How long does your medical school take to process and post exam grades?

[bright_and_edgy]

Im a newly minted MS1 who after two exams has found that my medical school, though wonderful, can take anywhere from 1-3 weeks to post exam grades. This is extremely surprising to me as I completed an SMP in which exams taken via the same system (examplify) and posted to the same system (canvas) could be graded and posted in several hours to 2 days AT MOST. I attribute this quick turnover to the master's program and medical school associated with it having a dedicated testing department which my current medical school does not have. Even still, all grades are electronic - I can't imagine why this would take over 3-5 days at most.

I am considering petitioning student government regarding this issue as it seems my school is delayed in this department. But I want to first poll and see if this is an issue at other medical schools. What is the average turnover for exam grades at your med school?

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[ololona]

Some exams where there is no reason to rush, 1/2 days. Some exams, half an hour lol

 

[Goro]

Sometimes students can see their scores as soon as they finish their exams. During exam block weeks, we don't want them to get upset over a poor grade, so we have to wait until the following Monday or Tuesday. This might get get delayed if someone has to make up an exam.

Taking three weeks to grade an exam is insane.

 

[Gibbward]

Yeah we get our written exam grades a couple minutes after submitting. The practical exams grades for gross anatomy is usually given back to us within a week, but we are given the answer keys at the end of the test day so we can kinda gauge what are scores are. 3 weeks is ridiculous. Do you guys have just essay style questions for your exams or something??

 

[Rusrus]

Hey friend! You probably already know, but at my school scores are posted the same day, generally 2-3 hours post-exam.

 

[ciestar]

At most three days.

 

[kraskadva]

Anywhere from a couple of hours to a few days (5 was the longest I think...over a holiday weekend). We might wait a few days past that for final decisions on challenges or a curve, but we know our scores pretty quickly.
We also use examplify, and it could give us instant scores (it's all MC anyway), but the faculty likes to look at all the results first, decide if they're going to throw out any questions, and, IDK, twiddle their thumbs maybe, before they give us the grades. Then we can challenge questions afterwards and they can how to respond to those challenges. But all that takes a week or 10 days tops.
3 weeks is ridiculous. You should petition.

 

[longhaul3]

I would recommend not petitioning anything at your school as a first-year. Or really at all, depending on what you want to go into.

 

[libertyyne]

It depends on our exam. If we have instructor written school administered exam we usually see the percent correct right after taking the exam and then the official grades get posted a few days to a week after. (They usually go through all the question challenges and comments and will drop a question ) IF we have nbme exams it can take up to 2 weeks to get them back.

 

[The Knife & Gun Club]

Usually it takes us 5-7 days. Our paper scan trons need to be loaded in a van and driven by courier to the main campus, where they are run through the grading machine. Then they are loaded back, driven back to the med campus, and input by hand into excel by a single person. If she goes on vacation or gets sick no one gets grades until she returns.

It is the most remarkably inefficient process I could imagine.

 

[ololona]

Oh, all my exams are online!

But even clinical exams, they get back to us within 2 days because they don't want us to keep worrying!

 

[ohmanwaddup]

we get our raw grade the second we submit it. Its both great and awful at the same time

 

[21Rush12]

we get our raw grade the second we submit it. Its both great and awful at the same time

I would love this, I absolutely hate waiting for test grades more than anything in the world.

 

[username456789]

we get our raw grade the second we submit it. Its both great and awful at the same time

Yeah i went to medical school from 2008-2012 and our exams for M1/M2 were on our laptops and as soon as we hit “submit” we instantly got our raw score and percentage correct.

How any school ten years later struggles to do this is beyond me (unless your school does a lot of short answer/essay stuff).

 

[Stagg737]

My school we got our raw scores as soon as you hit submit. Curved grades would come out as early as later that day and usually within 2-3 days. I think there were one or two exams that took about a week to come out because because there were a bunch of people who took it late, but those were the exceptions. 1 week later there'd be an open review of the exams and finalized adjustments were made after that in case there was an error in a question or one that everyone felt was not taught properly/poorly written.

Anatomy practicals would come out within 2-3 days. All our exams other than anatomy practicals were multiple choice, which made instantly knowing the raw score possible.

 

[bright_and_edgy]

Yeah we get our written exam grades a couple minutes after submitting. The practical exams grades for gross anatomy is usually given back to us within a week, but we are given the answer keys at the end of the test day so we can kinda gauge what are scores are. 3 weeks is ridiculous. Do you guys have just essay style questions for your exams or something??

Nope! All multiple choice no essays uploaded to examplify. They're graded the day we submit but they dont process and release for a long time. I have no clue why but its definitely not the norm I'm seeing

 

[bright_and_edgy]

Usually it takes us 5-7 days. Our paper scan trons need to be loaded in a van and driven by courier to the main campus, where they are run through the grading machine. Then they are loaded back, driven back to the med campus, and input by hand into excel by a single person. If she goes on vacation or gets sick no one gets grades until she returns.

