UPenn...gunners????

[summershimmer]

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I have heard that there are many gunners at penn and was wondering if that is true? Would you say it is more than other schools? And even though there are gunners, are there other students that work together and help each other out? Are there more people that are gunners or people that work together?

 

[Imanee]

In general, I think school's like UPenn, Columbia, Harvard, etc. admit and attract more competitive applicants in terms of academic stats. Consequently, when you put a group of students together that is use to earning A's and doing extremely well on exams, these students will continue working really hard to achieve and maintain this record. It's not that they are "gunners". They are just dedicated students that strive for perfection. It is not a select few students in the class. Every student with this type of academic background will go beyond just doing average. If you are not this type of student, you might categorize students like this as "gunners". If you attend a school like this and tend to work diligently giving 150% for every task at hand, then you don't feel like these students are gunners. I am not talking down on any other schools/programs. I am merely trying to explain and describe the type of students that attend these programs. I'm a first year student at one of these institutions. This has been my experience thus far. Whenever I speak to my classmates, I have come to realize that we are all just as anal and preoccupied with doing well and exceling. I hope this information helps.😉😛😀

 

[dentstd]

Penn has a moderately higher than average GPA, while Columbia has one of the lowest GPA's in the country. There may be indication that they're not the best students after all. They're not "used to getting A's," as they've gotten almost as many B's as they've gotten A's. Most people want to do well and have the desire to do well.

 

[Iwantmydds2]

Penn has a moderately higher than average GPA, while Columbia has one of the lowest GPA's in the country. There may be indication that they're not the best students after all. They're not "used to getting A's," as they've gotten almost as many B's as they've gotten A's. Most people want to do well and have the desire to do well.

Well last year's average GPA for entering freshmen at penn was 3.75 and science GPA 3.71. I don't consider that only "moderately" higher than average. Also, Columbia has over 22 DAT, which means that on AVERAGE they achieved 98 percentile(i think) which I find pretty significant.

To answer your question,
I am a 1st year at Penn. Almost everyone strives to get A on every single test so far. Everybody is super competitive, BUT I haven't met any gunners yet and everybody is happy to study together and help each other out. This is because every class is on absolute curve and our school ranks only the top 15 students.

 

[dentstd]

Well last year's average GPA for entering freshmen at penn was 3.75 and science GPA 3.71. I don't consider that only "moderately" higher than average. Also, Columbia has over 22 DAT, which means that on AVERAGE they achieved 98 percentile(i think) which I find pretty significant.

To answer your question,
I am a 1st year at Penn. Almost everyone strives to get A on every single test so far. Everybody is super competitive, BUT I haven't met any gunners yet and everybody is happy to study together and help each other out. This is because every class is on absolute curve and our school ranks only the top 15 students.

That was Columbia. They're great test takers. They just don't do too hot in class.

 

[54807]

I have heard that there are many gunners at penn and was wondering if that is true? Would you say it is more than other schools? And even though there are gunners, are there other students that work together and help each other out? Are there more people that are gunners or people that work together?

There are gunners everywhere and they annoy everyone around them because they define themselves by the level of gunning they do.

Most of my class is neutral as far as helpful/gunner goes. A few are ridiculously helpful to everyone though. But they are in general just very nice people.

If you aren't going after one of the top spots in the class, the fact that gunners exist doesn't matter. They will smell you out, figure out you aren't 'competition' and rarely talk to you.

 

[HupHolland]

My problem with people that strive to get "All A's" is that these people often put their pre-clinical education backseat to the didactics. For example: at Maryland, lab attendance is piss poor the morning we have an afternoon pharm exam. Instructors get pissed and make our entire class look like ****. People like myself that would rather cut a crown prep than cram an additional 3 hours for an exam are getting screwed when our class does poorly on a practical and the professors blame it on poor class attendance in lab.

Anyways- this has nothing to do with your question, but rather a rant on how I get annoyed with gunners that put lab 2nd behind didactics because they are gunnin for that A. Guess what? You're going to be doin crown preps for the rest of your lives, not describing pharmacologic mechanisms and drug interactions!

Hup

 

[charlestweed]

My problem with people that strive to get "All A's" is that these people often put their pre-clinical education backseat to the didactics. For example: at Maryland, lab attendance is piss poor the morning we have an afternoon pharm exam. Instructors get pissed and make our entire class look like ****. People like myself that would rather cut a crown prep than cram an additional 3 hours for an exam are getting screwed when our class does poorly on a practical and the professors blame it on poor class attendance in lab.

