Med Skools without letter grades

[boomuntilnoon]

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I already attend an undergraduate college that provides pass/fail narrative evaluations, as opposed to letter grades... so I'm spoiled.

What med schools operate on a pass/fail grading system?

Thank you kindly.

 

[manicmaven]

Northwestern does for the first 2 years.

 

[thesaint]

which college is that?

 

[boomuntilnoon]

well, I listed my school on my profile...

The New College of Florida.

 

[fonzy]

I think lots of med schools assign Honors/ high pass/ pass/fail these days.

 

[BobbyDylanFan]

there are a lot of schools that just do pass/fail or honors/pass/fail
for a list of them check out aamc's website.

 

[gower]

If the New College is really new, and has does not have an established record with medical schools, in Florida or elsewhere, P/F is distinctly a disadvantage. How are medical schools supposed to interpret a PASS grade? Technically, a pass can be for anything from a D to an A, or at least only C or better.
What your instructors have to say about you may be critical,
but how then are medical schools to know how much reliance to put on them? Those colleges with a long-established P/F system, and whose students have a track record, and especially if there is a premedical advisor known to medical schools, fare quite well.

I do not see any New College advisor listed among the members of the national association of advisors. Membership confers many advantages because members exchange information with other and because many of the meetings--national and regional--have professional school admissions people present. There is a great deal of conversation at meals and elswhere among advisors and admission folks. You surely have heard of the adage: it is not what you know but who you know. Not always that simple, but sometimes it is helpful.

Medical school P/F grades are not a problem. The medical school, in fact, knows your real grades even if they do not appear on the medical school transcript. The basic science grades are of lesser importance: what your clinical instructors have to say or write about you is critical to both your earning the MD degree and securing your residencies.

If and when you get to medical school interviews, you should speak with medical STUDENTs about how they feel or deal with the grading system in use. You may discover that you should have nothing to worry about.

 

[Jalby]

I think you totally misunderstood his question gower. But great answer to the question you thought he was trying to ask.

As for schools with Pass/Fail, there are a lot of them, but I must warn you that your grades still are used for a ranking. (with one or two exceptions like Harvard)

UCLA, UCSF and USC all have Pass/Fail graing systems. At least, that is what is reported. But the grades you recieve on the tests are still recorded and used to determine AOA status (top 15% of each class) and that is reported to residencies. So that someone who is 84th percentile in the class would look the same on grades as someone who is 25th percentile. So you might be better off going to a school that has honors/pass/ fail, so if you pass all of your classes, you still might get a few honors on your transcript.

 

[gower]

Thanks for the clarification, Jalby. Nothing less would be expected from the Supreme Ruler of the Earth!

 

[boomuntilnoon]

Thanks for y'alls help... the AAMC website rocks my face off! (well, not really, but it helped out A LOT).

Naw, New College is not "new"... even though hardly anyone knows about it, New College is one of the best liberal arts schools in the nation. *grins*

 

[souljah1]

Originally posted by Jalby
I think you totally misunderstood his question gower. But great answer to the question you thought he was trying to ask.

As for schools with Pass/Fail, there are a lot of them, but I must warn you that your grades still are used for a ranking. (with one or two exceptions like Harvard)

UCLA, UCSF and USC all have Pass/Fail graing systems. At least, that is what is reported. But the grades you recieve on the tests are still recorded and used to determine AOA status (top 15% of each class) and that is reported to residencies. So that someone who is 84th percentile in the class would look the same on grades as someone who is 25th percentile. So you might be better off going to a school that has honors/pass/ fail, so if you pass all of your classes, you still might get a few honors on your transcript.

Jalby, UCSF does not look at grades from the first two years to determine AOA. They only look at clerkship grades and other things centered around involvement. Atleast that is what they told us any way. A lot of us asked the 'Dean Team' whether or not our numerical grades on exams would be used on either Dean's Letters or to determine AOA and we were told a very reassurringly "No". So, as far as I can tell the first two years are strictly Pass/Fail and the third and fourth years throw in some Honor distinctions.

 

[TulaneKid24]

University of Chicago is pass/fail during the pre-clincal years.

University of Michigan is pass/fail during year one only.

Here at Tulane, we have an Honors/High Pass/Pass/Condition/Fail system. Even though they have different names, I see it as A/B/C/D/F myself, although the scale is tipped very far to the right. For example, Honors is 94-100%, High Pass is 93-86%, etc..

😱

 

[Jalby]

Originally posted by souljah1
Jalby, UCSF does not look at grades from the first two years to determine AOA. They only look at clerkship grades and other things centered around involvement. Atleast that is what they told us any way. A lot of us asked the 'Dean Team' whether or not our numerical grades on exams would be used on either Dean's Letters or to determine AOA and we were told a very reassurringly "No". So, as far as I can tell the first two years are strictly Pass/Fail and the third and fourth years throw in some Honor distinctions.

I heard otherwise about your school from 2 different sorces (about the first 2 years). I think the admin might not be totally truthfull or at least forthcoming. It's funny, last year I told 3 first years at UCLA from the gy,, 6 months into school, what I posted above and they didn't believe me. They walked into the student affairs, and was a bit bitter that my information was correct.

 

[LittleMD]

NYU, Mt Sinai, and U of Rochester are pass/fail.

However, NYU still has a record of the class rankings that is reported for the residency matching, whereas Mt Sinai is an institution that is "TRUE" pass/fail, where they refuse to report rankings.

I am not sure whether or not U of Roch is "true" pass/fail.

 

[Desdemona]

Stanford also has pass-fail without rankings. But I heard that they are trying to change that.