Upset over my grade

Calm down, its not all about the numbers

 

I don't claim to know anything about applying from the great land to the north, but I can tell you that an alright GPA and good MCAT is not hopeless. I wouldn't give up hope just yet.

Plus you still got Canadian schools right?

 

1- I would have guessed that would be an A, however it depends how many people were ahead of you. For example if there was 1 guy with an 87 and you were 2nd or 3rd best with you 76, you would have got an A. Now, if there were a lot of students in that 80-86 range, that would explain your grade. It comes down to competition.

2- Retaking the class is not an option and won't help anything. Just continue to get that GPA and destroy the MCAT. What is your overall GPA?
3- I would say for the most part you are over reacting...say you got an A- ...your gpa wouldn't have been THAT much higher... But hey I over react like this too so I can relate!


Cliffs: You aren't "out of the game" by any means...pick yourself up from this an dominate next semester!

 

Top 15% and you got a B+?

That sounds about right. Typically top 10% gets an A, and it goes down from there. Without knowing the SD (or whether the class is graded on a curve) I can't say for sure exactly what the cutoffs might be, but being 11 points below the highest is a B+. Think about it: if a 100% is an A (top score), then an 89% is a B+.

What do you do? Take another bio class, and do better. Whining will get you nowhere. Dude, you got a 76 in the class, feel lucky you had a curve. What if the prof had decided to be a jerk and not curve at all? Then you'd really be stuck!

 

whining about grades
whining about cheating
whining about how hard a class is

just in general. i realize that OP was only whining about grades, but seriously, how many threads like this do we need on SDN.

 

There's a difference between "competitive" and "average;" a 3.7 may not be at the average for a Canadian applicant for US med school, but that doesn't mean you're uncompetitive. It just means you've got to pull it up with the rest of your application.

You say you don't have a great MCAT or ECs. Luckily, you still have several months to gear up for that exam. If this is really important to you, study your butt off and get a 35+. And start doing some ECs; no time like the present, and an extra 1/2 year will be better than nothing.

 

I think youre probably off or go to a really really tough school. Without grade inflation (ie the average is a C) then you'd expect the top 20 percent to get either an A or an A minus. However, I don't think any school in the country sets the average at an A anymore. I recently read an article that average gpa's are on average about 3.2. Some "tough" schools (I think U of Chicago was one) had an average gpa of like 2.5 ish.

With top 15% and a B plus I think you got hosed HOWEVER it doesn't really matter. Put your efffort into destroying the mcat which really will have an effect on how your application is viewed by schools

 

Keep getting A's to make up for this B+ grade you have receieved.

Emotions are transient...get over it and make up for it. WHEN YOU FALL YOU GOTTA GET BACK UP.

 

I would try taking as many easy courses as possible/ace them all. If you do that, and end up with a 3.7, then you're fine. From what I've heard, Canadian schools use your GPA/MCAT score as a cut-off. So, if you meet the general cut-off, based on the competitivness of the applicant pool, then the interview is all that matters. I know that the GPA cut-off for Western-Ontario is exactly 3.7. And I know that after the Interview, Mcmaster ranks applicant based on a 33%-GPA-67%-Interview formula. So, you should be fine...

Relax, you still have a chance...even at a Canadian school .

 

Harvard. lol. Isn't the average graduating GPA 3.75, or something really high?

 

Don't worry about a thing
'Cause every little thing is gonna be alright
Singing don't worry about a thing
'Cause every little thing is gonna be alright

Rise up this morning, smiled with the rising sun
Three little birds pitch by my doorstep
Singing sweet songs of melodies pure and true
Saying, this is my message to you:

Singing don't worry about a thing
'Cause every little thing is gonna be alright
Singing don't worry about a thing
'Cause every little thing is gonna be alright

 

I can understand your disappointment. but realize a B+ versus an A- in ONE course will not in ANY WAY affect your application success or failure. The process is just not that finely tuned for that tiny thing to matter in the end.

Put it behind you and do not worry one more second about it. Just keep moving forward.

You have a good GPA. Get a good MCAT and you'll be in great shape.

 

Talk to the professor.

Hopefully, you two have developed a relationship over the semester. Approaching them about the grade never hurts. Looks for places where points can be "found". Have them esplain the exact cut-offs. Sometimes you can get over that hurdle if you are close enough. Be as polite and non-defensive as possible.

