YIKES -- competition within med school classes

[JunkintheTrunk]

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hey doods, i was wondering if anyone else knows about this --> i went to an interview at rush on thursday (yay for me, my first one🙂) and the students that were giving the tour were very enthusiastic and positive about their school. one thing they emphasized that they love about rush vs. other chicago schools (and probably many other med schools) is the competition that is present within the class itself. they said that unlike other schools, at rush you have to get above a certain % and you pass. at other schools (like uic, they said), for example you have to have one of the top 80 highest grades to pass, and the other 20 automatically fail the course. this sounds scary, and i'm sure the schools that do this won't tell prospective students because it's super intimidating. also, the rush first years said the lack of competition makes the students much more friendly towards each other, and more eager to help each other out with old tests, notes, etc.

whoa, i didn't even put happy faces in hehe

 

[exmike]

Originally posted by JunkintheTrunk
hey doods, i was wondering if anyone else knows about this --> i went to an interview at rush on thursday (yay for me, my first one🙂) and the students that were giving the tour were very enthusiastic and positive about their school. one thing they emphasized that they love about rush vs. other chicago schools (and probably many other med schools) is the competition that is present within the class itself. they said that unlike other schools, at rush you have to get above a certain % and you pass. at other schools (like uic, they said), for example you have to have one of the top 80 highest grades to pass, and the other 20 automatically fail the course. this sounds scary, and i'm sure the schools that do this won't tell prospective students because it's super intimidating. also, the rush first years said the lack of competition makes the students much more friendly towards each other, and more eager to help each other out with old tests, notes, etc.

whoa, i didn't even put happy faces in hehe

I highly doubt the "other" schools fail 20% of their class. Thats just not realistic when most schools have attrition rates less than 5%

 

[Amy B]

I never heard of such a thing. It can't be true.

 

[Wednesday]

Does this make sense to you? Why would a med school automatically want to fail 20% of its class? I think this is an urban myth. I've heard the same thing from tourees at my school about my school (but it was a little nicer, only the bottom two students in the class failed in this "rumor") and it is totally untrue. I mean I don't know anything about UIC and it's policies, but I would be skeptical if I were you.

Some people HAVE posted here that honors grades are doled out using a curve like the one you mentioned at their schools.

 

[JunkintheTrunk]

that could have been the case that this was only for honors classes, but the way they said it sounded more like it was passing vs failing.

 

[indo]

Originally posted by Amy B
I never heard of such a thing. It can't be true.

Are you saying that it can't be true because you've never heard it or are those two sentences two completely seperate ideas?

Either way, I've heard heard crazy stories like that before but what is the point of failing 20% of your students regardless of the class-wide score distribution? Its illogical and counter productive unless you are looking for proffit increase from additional tuition charges.

If I ran a med school I would screen my applicants harshly then do everything possible to make sure they are successful as medical students. Most instructors would be thrilled to have a class full of honors or A students. I don't think too many of them pride themselves on their failure rate.

 

[chuck deli]

back in the 1970s-1980s there was a famous saying in medical school during the very first day of orientation...the director of the program would address the M1s by stating "look to the person on your left, now look to the person on your right...one of you three will not graduate from this institution"...

HAHAHAHAHAHA. I'd love to see 20% of Pritzker's class fail out...imagine that state funding go right down the toilet.

Absolutely not true. I can speak for Loyola specifically....which also boosted it's "non-competitiveness". They grade on standard deviations about a mean. Look at Finch, it has some of the lowest entrance GPA's/MCATs in the country, and they have over a 98% pass rate for USMLEs.

The short answer is= what the student said is not true!

 

[Jalby]

Where is Imtiaz. He goes to UIC. (Not U of C) I've heard it's hard, but 20% seems a bit high. Also, failing does not normally mean that you drop out. It means you have another chacne to take the test/corse over summer.


