Overslept and missed a test

Burrell College of Osteopathic Medicine
This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
C

confuse

Senior Member
10+ Year Member
15+ Year Member
20+ Year Member
Joined
Nov 3, 2002
Messages
280
Reaction score
0
Members don't see this ad.
Has this happened to anyone? This is the worst day of my life. My worst nightmare has just happened and I found out that I won't be able to retake it. Albeit, it's a quiz and does not count large % but it sucks after studying so hard for it and coming up with a 0 for your effort. 🙁 I'm not sure why I post this; I guess I just want to say that it's never a bad idea to have multiple alarm clocks.
 
That happened to quite a few people with a recent test. Tests are usually in the afternoon over here but the powers-that-be decided to change things up and scheduled a test at 10am. A handful missed it. Perhaps since there were so many that slept in, student affairs decided to have mercy on them and allowed them to retake it. However, it was an essay test and I heard it was really hard, which sucks because the original test was easy compared to most of our tests.

I also know a couple of people that have overslept and missed quizzes and weren't allowed to retake. So yeah, this stuff happens.

I'm sorry about your mishap OP but you have to look at the bright side: at least it wasn't a test, the MCAT, Step 1, etc.
 
I always set my phone alarm clock as well as my normal alarm clock. One time there was a power outage and my alarm clock got reset, if not for my phone I would have been ****ed!
 
Zweisamkeit,
Thanks for your encouraging words. It makes me feel alot better. Having something like this happen once is bad enough, but you're right, it could have been much worse. I stayed up all night studying. When I was done and have a few minutes to spare before getting dressed and heading out, I rested my eyes for a few minutes which turned out to be over an hour. I guess I just have to study harder for the remaining exams.
meister,
Yeah. The apartment where I stayed at last year, whenever it rained, our power went out. If it wasn't for my cell, my roommate and I would have been screwed. I'm going alarm clock shopping later today.
 
One of my closest friends woke up this morning at 8:05 for our 8 AM phys NBME. Fortunately for him, we started a half hour late. He used up a few years' worth of karma on that one.
 
Back in college this happened more often than I would like to admit. First time I had an intro comp sci course where the final was at 2pm. No problem, I thought. I went to bed at 1am and didn't bother to set an alarm clock. I woke up at 3:45pm 😱 The professor let me make it up. 😀 Second time I was snowboarding in Reno, NV when I realized I had to get on a flight same day back to Los Angeles to take a calc3 midterm...that was a near miss. Later on that same semester I actually did mess a test in that same calc3 course because I thought the class started at 2pm--not 1pm. Luckily the professor took mercy. I've been pretty lucky so far.
 
Since my class was small enough (75 students) for one to look around & see exactly who was missing, we made sure no one left the exam (even if they were done) until the latecomer showed up (since school policy was that you could not start an exam once one person had finished & left)
 
I did this once in undergrad. I didn't miss the test completely, but I showed up at least halfway into it.
 
I showed up halfway into one of my exams during second year. Lucky for me, I'm a fast test taker and was done before time was up.
 
At Wayne, the policy is that you can take the exam as long as you are 15 minutes or less late. If you call in beforehand and are sick you have to go to the clinic and be seen but you are allowed to retake the test a week or two later.

For my genetics exam last year there was an accident on my way to school and I had to get off the highway. Needless to say it took a lot longer than expected. Apparently a few other students called in about the same thing but I got there about 14 minutes after the exam started. I was fine.

Earlier this year, there were a handful of students that thought an exam was an hour later because they were following an earlier copy of the schedule or something like that. They were allowed to retake the exam.

I hope you talked to student affairs and got the situation handled. What you have stated is my worst nightmare and it has almost happened to me more than once despite the fact that I have 2 normal alarm clocks, a clocky battery powered rolly thing, a battery powered cheapo alarm, and my phone as an alarm. If not for people knowing when I should be gone on that particular test day I would have missed the test.
 
we had someone sleep through our mid term anatomy practical. Thankfully one of the professors was nice enough to stay late and proctor the exam for her.
 
Wow, alot of good karma stories here. 🙂 Student of affairs showed no mercy for me but I didn't really expect any. My dean offered to set up an appointment with me and course director, but I didn't pursue it because I am too embarassed about the whole incident. 😳 Fortunately, this is one of the class that I did well in so I'm not really in danger of failing.
 
If someone makes a single mistake like this and the professors ream him or her and fail the kid, that doesn't do anything for anyone (except possibly get the school another year's worth of tuition out of the student).

