whats harder: getting A's in pre-req's or PASSING med school

BU Medical Sciences
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How did you hide your mental illness during interviews?
 
considering your previously (and frequently) expressed low opinion of your science-major premed colleagues, i would think the answer should be obvious for you. if you can do well amongst premeds of any background, you will likely also be able to find a way to be successful in med school
 
What do med schools consider as passing?
 
Considering the vast majority of med students pass and the vast minority of med students had all As in their prereqs, the answer is quite obvious.
 
:idea: Hm, chances are if people worked as hard in undergrad as they do in med school, they'd be well into the A range on all the prereqs
 
Sigh.

If only more qualified pre-med advisors existed.
 
WiseGuy1 said:
Definitely making A's in the pre-reqs.
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Are you talking per class, or overall per semester? If it's the latter then I can't wait to coast my way through medical school/study my ass off for Step I/destroy clinical rotations/land a sweet residency. :laugh:
 
If we're talking a 4.0 through all of undergrad, that's harder due to variation between professors and how stupidly hard-charging some people are in undergrad, but med school is far, far, far more work, no matter how you slice it. Of course, that's only considering the pure academic aspect. If you want to throw in emotional and personal tolls, med school wins that race by a couple lightyears.
 
MilkmanAl said:
If we're talking a 4.0 through all of undergrad, that's harder due to variation between professors and how stupidly hard-charging some people are in undergrad, but med school is far, far, far more work, no matter how you slice it. Of course, that's only considering the pure academic aspect. If you want to throw in emotional and personal tolls, med school wins that race by a couple lightyears.
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Im a little shocked by the huge number of med students saying UG A's were harder.

Id say it's at least 2x harder to pass med school than to rock an intro to bio course.

Take that as you will, but i really think that you all should not get the idea that if you rock the pre reqs, that med school will be a cake walk.
 
Absolutley true. It's when you throw in the classes like organic that are difficult and curved that things start to get dicey. The pre-med fervor really heats up at that point. You also have to deal with the crazy professors that throw ludicrously hard tests at you since their class is curved. In those situations, a little luck on the test can make or break you. When the class average is a 30, getting that extra 10-point quest right makes a gargantuan difference in your grade. That said, after a little reflection, I'm going to go back on my earlier statement. Passing med school is definitely harder. I'm putting in way more work now than even when I was trying to ace my upper-level physics classes. If I'd had a different major and a bit more focus at the start of school, I could've cruised to a 4.0.

edit: Thinking about this more, there's not even any comparison. Med school wins in a landslide. I'm not sure what I was smoking the first time around. I'm gonna blame it on it being morning and the fact that I'm pissed off that our ethics class is starting up again.
 
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^ Exactly!

The thing with getting A's in prereqs is that depending on the teacher and subject and your interests it could be done with no effort or with some struggling.

The way I perceive medical school, based on vicarious experiences from my friend's, regardless of how smart or good you are you have to end up working long and hard. Just to pass.

I got As in orgo chem and was a pompous ****** (gave in my exams telling the teacher it was the answer key he should use) without difficulty, and in micro bio, cell bio, etc with minimal effort and practically no attendance. Bs in chem with no effort. But I struggled with physics to get As, still had plenty of time to fool around in and out of classes.

Can't imagine if I carried myself into and through medical school as I did in undergrad I would pass! Or maybe "just" pass, but that's not enough.

Then again, maybe if I did apply myself to getting straight As in all my prereqs, like chemistry, I might have felt it was hard. Hypothetically, even so, harder than passing in medical school? (maybe that's easier than I project it to be?)
 
Stixman28 said:
Im a little shocked by the huge number of med students saying UG A's were harder.

Id say it's at least 2x harder to pass med school than to rock an intro to bio course.

Take that as you will, but i really think that you all should not get the idea that if you rock the pre reqs, that med school will be a cake walk.
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i think the difficulty isn't about the material so much as the work ethic- which hopefully has improved for most students by the time they graduate college. i am sure that if anyone went back at the end of their M1 year and tried to take intro bio or chem or whatever, they would ace it. but for 18 and 19 year olds the prereqs are harder to ace because they just havent figured out how to do it yet?
 
But is medical school at the end of 4 years undergrad experience easier to deal with, in terms of work ethic, than undergrad is at 18 or 19?

Doesn't the bar go higher up than the average student is really prepared to handle, and the learning curve is steep?
 
Practitioner said:
But is medical school at the end of 4 years undergrad experience easier to deal with, in terms of work ethic, than undergrad is at 18 or 19?

