don't ask it next year (LOL), what about averages for second years?

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[JaynaAli]

Due to differences in curriculum it’s really hard to compare GPAs across the board. The school I did my residency at had very inflated grades (imo) compared to where I went to school. That’s why class rank is an important factor to consider. At my vet school a 3.0 would have probably been really average first year because we had some really hard classes/professors, but at my residency institution a 3.0 would have been considered on the very low side. For example, my final GPA at graduation was a 3.2 and my class rank was 46/88 (so I was right around the middle) but I saw a friend’s info on a residency application and despite having the same GPA as me (a 3.2) she was in the bottom 10% of her class at her school. Just do the best you can and try not to worry about it. Your school can probably give you your class rank if you wanted to see where you lined up against your peers but it’s really not that big of a deal. I wouldn’t stress. Even if you’re wanting a residency and “need” a higher GPA there’s not much you can do besides keep doing what you’re doing and working hard and moving forward.

 

[spdvm99]

Due to differences in curriculum it’s really hard to compare GPAs across the board. The school I did my residency at had very inflated grades (imo) compared to where I went to school. That’s why class rank is an important factor to consider. At my vet school a 3.0 would have probably been really average first year because we had some really hard classes/professors, but at my residency institution a 3.0 would have been considered on the very low side. For example, my final GPA at graduation was a 3.2 and my class rank was 46/88 (so I was right around the middle) but I saw a friend’s info on a residency application and despite having the same GPA as me (a 3.2) she was in the bottom 10% of her class at her school. Just do the best you can and try not to worry about it. Your school can probably give you your class rank if you wanted to see where you lined up against your peers but it’s really not that big of a deal. I wouldn’t stress. Even if you’re wanting a residency and “need” a higher GPA there’s not much you can do besides keep doing what you’re doing and working hard and moving forward.

That makes sense! I feel like usually my school has a pretty high standard but this year (maybe due to covid) they went easier on applicants and they said they didn't put as much emphasis on GPAs. Like our application GPAs ranged 2.8-4.0 with an average of 3.4, so I would think our first year grades would be somewhat proportional. I'll definitely ask about class rankings when the semester ends and our grades are posted. I'm not really leaning towards residency, kind of just want to do my four years and get out of school so I'll definitely work on letting myself just focus on learning instead of worrying about being top 10. Thanks for the advice! 🙂

 

[britzen]

If you want to know where you stand relative to your classmates, definitely ask academic affairs for your class rank!

My school doesn't do letter grades/GPA, only percentages for every course that all get averaged together to determine class rank. But taking a guess based on what I know about people's percentages, class ranks, and class exam averages - the cutoff to be in the top 1/3 of the class is about 90% and the cutoff to be in the top 1/2 is probably around 83%. That's for all classroom work prior to clinical year.

We also had people fail classes - we lost 4 students out of 126 my first semester. We lost about 1 per semester on average after that.

Also your perception of average is probably skewed a little based on which of your classmates are putting their information out there. People are much more likely to talk about rheir GPA if they have a 3.5 instead of a 2 5, y'anno?

 

[spdvm99]

If you want to know where you stand relative to your classmates, definitely ask academic affairs for your class rank!

My school doesn't do letter grades/GPA, only percentages for every course that all get averaged together to determine class rank. But taking a guess based on what I know about people's percentages, class ranks, and class exam averages - the cutoff to be in the top 1/3 of the class is about 90% and the cutoff to be in the top 1/2 is probably around 83%. That's for all classroom work prior to clinical year.

We also had people fail classes - we lost 4 students out of 126 my first semester. We lost about 1 per semester on average after that.

Also your perception of average is probably skewed a little based on which of your classmates are putting their information out there. People are much more likely to talk about rheir GPA if they have a 3.5 instead of a 2 5, y'anno?

Oh that's a cool system! Definitely seems more practical for ranking purposes. It's so wild to me to think about people not passing, I guess sometimes I forget it's not "once you're in, you're in". That's a very good point, even I have made a habit of just saying "I did well" instead of the actual grade XD

 

[battie]

We also are school that mainly focuses on percentage rather than GPA/rank, but we also only have 1 grade/didactic quarter (3 grades/year, 9 total grades). Our average definitely depends on the class. We were constantly told the class above us averaged 5-10 higher than we did regularly. But I would bet that our class average per year was somewhere between 75-80% depending on the quarter. In order to pass each year, you must have a 70% overall. So rather low considering the range for passing.

Will note that I was one of those people who repeated first year and your perception is likely off. People who are doing truly poorly at this point in first year are not talking about it; rather they're panicking and trying desperately to fix their situation. You may be hearing rumors about specific people failing; from the perspective of been there done that, it's appreciated when those rumors are not passed along and honestly shut down.

3 of us moved from 2020 to 2021 due to grades. 2021 didn't lose anyone first year (other than people moving into their PhD program), but one of the repeaters from 2020 didn't make it past second year. Someone dropped down from us to 2022 at the end of third year. Then someone dropped to 2022 at the end of 4th year to repeat rotations with 2022 (she did not graduate with us). So there is a risk throughout the curriculum.

 

[spdvm99]

We also are school that mainly focuses on percentage rather than GPA/rank, but we also only have 1 grade/didactic quarter (3 grades/year, 9 total grades). Our average definitely depends on the class. We were constantly told the class above us averaged 5-10 higher than we did regularly. But I would bet that our class average per year was somewhere between 75-80% depending on the quarter. In order to pass each year, you must have a 70% overall. So rather low considering the range for passing.

Will note that I was one of those people who repeated first year and your perception is likely off. People who are doing truly poorly at this point in first year are not talking about it; rather they're panicking and trying desperately to fix their situation. You may be hearing rumors about specific people failing; from the perspective of been there done that, it's appreciated when those rumors are not passed along and honestly shut down.