We're all past the stupid undergrad hoops, can we at least be treated like adults yet? If you miss a court date you might have a warrant out for your arrest but they don't usually just throw you in jail for a while. They just haul your ass to court. Similarly, if you miss an exam, the professor can be pissed, make you feel crappy, and then either give you a harder exam or a written one to teach you a lesson. No need to fail anyone out.
 
confuse said:
Wow, alot of good karma stories here. 🙂 Student of affairs showed no mercy for me but I didn't really expect any. My dean offered to set up an appointment with me and course director, but I didn't pursue it because I am too embarassed about the whole incident. 😳 Fortunately, this is one of the class that I did well in so I'm not really in danger of failing.
Click to expand...

Why would you be embarrassed? Just say it was a one time deal, be apologetic, and say it won't happen again. That's your best chance to get a practice test. This is your grade here. If you worked your ass off on the other tests why not get a shot to keep it that way?
 
In our "doctoring" class, we have online exams that we usually have a week to access and finish. a couple of my friends, on separate occasions, have forgotten to take the exams.

luckily, you can still pass with a zero on the test.
 
TMP-SMX said:
Why would you be embarrassed? Just say it was a one time deal, be apologetic, and say it won't happen again. That's your best chance to get a practice test. This is your grade here. If you worked your ass off on the other tests why not get a shot to keep it that way?
Click to expand...

Yeah, I agree. The worst thing they can say is "no you can't take it", which is the position you're in anyway. You should really go and ask. Even if they only agree to give you partial credit, anything would be better than a 0.
 
Mistakes, which make you LEARN are called EXPERIENCES...

Hope you have learn your lesson from it.
 
i hope you don't over-sleep during your rotations. If such incident gets mentioned in your letter, you could definitely lose getting into top, competitive specialties, unless you have like 250+ on step 1 and 2.
 
mededu said:
Mistakes, which make you LEARN are called EXPERIENCES...

Hope you have learn your lesson from it.
Click to expand...

Yes, thanks to this valuable learning "experience," you will no longer be late for anything ever again. So that's a relief.

Of course, if you already knew that being late for tests is not a good idea, I'd just call this one a mistake.
 
I don't see how it really teaches anything. It's just a sign of the times in how sleep deprived we are we can't even get up for a test because we were studying so many hours the days before the exam. What everyone should do though is have multiple alarm clocks.
 
confuse said:
I stayed up all night studying.
Click to expand...
Why were you up all night to study for a relatively small quiz? If you keep this up, you're going to get very burned out very quickly.

Like they all say, med school's a marathon, not a sprint. While it is important that you get a trusty alarm clock, this may be a bigger wake-up call in terms of how you're studying. There isn't much reason (school-wise, anyways) to ever lose a night of sleep during the 1st 2 years if you're disciplined.
 
TMP-SMX said:
I don't see how it really teaches anything. It's just a sign of the times in how sleep deprived we are we can't even get up for a test because we were studying so many hours the days before the exam. What everyone should do though is have multiple alarm clocks.
Click to expand...

Multiple alarm clocks, including at least one which isn't plugged into an outlet. Power outages!
 
My upstairs neighbor just bought a heavy-duty vibrating alarm clock that he sets for 5:55 AM and hits the snooze on every 5 minutes until 7:30 AM, so I rarely have this problem anymore.

A&*hole.
 
OddNath said:
up all night to study for a relatively small quiz?
Click to expand...
haha, I didn't see that. I usually don't even stay up all night studying for big exams. Having a fresh mind going in is much higher yield than staying up all night trying to get a couple more questions right. Besides, the evening before should be devoted to briefly reviewing, not studying new materials
 
meister said:
Multiple alarm clocks, including at least one which isn't plugged into an outlet. Power outages!
Click to expand...

👍

For me it's battery powered alarm + charged phone for a test day. No power outages and no accidently aiming for off when you meant snooze. This is a lesson of giving too much up to chance. I learned because it happened to me 🙁
 
Last edited:
sprinkibrio said:
👍

For me it's battery powered alarm + charged phone for a test day. No power outages and no accidently aiming for off when you meant snooze. This is a lesson of giving too much up to chance. I learned because it happened to me 🙁
Click to expand...

I've had a couple almost misses and it hasn't helped that I have 5 alarms. 😉 Though it hasn't happened yet. Normally I don't become conscious on these nights of lacking sleep before an exam unless I have to actually stand up and turn off the alarms.
 
