Grade distribution for premed classes at your school?

[peony]

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All of the premed classes at my school are required my the administration to be curved to a C+/B-, and I am just wondering if this is typical for schools. It actually wouldn't be that bad except that after so many people realize that they're in the C range they drop and then the competition for an A gets really rough.

 

[shiftingmirage]

Never heard of this before. At my school, we don't have a pre-med committee so there are no standard curves for pre-med classes.

 

[KnuxNole]

Usually, the norm is 75% or higher = no curve(for the most part)

There are some classes where it's self-curved, i.e. the tests are hard, a flock of people drop, and then the overall average peaks up.

Or in rare cases, you get lots of EC which counts as a curve(and to my amazement people still ignore them🙄)

 

[ChubbyChaser]

maybe I just go to a school with lots of underachieving kids, but our chem 1 and chem 2 test averages were usually around 60, so i would figure our class average to be a high D or Low C if you include quizzes and lab. Orgo was usually 60-70 as well. Not sure about Bio, but Our physics class was usually around 75-80

 

[[pj]]

Most of my science classes were curved, in which the prof wrote the exam so that the average would come out to about 60-70 and avg is a 2.8 (+/- 0.2).

Usually, a lower average creates a better distribution because as things get higher, there's less separation. Kind of like the verbal section on the MCAT, where a few questions is the difference between a 8 and a 10.

 

[UFGatorMed]

In my GenChem Classes the averages usually hovered around 60-70%. But the professors made up for it by making an 85% and up and A. So I would say that the Chem department doesn't come out and say they bell curve, but they do a pretty damn good job ensuring grades are distributed correctly. As for Bio and Phy they go ahead and bellcurve everything. So what ended up happening? It was complete chaos for the first weak of school during drop add. Fellow students would almost interview you to find out how smart you were. That way they would know if they should switch out or not... *****s. The classes are filled with 400-500 kids anyways. 👎

 

[xiaoyi666]

No committee in my school, it depends on the professor. Some don't curve at all, i.e. genetics; while others curve a ridiculous amount i.e. my orgo class freshman year where class avg was ~22/100 (class avg = C+).

 

[MahSpoon]

It never mattered what the actual raw score was on the test, most of my science classes were curved so that the mean was B-/C+ and each standard deviation was 1 full letter grade. I've had classes where 30% was an A and sometimes you needed 95% for an A.

 

[Miss Alyssa]

All of the premed classes at my school are required my the administration to be curved to a C+/B-, and I am just wondering if this is typical for schools. It actually wouldn't be that bad except that after so many people realize that they're in the C range they drop and then the competition for an A gets really rough.

University of Toronto is like this too. But it's not just "premed" classes, it's the entire faculty of arts & science. Especially in first year, class averages must be maintained at ~65-69% or the prof must explain to the dean why the class average was so high. I've had profs state that they don't care for this rule and if we earn a high class average, they will gladly write "the letter". There is also a cap on the number of students per course who can obtain an 'A'. It makes for an interesting dynamic regarding how hard the final will be based on the midterm class average. I still don't know why they do this...

 

[Isoprop]

most of my prereq classes have been curved according to historical averages of the class.

i've had a few "straight" curves (93% = A, 90% = A-, etc.)