Anyways- this has nothing to do with your question, but rather a rant on how I get annoyed with gunners that put lab 2nd behind didactics because they are gunnin for that A. Guess what? You're going to be doin crown preps for the rest of your lives, not describing pharmacologic mechanisms and drug interactions!

Hup

Maybe they don't plan to do crown preps for the rest of their lives. Maybe they want to bend wires (or take out third molars) for the rest of their lives.😀

 

[HupHolland]

Maybe they don’t plan to do crown preps for the rest of their lives. Maybe they want to bend wires (or take out third molars) for the rest of their lives.😀

You're a dentist first and an orthodontist second!

Hup

 

[Imanee]

.

 

[Imanee]

I agree. I work hard to earn the best grade because I know I want to specialize so grades count. 🙄

 

[DrBadVibes3]

Although I have been on this site for over 5 years telling everyone it doesnt matter two $hits where u goto dental school if you want to specialize, if people insist on trying to get a "leg up" on specializing by taking any easy route they can find, I pose this question:

If ranking were so important to people, then why wouldnt one goto a school that is not considered a "specialty" school, so it would easier to rank high relative to your fellow classmates, rather than being in a class where everyone wants to specialize?

I went to Temple for dental school....out of my class of 117, I'd say there were 15 people that consistently studied and aimed for high grades because they wanted to specialize. The rest of the class (approx 100) only wanted to do general dentistry and their focus was more on their family, getting consistently drunk, and enjoying life...when it came to school, they focused more on the lab/clinical side of dentistry rather than memorizing every bacteria involved in ANUG and the class averages for didactic classes reflected that....

what did that result in? The 15 people in our class that wanted to specialize were ranked in the top 20 and guess what.....those 15 people specialized while the 100 other students became general dentists.....and everyone was happy 🙂

 

[sajjy]

Although I have been on this site for over 5 years telling everyone it doesnt matter two $hits where u goto dental school if you want to specialize, if people insist on trying to get a "leg up" on specializing by taking any easy route they can find, I pose this question:

If ranking were so important to people, then why wouldnt one goto a school that is not considered a "specialty" school, so it would easier to rank high relative to your fellow classmates, rather than being in a class where everyone wants to specialize?

I went to Temple for dental school....out of my class of 117, I'd say there were 15 people that consistently studied and aimed for high grades because they wanted to specialize. The rest of the class (approx 100) only wanted to do general dentistry and their focus was more on their family, getting consistently drunk, and enjoying life...when it came to school, they focused more on the lab/clinical side of dentistry rather than memorizing every bacteria involved in ANUG and the class averages for didactic classes reflected that....

what did that result in? The 15 people in our class that wanted to specialize were ranked in the top 20 and guess what.....those 15 people specialized while the 100 other students became general dentists.....and everyone was happy 🙂

But isnt some of these high specialty schools [i can say about Harvard and UConn, may be UCSF and UCLA also] doesnt rank their students.

 

[dentstd]

If ranking were so important to people, then why wouldnt one goto a school that is not considered a "specialty" school, so it would easier to rank high relative to your fellow classmates, rather than being in a class where everyone wants to specialize?

Because things happen in school, and you don't always get the grade you work for. Lots of students want to specialize, but more students from "specialty" schools continue to want to specialize while they're there. On entrance, "GP" schools have lots of specialty-seeking students that learn they probably won't get into the programs they seek. Thus, they become disheartened and don't apply.

 

[PChemGrad]

My problem with people that strive to get "All A's" is that these people often put their pre-clinical education backseat to the didactics. For example: at Maryland, lab attendance is piss poor the morning we have an afternoon pharm exam. Instructors get pissed and make our entire class look like ****. People like myself that would rather cut a crown prep than cram an additional 3 hours for an exam are getting screwed when our class does poorly on a practical and the professors blame it on poor class attendance in lab.

Anyways- this has nothing to do with your question, but rather a rant on how I get annoyed with gunners that put lab 2nd behind didactics because they are gunnin for that A. Guess what? You're going to be doin crown preps for the rest of your lives, not describing pharmacologic mechanisms and drug interactions!

Hup

Same thing at my school and it pisses me off as well.
I show up to lab on those exam days and you ~85% of the class is gone studying. the professors that show up are pissed, and it looks bad on the class as a whole. and i dont go to a "competitive" school.
I agree I would rather learn and refine the fundamentals like crown preps than memorize a reaction that wont matter once the night hits and everyone starts to drink the material away.

Then everyone bit*hes how they dont have enough time to finish the projects.