As for the competition thing, I've never heard of a % of students failing. Most schools have a set point for when people would fail. Some schools shift that when they get the results. On the other end of the specturm, there are some schools that have only 10% of the student body get honors. One school has a pass set at 70, and their average is 87, and they always say it's not competative.

 

[Megalofyia]

Originally posted by chuck deli
back in the 1970s-1980s there was a famous saying in medical school during the very first day of orientation...the director of the program would address the M1s by stating "look to the person on your left, now look to the person on your right...one of you three will not graduate from this institution"...

My first day of undergrad biology my teacher said something very similar to us. Only it was more like look to your left, and now to your right... only one of you is going to med school.

 

[Amy B]

Originally posted by indo
Are you saying that it can't be true because you've never heard it or are those two sentences two completely seperate ideas?

Oops, sorry but those are two different thoughts. I can see how you could think I was saying something else though. I was just shocked because I have an open application at UIC and had no idea they handle grades like this.

So I am still wondering is that how they handle grades for real?

 

[ice_23]

No it's not true. I have a really good friend who attends UIC med school (the chicago campus) and he's an M1 there. Their pass level is a set bar, say 60 percent. The amount of ppl who fail then varies based on how many people get below this mark. If everyone does better, then the entire class passes. For honors, however, there is a curve, and only the top 15 or 20 percent receive the grade.

So basically, those people that go to Rush are either severely misinformed or were referring to some other school.

-Ice

 

[AverageMan]

This was actually true back in the 60's and 70's; an interviewer at one of the schools I went to told me about his experience in med school. Schools would admit more MS1's then they had room for during the 3rd and 4th years in hospital rotations. Thus, schools would make it so that some percentage at the bottom of the class automatically failed out. This was doom to those poor students who failed out because of it, espically during the Vietnam War when if they weren't students anymore, they would get drafted and shipped off. This is what made med school so competitive, because everyone needed to do as well as they could, while making sure other people did worse than them. This led to instances where people would steal reference books from the library so their classmates couldn't study from them. They would rip pages out of other people's textbooks and take their notes, and all sorts of other sabotage. The interviewer then went on to say how med schools today are much better in that sense, as most schools now shoot for a 100% graduation rate, which greatly reduces the level competitiveness.

 

[juddson]

Originally posted by Megalofyia
My first day of undergrad biology my teacher said something very similar to us. Only it was more like look to your left, and now to your right... only one of you is going to med school.

Now THAT'S Funny. And Oh so True.

Judd

 

[OrthoFixation]

My egotistical Thermodynamics I prof from engineering handed out a brag sheet listing all his wonderful accomplishments and accolades.

He followed that up with "Look at the student on your left and your right. Of you three, only one of you will pass this class." The sad thing . . . he was correct. 90 students started with 30 making it through without dropping or failing. Ouch. Weed class.

No med school is going to fail 20%. Average attrition rates are about 2% nationwide.

 

[opus03]

You know the students were right about the noncompetitive nature of our school...although I'm sure there are a lot of schools that have managed to create this type of environment. All of my classmates are wonderful and helpful but I'd bet you'd get the same response from many students at UIC as well! I can't imagine why they told you 20% fail?? They must be misinformed...maybe they were referring to one subject, one test, or something along those lines.
Anyway, you should always listen to what the student's have to say about their own school and ignore what they say about others..there's always a chance that their opinion is skewed for a personal reason.
Rush really is a great place to be though.
Good Luck! 🙂

 

[Samoa]

A good rule of thumb is to be skeptical of what med students say about other med schools. They are really only experts about their own.

 

[J33]

To the OP, and anyone else who is doing most of their interviews now...every school claims to have a "noncompetitive, easygoing, cooperative, etc. etc." class where "everyone gets along, shares notes, and are all best friends" as opposed to all of those other medical schools that are "cutthroat competitive". So don't give too much merit to a school claiming to be noncompetitive. They all want you to like your school, so trust your subjective feelings about a school over specific generic comments made by admissions deans and current students.