Hehe, Sorry guys. Been busy dealing with my car and "studying".
Ecks, you're right on with the passing rates and all. Honors isn't anything special, they don't announce it, they don't do much to your cv, but it's just an ego booster for us. And it's nice to know you can "honor" something in dental school.
70 is not high, as others have said, and it is the passing rate at all schools I believe (also as pointed out previously).
Honestly, 70 is very easy to obtain in dental school. I will say it this way. Dental school is easy to pass. You can go to class, pay attention, even fall asleep if you need to ( 😉 ), and take decent notes. There are moooooooore than enough resources to pass at Tufts. Profs, other students, and upperclassmen will hook you up big time. Whether it be notes or cd-roms, tips on studying, whatever, you'll have more than enough resources.
The students you see panicking (sp?) would be the perfectionists (Type AAAAAAAAA like me) or the specialists (yes, all schools have die hard pre-ortho/endo/oms/perio/pedo/prostho). Don't fear the cutoffs. Your goal is to get into the comfort zone of study. Find out what resources (of the tons you'll get) work for you, and use them. I swear, you'll find there are people or freak out about missing out on such and such's helpful handout, or some little sheet other students got, and then in the end it would have been nothing new at all. It's THAT MUCH help from your peers/colleagues.
So, once again I'll reiterate. Don't fret the grading system. Find out what you have works for you, organize all your info (notes, handouts, cds, websites, whatever) and pick and choose your arsenal wisely. Go to class, unless it's an absolutely boring, redundant, usless lecture(r) and keep up with the notes. Most people would be able to pass by just attending class and studying a bit the night before. And trust me, no matter how much you studied and how well you did in any class, you're going to forget it come the next round of classes. That's what I mean by finding your study comfort zone.
Oh yeah, you transcript will read numbers, but A = 90+, B = 80-89, C = 70-79, Fail(D and F) = 69 and below.
GPA is calculated by taking the number assigned to that class, and multiplying by the credit hours for that class.
I.E. Gross anatomy is 4.0 Credits. Say you get a 100 (1 person will end up with a hundred, and the curve buster is the 2nd or 3rd highest scoreing one..not the top scoring one in this class). So, your GPA points are 400 for Gross.
Phsyiology is 4.0 Credits. Say you get a 90 (this class is graded normally...rarely a curve, but extra points are given when questions can be refuted). That's 360 for Phsyio.
GPA between those two classes would be (360 + 400)/ Total Credit hours = 760/8 = 95%. That's your "GPA".