 

You are going to need to be in the top 10% to get an A consistently unless it's an upper division or graduate level course (in which case you'll be working just as hard, if not harder to get that "A" but grading gets more complicated).

There are many things you could do. You could take additional (similar) 4-credit bio courses in the hopes that you'll get an A. Basically, just keep taking classes until your GPA goes up. No matter what, you should have a backup plan in case you don't make it into a U.S. medical school. Plan a rewarding career whether or not you get into medical school. This is particularly helpful even if you get into a U.S. medical school and find out that you really don't want to become a physician or that you are not competitive with other students and cannot get into the specialty you like. For example, you could go to a Caribbean medical school. You could go into podiatry. You could go into dentistry. You could become an optometrist or audiologist, physical therapist, nurse anesthetist, or psychologist. The list goes on and on. You could go the Caribbean or Mexican medical school route. The possibilities are endless. Don't beat yourself up for making a B+. That's still a good grade and shows that you learned a lot.

Continue to focus on learning and exploring various career options instead of getting so fixated on this one and only way to have an awesome career that you seem to be on. It isn't entirely beyond the imagination that you could get into medical school and hate it, hate residency, and then hate your job as a physician and finish your life as a bitter, miserable person; it happens a lot, unfortunately. Medical training and careers have a lot of stress associated with them. It would be wise for you to learn to deal with stress now and make the most of the situation you are in. If you do go into a career that involves caring for patients, you will no doubt someday have a patient who is not doing well despite everything you have done. Rather than getting frustrated in this situation, you could apply your life skills and continue to explore new or different treatment possibilities to make the best of a difficult situation for this patient. The bottom line: learn what you can from this experience and move on quickly. Life is to short to get bogged down by very small problems like the one you describe.

 

Agreed. Never count on a curve...and in those upper division ones you have like 15 students in the whole class, all who have survived all weed out classes. Just gotta work hard

 

The GPA difference between an A- and a B+ is what? 0.16 or something like that? Miniscule drop in your GPA. Take another science course! There's no limit.

 

Top 20% getting an A or A-? Dang, that sounds like a lot.

I'm used to the distribution being more like 10-15% A range, 20-30% B range (B+/B/B-), 30-40% C range, and 20% D and F. I believe that for larger courses, professors were required to given 20% of students non-passing (D or F) grades.

 

is it weird that i've never been in a curved class?

 

I think I had one or two curved tests in college.

One in particular was curved down. The prof thought we did too well. Thanks, buddy! I didn't miss those points at all, especially when you gave me a C+.

 

*Whew* You all just saved me from lamenting about my own grades.

 

Haha our physics class had a class avg of 35%. I made the high grade with an 80%..so he curved the **** out of it lol!

 

If you prof curved curved based on the 87, 76/87=87% What's wrong with a B+? (assuming same scale at my school) He could have given you a B.

 

i know it's almost christmas, but you gotta get used to not always getting something you want. you'll probably be miserable in med school if you don't. and something like a 3.69 instead of a 3.7 isn't bad either.

 

I don't know about it being that high but I have a friend there who says its impossible to flunk out. You can do nothing and still get a B+. Professors there are really flexible and you can talk them into anything.

 

A 76% is normally a C.

If it's a 76 out of 87, that's an 87.4%, which is a B. Sounds fair enough to me.

Having said that, a 3.5 isn't bad, and a 3.7 is a great gpa. You'll be fine.

 

I got curved down from an A- to a B+. I feel your pain.

 

I understand where you're coming from. I just missed an A by less than 1%, and my school doesn't have +/- grading.

Having said that, let's go for a ride together in the

 

Unless you only took the science pre-reqs what are you whining about? The difference to your GPA is less than negligible. Take more science courses and raise your score. If it is unchangeable that just means you have plenty of science courses already. Don't worry about it.

 

Most people don't get the grade that they "expect" but the grade that they earned. You can be sad but your next step is to earn a higher grade in something else scientific to get your GPA higher if you say that 3.7 isn't high enough for you. You might need to substitute science classes for one or more of your humanities courses so that you can get that number up.

If you didn't make the cut, you didn't make the cut. The thing is what it is and what you do now is find a remedy for your problem or accept it and keep believing that you will never get into medical school. It's not unheard of for folks to take more upper division science courses in their senior year.

 

Yeah...most profs at my school set the bar at two std. dev. above the mean minimum for an A...which in a small class, rarely happens...so, A's rarely happened...

 

Amen, people need to stop trippin