It is the most remarkably inefficient process I could imagine.

Whats hilarious is that your school potentially cranks out scantron grades faster than my school processes computer uploaded grades. how.

 

[popopopop]

Nope! All multiple choice no essays uploaded to examplify. They're graded the day we submit but they dont process and release for a long time. I have no clue why but its definitely not the norm I'm seeing

Examplify here too, 2-4 hours tops.

 

[bright_and_edgy]

I would recommend not petitioning anything at your school as a first-year. Or really at all, depending on what you want to go into.

Never question anything. Got it. Thanks.

 

[popopopop]

Never question anything. Got it. Thanks.

At my school, things get done fast if the class disagrees with something. Get your student body to see what's going on.

 

[TakotsuboOkazaki]

N=1 reporting in:

First exam was this past Friday, grades came out Tuesday around 5PM.

Approximately:

• 363,600 seconds
• 6060 minutes
• 101 hours
• 4 days (rounded down)

 

[ohmanwaddup]

I would love this, I absolutely hate waiting for test grades more than anything in the world.

It's a blessing and a curse. You sometimes sit there in anxiety not wanting to hit submit cause you are scared you failed. I've seen people cry leaving the exam hall. At the same time, completing my first block last week and knowing right away that I passed was exhilarating.

 

[sunshinefl]

Ours have varied from instant unofficial examplify raw percent at submission to 3 weeks.

 

[787593]

Im a newly minted MS1 who after two exams has found that my medical school, though wonderful, can take anywhere from 1-3 weeks to post exam grades. This is extremely surprising to me as I completed an SMP in which exams taken via the same system (examplify) and posted to the same system (canvas) could be graded and posted in several hours to 2 days AT MOST. I attribute this quick turnover to the master's program and medical school associated with it having a dedicated testing department which my current medical school does not have. Even still, all grades are electronic - I can't imagine why this would take over 3-5 days at most.

I am considering petitioning student government regarding this issue as it seems my school is delayed in this department. But I want to first poll and see if this is an issue at other medical schools. What is the average turnover for exam grades at your med school?

we get grades immediately after taking the exam

 

[kamakazi5]

Our school is all short answer. They said it can take 3-4 weeks. Not looking forward to that wait.

 

[gyngyn]

I am considering petitioning student government regarding this issue as it seems my school is delayed in this department. But I want to first poll and see if this is an issue at other medical schools.

You should have student representation on the curriculum committee.
Start there.
Only anatomy practicals or essay exams should take more than a few days.

 

[efle]

We get an immediate raw percent correct, but that usually ends up getting tweaked later after they go through the exam analysis to decide if certain questions were not valid. So for most people it's an immediate relief to see they passed by a wide margin...for others right near the pass/fail threshold it's a bunch of anxious days waiting to see if they'll get the bump they need.

 

[Eleithyia]

Even still, all grades are electronic - I can't imagine why this would take over 3-5 days at most.
[...]
I am considering petitioning student government regarding this issue as it seems my school is delayed in this department. But I want to first poll and see if this is an issue at other medical schools. What is the average turnover for exam grades at your med school?

Nope! All multiple choice no essays uploaded to examplify. They're graded the day we submit but they dont process and release for a long time. I have no clue why but its definitely not the norm I'm seeing

Hi! Based on your post, I think we might be in the same class. Big state university?

If so, at the meeting with the block supervisors last week someone asked & they mentioned the person whose responsibility it is to get them posted is new this year and still learning the software. They also said it shouldn't take this long in the future.

Hope that helps 🙂

 

[bright_and_edgy]

Hi! Based on your post, I think we might be in the same class. Big state university?

If so, at the meeting with the block supervisors last week someone asked & they mentioned the person whose responsibility it is to get them posted is new this year and still learning the software. They also said it shouldn't take this long in the future.

Hope that helps 🙂

Different school in the lone star state 🙂 According to M2s this has been a trend for the last 2-3 years so nothing new! Thanks tho - glad ya'll are getting yours sorted out!

 

[Eleithyia]

Different school in the lone star state 🙂 According to M2s this has been a trend for the last 2-3 years so nothing new! Thanks tho - glad ya'll are getting yours sorted out!

Haha, my bad! Guess you can count us in your tally of schools that can't get it together, lol

 

[deleted645092]

Wow I used to think my school was bad but I might be reconsidering after seeing some of the posts here. We used Examplify the first 2 years and they might come back the next day, or they might come back the next week. Not really any consistency. However we did get to have "challenge sessions" the afternoon of our exam to look at the answer key and submit any questions that we felt were poorly written or could have had multiple answers. Sometimes we might even catch some that were miskeyed.

Now our OSCEs on the other hand took 3 months once, and my first rotation grade still hasn't been submitted even though our COMAT scores get sent directly to them and the preceptor evaluations were all in within 1 week. 3 weeks and counting on that grade.

 

[Nucleophile1]

A few days. I wish we got them immediately!