pass/fail

[chill e dawg]

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Im a young one and im just entering college. Would taking my 1st sem. courses all pass/fail be detrimental to grad admissions (for med, but in general, any program).

I know a reputable college (swarthmore) makes there students take courses on a pass/fail basis their first semester. At my school, I am given the option of taking courses pass/fail or graded. Would taking all my classes pass/fail 1st semester be a bad idea? My reasoning is that if another college does it, and their students do great into pursueing their interests, then why couldn't I? I think it would be much easier for a transition into college...

Or would I shoot myself 4 years from now when I apply to grad/med (or maybe something totally different... who knows) school because of that one semester? Thoughts anyone? Much appreciated!

 

[SaginawPremed]

The reasons that schools do this is because of the insane competitiveness/difficulty of the entering class/courses you'll take, and are giving you a break and chance to become adjusted. I promise med schools would much rather have you do a semester pass/fail at a reputable university and do well from then on, as opposed to having all C's/D's first semester, thus tanking your GPA, no matter how well you do following that. Take it pass/fail, and quit worrying-- enjoy college!

 

[kiwie07]

i went to school where it was pass/fail freshman year, but we have no control over it unless we want to get everything retrograded or something.

our school usually sends out a letter of explanation of everything too, so for med schools they know that i didn't just take everything pass/fail (which i think looks bad especially if they're required core classes - but i'm not sure).

sorry i dont know if this helped much - try asking your school's career/graduate office and ask for stats..they probably have a log of everything.

g'luck!

 

[Mumpu]

You have no choice at Swarthmore -- the first semester is pass/fail. Good enough to get me to med school though. 🙂

A word of warning though -- pass/fail doesn't mean slack off. At Swarthmore, your letter grades are uncovered when you apply for a major. I know people who were rejected from their majors of choice because they slacked off in first-semester intro classes.

 

[jlee9531]

i thought schools that do a P/F system do keep track of your actual grades, so if a graduate school program asked for the actual grade, they would still be able to produce it to them.

 

[LuckyMD2b]

I think you should use the Pass/Fail policy to your advantage and make a smooth transition into college. But if you have the option, DO NOT take any premed requirements pass/fail; med schools will think you were trying to take the easy way out, and some schools may not count those credits.

You could take intro. Bio P/F freshman year if you plan on being a Bio major and taking tons of upper level courses be4 graduation.

 

[chill e dawg]

actually, now that i think about it... the courses i would take pass/fail first sem. would be intro bio, intro phys, philosophy, and english. Even if I took pass/fail 1st sem, by the time i graduate i would still have at least 1 graded full year of each subject since I plan on taking more bio, phys, and phil classes sophomore year... So since I plan on taking more courses in each subject, then it wouldn't matter anyway... right?

 

[WillHague007]

I went to Hopkins, which was also P/F for the first semester. We didn't have a choice on what would appear on our transcripts (although, we did get to see our letter grades). It didn't hurt at all when I applied to medical schools. In fact, nobody even asked about it. I think this is because you are going to be at an undergrad for 4 years so your other grades make 1 semester seem pretty insignificant. Unless you try to take Orgo 1/2 , Physics, and Biochem first semester medical schools really won't care.
P/F was awesome though! Just chill out and spend your semester making friends, because the people you meet then are your friends forever. Don't fail your classes or totally slack off though, study enough so you know the stuff, because it'll be the foundation for everything you study later on. But HAVE FUN!

 

[principessa]

Simple thought -- if you go to a school where the first semester coursework is so demanding that it is pass-fail (read Harvey-Mudd), then I think there is no harm in it. However, the courses you are taking don't seem to be that tough -- intro phys for example should be no sweat if you've done calc. I say fight for your A's now when they're easy -- biochem is a good sight harder than intro bio.

If you expect to get B's in the first round, how can you expect to go to med school?

Disclaimer: I'm doing this on my lovely, sweet, mild-mannered girlfriend's registry. I'm actually a hard-hearted physics grad student who's probably going to TA your intro phys. And oh yeah -- I don't have a funny accent.

 

[calstudent]

Are you at Hopkins?
How comfortable do you feel in terms of preparation for college? If prepared, then go letter-graded. If not, then stay P/F, and build the study skills that will serve you later.

 

[chill e dawg]

i feel adequately prepared, and I could go graded right off the bat... but then again, i kind of want to ease into things first. actually, im going to williams. i plan on being a physics major, and they have advising in bioinformatics, genomics, and proteomics which seems really interesting. so besides the fact that i will just be taking intro courses 1st sem, im still going to be taking higher level courses in both physics and biol later on in my college career.

with that said, both my intro science courses have labs. my school doesnt have credit hours, cuz all of the courses are weighted the same. but if it did, i would be pushing for around 18 cr hours, which im told is pushing on a heavy load--and those classes are the weed out classes for premeds. my 2nd sem. is a little easier, so i think after 1st sem pass/fail i should be accustomed to college life. i mean, i also want to take 1st sem just to enjoy college life w/o the added pressure of grades; i might as well take the 1st sem. pass/fail because the next 3.5 years are going to be insane anyway.

im confident in myself though, and i think i can handle the classes and get good grades regardless. im planning on doing a fall sport though, have a part time job, and follow one of my profs around w/ his research. so i dont know...

 

[PrettyMz4Christ]

from what i understand, unless your school has a p/f system in place for freshmen students (i.e, the swarthmores and jhu's) you should never take premed requirements pass/fail. if you know you want to continue with upper level science courses that's fine, but don't forget that they are presumably harder. get the A's in the intro courses freshmen year.

just my 2 cents...

 

[lorelei]

Pass-failing intro classes may make it more difficult to take the upper-division classes later on - at my college, a lot of them had requirements like "Prerequisite: C or better in BIO 101." If your record shows a P in BIO 101, they may not recognize that as good enough. It's probably something you could get around, but might be an administrative hassle.

In general, I think that if you go to a school like JHU where frosh courses are always pass/fail, you're fine, because that's just what your school does. But if your school grades normally, and you choose to take all your frosh classes P/F, that's going to look weird. If I were looking at your transcript, I'd be wondering what happened or why you felt you wouldn't be able to succeed. And wondering if you'd be able to handle the (presumably more difficult) transition to medical school if you couldn't handle freshman year.

 

[Fed Meat]

I wouldn't worry about it. Make sure you take some upper-level courses, but that's just what your school does, and med schools will know that.

Also, don't just assume that your intro classes are going to be easier As. My school is known as a pre-med factory, and our pre-reqs have much tougher curves than do upper-level courses.

Don't just ease into your first year of school, either. Use it as a learning experiece. That way you'll know what you need to do your sophomore year.

 

[chill e dawg]

well, there's really no consensus... so i guess it is really just up to me, since 1/2 of the responses say go ahead, and the other 1/2 say its a bad idea. i think i've decided just to take the grades and avoid the risk-factor.

 

[willthatsall]

Bottom line is, it doesn't really matter in the long run. P/F for a semester isn't going to hurt you if your gpa is 3.8. It isn't going to help you if your gpa is 3.1. Just don't slack off and have it hurt you later on because you didn't build a good knowledge base for later classes.

 

[45408]

I don't see why you should do P/F. My first semester(s) were great GPA boosts. I took my gen chem, physics 1, bio 1, calculus, and Spanish and packed away a lot of As before the harder classes started engaging.