Bob,
I disagree with that. From my interpretation, all that is posted is the percent of students who pass and those who don't.
Are you willing to make the assumption that while some schools have different schedules, every school is accredited and for the most part teach very similar material?
It would seem from pass rates that this is either an incorrect assumption, or some schools have gotten a much better pick of the applicants. Either way, with people working hard, I would have to assume that those failing out either were inadequately prepared by what they studied, or were poor candidates for the school anyway.
This may be a big leap, but do you think students who work hard, study hard, and make good grades pass the boards the large majority of the time?
I don't know, I don't know what sort of GPAs are found at the other schools. If the schools have comparable GPAs, but dissimilar pass rates, wouldn't it make sense that the information being taught is inadequate for the boards, though adequate for classes?
IF these you agree with, then you can make the reasonable assumption that the students who don't pass either don't prepare properly or are doing SOMETHING wrong.
I think regardless of whether or not the others are true, this is correct.
IF this is true, would you be willing to concede that the smaller a school's class, generally the higher quality the student (due to lack of applicants and larger school's need to fill their classes)?
Therefore, it is just as likely that the Board pass rates reflect not the difficulty of the courses, but rather the disparity of qualified/unqualified students attending the school?
But what do I know... Just a lowly prepod. I'm sure that if you took the top students from all 9 schools, you couldn't tell much difference.
Yeah, this is probably true too.
In essence it seems to come down to some schools either doing a better job requiring board-relevant material for exams, or some schools admitting students they shouldn't.
Like I said, I don't know if what I said is true, but it seems intuitive to me. I may be making a false dichotomy here, but it seems as though one of the two preceding things must be true to explain the disparity in pass rates.
So...standardize the material, or up the admission standards. Either way, win-win for the profession.
Thanks for the response, I always enjoy being challenged to reevaluate my thoughts.
To the OP, if you're looking for a school specifically for easier classes, then I think you might reevaluate your motivation to succeed. If science is difficult enough for you that this is an issue, than you may look for another field. I excelled in the sciences, and pod school is a kick in the pants like nothing I expected. Here I am looking over 1000 slides or so for my exam tomorrow morning (with another exam next tuesday with a few hundred slides, and another the following Friday with 60+ hours of lecture material they can take questions from).
The thing about it is, most of it isn't particularly difficult conceptually. The issue is the sheer mass of information coming at you like a firehose, and being expected to retain it, and do it fast. It's like being a Dixie cup under a waterfall, and being told you've gotta fill a gallon bucket with it. It's fast, it's hard to know sometimes what's important and what's not (though the quality of the class/teacher makes a difference there), and it's a huge amount of information.
If I were you now, I'd figure out some ways to learn things extremely quickly. I've had to create new study techniques a few different times for different classes, until I finally found what works well for me in the least amount of time (hint: writing out 3 hundred notecards by hand takes way more time than it's worth)
Either way to the OP, good luck.