3 of us moved from 2020 to 2021 due to grades. 2021 didn't lose anyone first year (other than people moving into their PhD program), but one of the repeaters from 2020 didn't make it past second year. Someone dropped down from us to 2022 at the end of third year. Then someone dropped to 2022 at the end of 4th year to repeat rotations with 2022 (she did not graduate with us). So there is a risk throughout the curriculum.

That's very interesting that you have such few grades! I could never, it would torture me lol. Ours is similar, for first years we are allowed two D's and no fails but it's a classic letter grade scale. Good for you for powering through, I can't imagine the work it took! I definitely don't go searching for specific names and haven't heard of any yet, I just heard that teachers are getting them help and I really hope it works so we can all move to second year together. I completely understand that! That is very reassuring to hear that you got to repeat the years, we haven't exactly figured out the rules for if we fail as it hasn't come up yet but I think it's a similar system of dropping back a year or doing summer work, depending on the situation. Keeps me on my toes, I definitely don't want to get too comfortable!

 

[Old-Country-Vet-Tech]

Uh mine was a 2.20 let’s just say that a D is passing at UF and our anatomy time in lab was very short. We have didactics first years and clinics 3rd and 4th with electives on the off semesters between clinics. So burnout 1st two years is real

 

[twelvetigers]

Due to differences in curriculum it’s really hard to compare GPAs across the board. The school I did my residency at had very inflated grades (imo) compared to where I went to school. That’s why class rank is an important factor to consider. At my vet school a 3.0 would have probably been really average first year because we had some really hard classes/professors, but at my residency institution a 3.0 would have been considered on the very low side. For example, my final GPA at graduation was a 3.2 and my class rank was 46/88 (so I was right around the middle) but I saw a friend’s info on a residency application and despite having the same GPA as me (a 3.2) she was in the bottom 10% of her class at her school. Just do the best you can and try not to worry about it. Your school can probably give you your class rank if you wanted to see where you lined up against your peers but it’s really not that big of a deal. I wouldn’t stress. Even if you’re wanting a residency and “need” a higher GPA there’s not much you can do besides keep doing what you’re doing and working hard and moving forward.

This doesn't help the OP exactly but I just think it's funny. I was like, in the bottom four or five of our class, and I swear I had a 2.9, so I'm just laughing about the difference between a 2.9 and a 3.2 being so 'significant' overall.

Luckily class rank didn't end up mattering for me... and at this point, I ain't even feel bad about it. I was over the whole thing by second semester so it's probably remarkable enough that I finished without throwing myself off an overpass onto the 412.

 

[JaynaAli]

This doesn't help the OP exactly but I just think it's funny. I was like, in the bottom four or five of our class, and I swear I had a 2.9, so I'm just laughing about the difference between a 2.9 and a 3.2 being so 'significant' overall.

Luckily class rank didn't end up mattering for me... and at this point, I ain't even feel bad about it. I was over the whole thing by second semester so it's probably remarkable enough that I finished without throwing myself off an overpass onto the 412.

It’s all a game anyway. At one point in first or second year I had a very slightly higher GPA than my best friend in our class, but her class rank was like ten above me. It was so strange of a situation. She was getting high 80s on most things and I was getting low 80s but I’d taken a couple more electives than her or something so I had a couple more courses with As at that time and that raised my GPA. But an 89 and an 82 are both Bs for GPA while the raw numbers were what went into class rank which pushed her above me on rank even though technically my GPA was higher than hers? That made me realize what a crazy thing all those things were and they didn’t matter.

 

[Trilt]

This doesn't help the OP exactly but I just think it's funny. I was like, in the bottom four or five of our class, and I swear I had a 2.9, so I'm just laughing about the difference between a 2.9 and a 3.2 being so 'significant' overall.

Luckily class rank didn't end up mattering for me... and at this point, I ain't even feel bad about it. I was over the whole thing by second semester so it's probably remarkable enough that I finished without throwing myself off an overpass onto the 412.

Yeah I was somewhere around there and also in the bottom bit of my class. My gaf definitely broke early in vet school...

 

[spdvm99]

Uh mine was a 2.20 let’s just say that a D is passing at UF and our anatomy time in lab was very short. We have didactics first years and clinics 3rd and 4th with electives on the off semesters between clinics. So burnout 1st two years is real

So I've heard, general advice from my school is if you make it through second year then you're golden but it's killer. They just swapped us to a new anatomy schedule in the last recent year or two so we get more lab time in proportion to lecture time (two hours a week on the schedule, anything else is on our own), I couldn't imagine having less!

 

[spdvm99]

This doesn't help the OP exactly but I just think it's funny. I was like, in the bottom four or five of our class, and I swear I had a 2.9, so I'm just laughing about the difference between a 2.9 and a 3.2 being so 'significant' overall.

Luckily class rank didn't end up mattering for me... and at this point, I ain't even feel bad about it. I was over the whole thing by second semester so it's probably remarkable enough that I finished without throwing myself off an overpass onto the 412.

I beg to differ, this was very helpful as I'm currently prepping for finals and the stress is real XD That's a very relatable mood

 

[spdvm99]

It’s all a game anyway. At one point in first or second year I had a very slightly higher GPA than my best friend in our class, but her class rank was like ten above me. It was so strange of a situation. She was getting high 80s on most things and I was getting low 80s but I’d taken a couple more electives than her or something so I had a couple more courses with As at that time and that raised my GPA. But an 89 and an 82 are both Bs for GPA while the raw numbers were what went into class rank which pushed her above me on rank even though technically my GPA was higher than hers? That made me realize what a crazy thing all those things were and they didn’t matter.

sometimes I think the system is set up just to get that last little bit of competitiveness out of us haha that's crazy how it works like that to me