You guys are exactly right in saying that it is a learning experience since that's exactly what I wrote when responding to my dean, but I've also learned something else very very important. If anyone ever made a mistake like this, unless you're at the verge of repeating a year, don't ever push the issue. Seeing how the events unfold following this incident, I know for a fact now that everything you do in medical school is tracked. Things that you may not considered a big deal like showing up a few minutes late for small group etc... are noticed and may be marked down for unprofessional behavior. I'm really glad that I have been a reliable and responsible student, but I'm still worried about this incident. Be very cautious in med school and watch out for your classmates everyone.

On a lighter note, I went home this wk and got my favorite alarm clock, one that has sustained me all through grade school. It sounds like a big cow mooing and the sound is so annoying and scares me so much and I usually wake up by instinct 5 minutes early just so I can avoid being woken by it. 😀
 
meister said:
Multiple alarm clocks, including at least one which isn't plugged into an outlet. Power outages!
Click to expand...


Yes totally, agree.. get up and "fight" [study or take a test-(futile cycle] -like every one else..
Forget about REM sleep, hypnopompic hallucinations, dreams and somabulism... Geez, You think William Osler every over slept a Pathology/ Internal Medicine test??.... 😴
 
Last edited:
confuse said:
Wow, alot of good karma stories here. 🙂 Student of affairs showed no mercy for me but I didn't really expect any. My dean offered to set up an appointment with me and course director, but I didn't pursue it because I am too embarassed about the whole incident. 😳 Fortunately, this is one of the class that I did well in so I'm not really in danger of failing.
Click to expand...
Nobody else thinks was quite possibly the worst course of action imaginable? They reached out to you, and you turned them away? What the hell were you thinking? That'll do wonders for the impression that you actually give a crap about the education you're receiving. I really hope there's more to the story.
 
Medical school is a job, or more like a pre-job interview. The interview lasts for four years. There is no excuse for oversleeping. You should have an alarm that goes off that is pluged in the wall and another alarm that is on the other side of the room that runs by batteries. Even if you forget to set the alarm, always set the alarm when you just turned it off or make it a routine like going to the pay room when you get home to set the alarm clock.
 
MilkmanAl said:
Nobody else thinks was quite possibly the worst course of action imaginable? They reached out to you, and you turned them away? What the hell were you thinking? That'll do wonders for the impression that you actually give a crap about the education you're receiving. I really hope there's more to the story.
Click to expand...

You are RIGHT, the school reached out to the guy to make amends !! (no one noticed this, I didnt ) [almost turning into Saturady night comic relief]👍
 
confuse said:
Has this happened to anyone? This is the worst day of my life. My worst nightmare has just happened and I found out that I won't be able to retake it. Albeit, it's a quiz and does not count large % but it sucks after studying so hard for it and coming up with a 0 for your effort. 🙁 I'm not sure why I post this; I guess I just want to say that it's never a bad idea to have multiple alarm clocks.
Click to expand...

That's my worst nightmare. It almost happened to me in undergrad, and that scared the living **** out of me. Since then, I set 2 alarm clocks, my phone which will go off even if the power goes out, and my normal one. Oh man, that sucks! Lucky for you it is just a quiz, I always imagine missing one of the big biochem or anatomy exams...the kind that you can't make up. Repeating would suck.
 
Last edited:
I hate to be the jerky one here, but I have a very hard time finding sympathy for missing tests/quizzes in med school.

This is med school. You overslept. Professionalism needs work.
 
For the Step I I used triple alarm clocks: my clock, my cell phone, and my pager.
 
Random MS said:
I hate to be the jerky one here, but I have a very hard time finding sympathy for missing tests/quizzes in med school.

This is med school. You overslept. Professionalism needs work.
Click to expand...

Everybody slips up now and again.
 
Random MS said:
This is med school. You overslept. Professionalism needs work.
Click to expand...

hm... you don't know me at all and from this incident, you already can tell that my professionalism needs work, but this is OK because I was expecting this kind of response. This is exactly the reason why I tell everyone to be very cautious in med school in my earlier post. While grades are objective, professionalism can be very subjective; and yet, while bad grades here and there will not kill you, being perceived as unprofessional by your superiors can give you lots of trouble. As med students, we are at the bottom of the pile and are constantly being evaluated by our superiors (which is everyone) during rotations and residency. I will say this one more time: be very cautious and if you care about your classmates, keep an eye out for them because you may be next. 🙂
 
WellWornLad said:
My upstairs neighbor just bought a heavy-duty vibrating alarm clock that he sets for 5:55 AM and hits the snooze on every 5 minutes until 7:30 AM, so I rarely have this problem anymore.

