Failed course, need feedback

[Twistinginwind]

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Hi all, this is a throwaway count... I just failed a course. At my school, failure of more than 2 exams in this block constitutes failure of the block and required remediation. This is what I'm expecting. I threw a hail Mary to one of the directors of an earlier test i failed hoping to meet with him. We are scheduled to meet next week. I failed his exam by .33%
In your experience meeting w medical school professors, have they ever changed a grade or lowered the fail rate (further, as the rate was lowered from 70 to 67 but I got a 66.67...) for a student? Thanks for reading.

TL;DR failed an exam by .33%, any chance prof will bump my grade up?

 

[HomeSkool]

Hi all, this is a throwaway count... I just failed a course. At my school, failure of more than 2 exams in this block constitutes failure of the block and required remediation. This is what I'm expecting. I threw a hail Mary to one of the directors of an earlier test i failed hoping to meet with him. We are scheduled to meet next week. I failed his exam by .33%
In your experience meeting w medical school professors, have they ever changed a grade or lowered the fail rate (further, as the rate was lowered from 70 to 67 but I got a 66.67...) for a student? Thanks for reading.

TL;DR failed an exam by .33%, any chance prof will bump my grade up?

No one here has any way of knowing that. You're already doing the best thing, which is to meet with him and plead your case directly.

Remember that an F is not the end of the world. The most important thing you can do is examine why you performed so poorly and make necessary adjustments. If you do that, this F could actually do more than any A to indirectly boost your academic performance. Good luck!

 

[curiousneuro]

Hi all, this is a throwaway count... I just failed a course. At my school, failure of more than 2 exams in this block constitutes failure of the block and required remediation. This is what I'm expecting. I threw a hail Mary to one of the directors of an earlier test i failed hoping to meet with him. We are scheduled to meet next week. I failed his exam by .33%
In your experience meeting w medical school professors, have they ever changed a grade or lowered the fail rate (further, as the rate was lowered from 70 to 67 but I got a 66.67...) for a student? Thanks for reading.

TL;DR failed an exam by .33%, any chance prof will bump my grade up?

I had a similar issue when I was in med school - during our required 'OSCE' at the end of third-year, I failed it by a quarter of a percentage point. We had a pretty horrible OSCE director, and there was no chance of changing that grade. I think nearly half our class had to 'remediate' the OSCE.

So - best thing you can do is meet with the director, and hope for the best...

 

[operaman]

I would bet the chances are slim but you still have nothing to lose by asking.

If it were me, I would consider the class average on the exam itself. If your failing score is already a 2+ standard deviations below the mean, then I would probably not adjust it. If the class average was within one SD of the failing cutoff, I'd give you the bump and probably strongly consider revising both my teaching and testing.

 

[ButterButter]

Don’t start out the meeting by saying, “look, I only failed by 0.33..” That would tell me as a course director that you were more interested in being scooted along rather than really understanding why you failed and what you can do to improve moving forward. Maybe offer to write a paper or research a topic to prove that you’re committed to understanding the material and not just looking for a handout. Good luck.

 

[Twistinginwind]

Thanks is everybody for your well wishes and advise. I'll be sure and follow your advise in as far as how I go about talking to the professor, Butter. Failing this course would delay me an entire year so really keeping my fingers crossed....

 

[Moose A Moose]

Thanks is everybody for your well wishes and advise. I'll be sure and follow your advise in as far as how I go about talking to the professor, Butter. Failing this course would delay me an entire year so really keeping my fingers crossed....

Report back how it goes.

 

[Goro]

No one here has any way of knowing that. You're already doing the best thing, which is to meet with him and plead your case directly.

Remember that an F is not the end of the world. The most important thing you can do is examine why you performed so poorly and make necessary adjustments. If you do that, this F could actually do more than any A to indirectly boost your academic performance. Good luck!

To follow up, whether you failed by .67 or 67 points, the matter is that you failed to demonstrate a minimal level of competency, much less any mastery of the subject.

Does you school allow for exam challenges? if so, is this process finished? If not, then you might possibly pass. If so, then it's far better for you to work on your deficits in this course, and any others.

 

[IMApplicant18]

Hi all, this is a throwaway count... I just failed a course. At my school, failure of more than 2 exams in this block constitutes failure of the block and required remediation. This is what I'm expecting. I threw a hail Mary to one of the directors of an earlier test i failed hoping to meet with him. We are scheduled to meet next week. I failed his exam by .33%
In your experience meeting w medical school professors, have they ever changed a grade or lowered the fail rate (further, as the rate was lowered from 70 to 67 but I got a 66.67...) for a student? Thanks for reading.

TL;DR failed an exam by .33%, any chance prof will bump my grade up?

If you scored 66.67 and 67 is passing - won't they mathematically round up??

 

[ButterButter]

If you scored 66.67 and 67 is passing - won't they mathematically round up??

Not at my school. The way they see it, your score is below the cutoff.

 

[HomeSkool]

If you scored 66.67 and 67 is passing - won't they mathematically round up??

Why do you assume the professor would round to the nearest whole number? Why not the nearest tenth? If the professor intended 66.5 to be the lowest passing grade, s/he'd have said that and not 67.

 

[Twistinginwind]

Heard back from the professor and there's no mechanism to change my grade. I will have to retake the exams I failed but not the entire year thankfully. I think that will delay me by a month but it won't affect my graduation or anything. Thanks everybody for the suggestions and real talk.

EDIT: Will a failure preclude me from matching into a competitive field like radiology?

 

[siliso]

Nothing is foreclosed to you if you remediate a preclinical class - IF you are able to successfully adjust your learning methods to perform strongly in future and never fail anything again. Repeating a year or failing a step would do much more damage.

 

[AlbinoHawk DO]

That really sucks. My school did round up. 69.5% = 70% = pass. I think it all depends on the school.