Doesn't the bar go higher up than the average student is really prepared to handle, and the learning curve is steep?
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haha . . . i guess what i am really saying is that once you hit med school you may very well be forced to swallow your pride if you are going to survive. once you've done this then it becomes "easier" in the sense that you've accepted your fate . . . i don't know, UG and med coursework are so different that it's hard to compare them. what people maybe don't understand is how much THEY will change, so it makes it even harder to compare the two.
 
MaryLennox said:
i am sure that if anyone went back at the end of their M1 year and tried to take intro bio or chem or whatever, they would ace it. but for 18 and 19 year olds the prereqs are harder to ace because they just havent figured out how to do it yet?
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Practitioner said:
But is medical school at the end of 4 years undergrad experience easier to deal with, in terms of work ethic, than undergrad is at 18 or 19?

Doesn't the bar go higher up than the average student is really prepared to handle, and the learning curve is steep?
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I had great work ethic all throughout college, even when I was 18 or 19. It's just harder
 
Passing medical school.
 
Stixman28 said:
Im a little shocked by the huge number of med students saying UG A's were harder.

Id say it's at least 2x harder to pass med school than to rock an intro to bio course.

Take that as you will, but i really think that you all should not get the idea that if you rock the pre reqs, that med school will be a cake walk.
Click to expand...

👍.
 
Narmerguy said:
Lol explain why so many med students pass and not as many matriculants rocked their bio in college?
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Acing intro courses is hard in the same sense that it is hard to beat 50 others in the 100 meter dash.

Passing med school is hard in the same sense that it is hard to run a marathon.

What's harder, winning a game of chess against Kasparov or losing a boxing match against Tyson? If you're talking about "difficult to achieve", it's the former. If you're talking about "hurts like hell", it's most definitely the latter.
 
Narmerguy said:
Lol explain why so many med students pass and not as many matriculants rocked their bio in college?
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For one, a lot of them weren't pre-med when the took it, weren't serious, and possibly were not science majors. For two, I think more medical students got As or very near all As in their pre-reqs than you think. When you are working 80 hours a week 3rd year and studying for the step 1 (because, yes, many schools require you to pass the step one in order to graduate), the time it would have taken to pass any given pre-req class with an A pales in comparison. Go ahead, tell me passing step 1 is easier than getting an a in general bio 😀. You also can remediate medical school where as most people aren't going to retake a B+ for an A in a pre-req. Plus, a lot of people change their study habits from freshman year of college and med school.

Besides, "just passing medical school" would be like me saying "just taking one pre-req a semester and doing nothing else in order to get all As."
 
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Narmerguy said:
Lol explain why so many med students pass and not as many matriculants rocked their bio in college?
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1) Different mentality. Let's face it... a lot of college students don't start taking their studies seriously until later in their college career. Whether it's 'harder' or not to pass or rock your bio course is a matter of opinion, as someone who doesn't want to put the effort in isn't going to do so.

2) Differences in colleges... it's a lot more difficult to get an A at, say, Yale, than it is to get an A at, say, University of South Carolina.

3) You're not competing against other students for a passing grade in medical school. You may be competing for a HP or Honors in a given course (depending on the grading system), but not overall for a pass. After all, the schools want you to pass.
 
mvenus929 said:
1) Different mentality. Let's face it... a lot of college students don't start taking their studies seriously until later in their college career. Whether it's 'harder' or not to pass or rock your bio course is a matter of opinion, as someone who doesn't want to put the effort in isn't going to do so.

2) Differences in colleges... it's a lot more difficult to get an A at, say, Yale, than it is to get an A at, say, University of South Carolina.

3) You're not competing against other students for a passing grade in medical school. You may be competing for a HP or Honors in a given course (depending on the grading system), but not overall for a pass. After all, the schools want you to pass.
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mmmcdowe said:
For one, a lot of them weren't pre-med when the took it, weren't serious, and possibly were not science majors. For two, I think more medical students got As or very near all As in their pre-reqs than you think. When you are working 80 hours a week 3rd year and studying for the step 1 (because, yes, many schools require you to pass the step one in order to graduate), the time it would have taken to pass any given pre-req class with an A pales in comparison. Go ahead, tell me passing step 1 is easier than getting an a in general bio 😀. You also can remediate medical school where as most people aren't going to retake a B+ for an A in a pre-req. Plus, a lot of people change their study habits from freshman year of college and med school.

Besides, "just passing medical school" would be like me saying "just taking one pre-req a semester and doing nothing else in order to get all As."
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TDX said:
Acing intro courses is hard in the same sense that it is hard to beat 50 others in the 100 meter dash.