A&*hole.
Click to expand...

seriously can someone explain the reasoning behind this? It boggles my mind why people do this! 😕 Who enjoys sleeping in 5 minute intervals with loud beeping noises in between? HOnestly....i can sort of maybe understand setting your alarm like 10 min before you want to get up and hitting the snooze once or twice........but hours before? wtf?
 
If it's just a quiz and not critical (i.e. you don't fail the class), then don't sweat it and take it as a lesson--as in set two alarms on your exam days. Better a quiz than a final exam, right?
 
Thats ridiculous. If I were a course director, I'd let you retake it. They should be a bit more lenient. We're med school students and people make mistakes. No reason to make our lives harder every opportunity they get.
 
Thank goodness for PASS/FAIL. Your school is PF right? If it is, don't sweat it.
 
RySerr21 said:
seriously can someone explain the reasoning behind this? It boggles my mind why people do this! 😕 Who enjoys sleeping in 5 minute intervals with loud beeping noises in between? HOnestly....i can sort of maybe understand setting your alarm like 10 min before you want to get up and hitting the snooze once or twice........but hours before? wtf?
Click to expand...

That is what I do too.
But I have two alarm clocks. One to which I must wake up- the other I could hit the snooze button until my sleep lightens up enough for my 2nd to wake me up for good.
 
I too had the same problem. But not now. cos of shakeawake.
The ShakeAwake Vibrating Alarm clocks are useful for hearing impaired people, heavy sleepers and people who hate jarring sounds. These clocks are battery operated portable alarm clocks with vibrator, loud buzzer alert and a snooze button that wakes up even the deepest sleepers on time.
These great alarm clocks are also powered with a self-contained battery with one year warranty and are perfect for people who have special needs.
visit : http://www.shakeawake.com for more info man..

regards
reyes
 
ReyesBurns said:
I too had the same problem. But not now. cos of shakeawake.
The ShakeAwake Vibrating Alarm clocks are useful for hearing impaired people, heavy sleepers and people who hate jarring sounds. These clocks are battery operated portable alarm clocks with vibrator, loud buzzer alert and a snooze button that wakes up even the deepest sleepers on time.
These great alarm clocks are also powered with a self-contained battery with one year warranty and are perfect for people who have special needs.
visit : http://www.shakeawake.com for more info man..

regards
reyes
Click to expand...


Methinks we have a salesman in our midst.

Screw you and your vibrating alarm clock. Those things are a public nuisance. And by the way, if you want to build a heavy-duty alarm clock, DON'T GIVE IT A SNOOZE BUTTON. That way my upstairs neighbor would have to set it for when he has to get up, instead of 2 hours before.
 
WellWornLad said:
My upstairs neighbor just bought a heavy-duty vibrating alarm clock that he sets for 5:55 AM and hits the snooze on every 5 minutes until 7:30 AM, so I rarely have this problem anymore.

A&*hole.
Click to expand...


hahaha im sorry but this was fcking reayll funny@@!!
 
I don't understand why the OP didn't take the make-up that was so generously offered? 😕
Random MS said:
This is med school. You overslept. Professionalism needs work.
Click to expand...

You forgot to tell him that he's going to be a terrible doctor! 😀
 
Random MS said:
I hate to be the jerky one here, but I have a very hard time finding sympathy for missing tests/quizzes in med school.

This is med school. You overslept. Professionalism needs work.
Click to expand...
i think you are being a bit harsh as well. to be human is to err....remember that 80s human league song....i'm only human? LOL
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

BrainyBaby111
Rotation evaluation missing for almost a year
Replies
6
Views
813
GoSpursGo
GoSpursGo
A
General Surgery Match Chances and Strategy
Replies
1
Views
302
pazzer2
P
C
Why is the NBME test taking software so ****ty?
Replies
2
Views
509
voxveritatisetlucis
V
Mr.Smile12
MD & DO ERAS 2026: Resources and What to expect
Replies
0
Views
278
Mr.Smile12
Mr.Smile12
L
SDN Article: Q&A: Dr. Ali Thaler, Neurologist and Author
Replies
0
Views
415
Laura Turner
L
Top