Passing med school is hard in the same sense that it is hard to run a marathon.

What's harder, winning a game of chess against Kasparov or losing a boxing match against Tyson? If you're talking about "difficult to achieve", it's the former. If you're talking about "hurts like hell", it's most definitely the latter.
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A lot of good points. Perhaps I did not support mine enough.

Consider that a 4.0 student is extremely rare and considered exceptionally competitive for medical school. A student passing medical school is not extremely rare and is a prerequisite to moving on to the next stage. It is expected for medical students to pass. Medical schools try to make sure their students pass, it's in their best interest.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that medical students don't put in a lot of effort. I'm sure most of them work harder than any undergrad. What I'm saying, which TDX alluded to, is that it takes mostly effort to pass medical school. You've got to have the drive. To get all A's, simply hurling effort at the work will not get you an A. Not to mention a little bit of luck usually being involved.
 
Passing medical school is MUCH harder academically. Statistically, it is much easier. If any med student went back and devoted a quarter of their time/energy to undergrad the way they do medical school, straight As would be a walk in the park.

Not saying premed is easy. It wasn't. But in medical school you are forced to learn faster and better. It is these skills that you learn that allow you to pass med school.
 
Forthegood said:
Passing medical school is MUCH harder academically. Statistically, it is much easier. If any med student went back and devoted a quarter of their time/energy to undergrad the way they do medical school, straight As would be a walk in the park.

Not saying premed is easy. It wasn't. But in medical school you are forced to learn faster and better. It is these skills that you learn that allow you to pass med school.
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👍

By the way, we've kind of screwed the pooch on answering the OP's question. He only asked about getting A's in pre-reqs. Since I said earlier that med school "wins in a landslide" when I thought we were talking about getting a 4.0 through all of college, you can imagine what the answer is.
 
MilkmanAl said:
If we're talking a 4.0 through all of undergrad, that's harder due to variation between professors and how stupidly hard-charging some people are in undergrad, but med school is far, far, far more work, no matter how you slice it. Of course, that's only considering the pure academic aspect. If you want to throw in emotional and personal tolls, med school wins that race by a couple lightyears.
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Agreed. Depending where you go for undergrad, it can be as hard to get a 4.0 in BCPM classes as it is to get passing grades in medical school. Residents who graduated from my undergrad program come back to talk to us from time to time, and they tell us that the biochemistry I & II, physiology, microbiology, and other classes we're required to take are harder in terms of depth of material than their equivalents at the med school. But medical school (even after taking half the basic science courses) is far more intensive in terms of workload. That's not factoring in the added difficulty of trying to develop some clinical intuition, and learning to negotiate the hierarchy. There's really no comparison between undergrad and medical school, which is precisely why even some fantastic students get wait-listed or rejected.
 
Personal experience: I worked very, very hard in undergrad to get very bad grades which nearly kept me out of medical school. In medical school I work middling hard to get pretty good grades. So far I think it's a lot easier and a lot less work to be in med school, and not just to pass. I agree, though, that it depends a lot on your Undergrad school and major. If you major in turf grass management (real major at the University of Georgia, BTW), even with the premed requirements it's just not that difficult.

Also it's really hard to fail in med school.Beating the average can be tough, but the average is normally in the high 80s. There have been classes here that didn't have a single failure. That just didn't happen at my undergrad, and I don't believe there's that much of a difference in talent or dedication here compared to there.
 
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Forthegood said:
Passing medical school is MUCH harder academically. Statistically, it is much easier. If any med student went back and devoted a quarter of their time/energy to undergrad the way they do medical school, straight As would be a walk in the park.

Not saying premed is easy. It wasn't. But in medical school you are forced to learn faster and better. It is these skills that you learn that allow you to pass med school.
Click to expand...

Agreed. Most people pass med school. The majority don't ace everything in undergrad. But I have to say many worked very hard in med school and had less to show for it gradewise than undergrad, and so in that respect it's harder. Look at it this way, in college you were trying to distinguish yourself in a class of folks who are not med school caliber for the most part -- only the top students are going to get in. Then that group is truncated, and that's who you are competing with at the next level. So the volume is faster, the pace is faster, the classmates pick up things faster. Most of the people admitted had a "mostly A" average and yet half end up in the bottom half of the class. So you work hard to keep your head above water, and for the most part you do -- 90+% rise to the occasion-- but that doesn't mean it's easy. And of that handful that fail an exam, a course, or even a year, most had decent undergrad track records.

Much like most people in their 20s could run a marathon if their life depended on it, most people pass med school, but that doesn't mean it's easy.
 
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