4 ms·

My theory is that chemistry (i.e. organic and biochemistry) are common weed-out courses for pre-med students. The grade-grubbing is intense, and those courses o

by timr 4y ago

My theory is that chemistry (i.e. organic and biochemistry) are common weed-out courses for pre-med students. The grade-grubbing is intense, and those courses often end up as gauntlets as a result. It's a vicious cycle -- students grub for advantage; professors make the course "harder" to compensate. Also, few professors want to teach huge lecture halls of kids who are only there for the grade, and view the whole exercise as a waste of their time. (Having taught a few sections of this kind of thing myself, I'm not entirely unsympathetic. It's a long, painful day when you're waiting at hour 5+ of a lab session, watching someone fumble around hopelessly with gel rig or something, knowing that they're never going to make it and that this result is going to make or break their grade for the quarter...) I had an O-Chem professor who explicitly set a curve and gave incredibly difficult exams, such that only a few people in the 100+ person class could get an A. It was almost like he was transparently trying to reduce the student population.

humanistbot 4y ago
What is grade-grubbing?
- PuppyTailWags 4y ago
  This describes a pattern of behaviors in which a student's goal is to raise their grade. It can involve approaching after class to discuss an exam, asking for extra credit, asking for a regrading or retaking exams, asking for a small letter grade bump final scoring (B+ vs A-), etc. Students are especially motivated to do this because most future opportunities are locked behind specific grade point average cutoffs.
- Jensson 4y ago
  Some students go and complain when they don't get top grades. I can see it being very tedious when lots of students come and complain, so nice professors quickly go to other courses while only those who shrugs off complaints stay.
MichaelCollins 4y ago
Isn't an early weed-out a service to the students? The school could pass through 100% of their premed students, taking their money for all four years of their undergrad only for most of their premeds to get weeded when they apply to medical schools. If instead they get weeded a few years earlier, they still have time to change their major and go for an undergrad degree that will suit them better. Some may choose to drop out completely when they get weeded out of premed, and the school will lose tuition money from those. But what cynical advantage does the school gain from weeding out premeds? Besides tough love for the students who won't cut the mustard, what is their motivation for weeding out premeds?
- timr 4y ago
  I don't know if I'd say "service to the students", and I definitely have a few things to say about the artificial caps placed on med students and use of absolutely irrelevant courses (like biochemistry lab and anything beyond basic organic chemistry) but sure, I suppose some some filtering mechanism is of value. > But what cynical advantage does the school gain from weeding out premeds? Besides tough love for the students who won't cut the mustard, what is their motivation for weeding out premeds? Teaching these pre-med courses is expensive and hard. They're huge, require armies of TAs, and the educational experience blows (that's a scientific term) for both professor and student. Aside from the raw economic incentives (professors in this area tend to bring in far more money from research than teaching even the largest classes), believe it or not, a lot of professors actually want to teach their subject well. They love it. They do not love giving Biochem 101 lectures to a an audience of 100-1000 uninterested, uninspired undergrads who are only there because the AMA is making them jump through a hoop. Just to be clear, though: I don't think I'm suggesting anywhere that this is "cynical" behavior. Everyone is acting rationally given the rules of the game. Even the O-chem professor from my own life was acting in an extreme form of rationality -- I assume he didn't make the course hard out of some cynical motivation, but because he had a huge class and he wanted to provide a useful measurement of talent. One way to do that is to make it really, really hard and spread out the curve. (But he might also have been forcing the pre-meds into a different section by reputation.)
  - 4y ago
at_a_remove 4y ago
Yeah, I've seen those curves. I had a chemistry professor announce "I like to construct my exams such that the best student can complete seventy-five percent of the material in the time allotted." Complete, not get right. Too bad for him he got slapped with the gauntlet he threw down.
jeff_carr 4y ago
> I had an O-Chem professor who explicitly set a curve and > gave incredibly difficult exams, such that only a few people > in the 100+ person class could get an A. Isn't that how an 'A' grade is supposed to work? I'm not suggesting you curve it to deliberately fail people, but an 'A', 'B' and 'C' should have some meaning. If 90% of a class get's an A, the grading is meaningless and might as well just be pass/fail.
- piva00 4y ago
  The grade will be meaningless anyway if all it's doing is comparing to that class performance. A grade C from a particularly talented year of students could mean a B or A- in a less talented one. Unsure if 100+ is a decently sized sample to say that a grade curve based on current class performance has any meaning beyond that class.
  - colinmhayes 4y ago
    These classes are huge. The statistical difference between classes of 200+ students is minimal to non existent.
theGnuMe 4y ago
The US med/school complex is regulated by the AMA based on the number of residency slots. The schools get high tuitions and the restricted supply means we get less but higher paid doctors. The US doesn't have enough doctors and accordingly there is a large amount of medicine that we don't need doctors for such that PAs and NPs are taking over. In reality O-chem should not be a pre-med class nor should it be required by medical schools. Other countries admit straight to med school without a BS requirement. It's really more about, how much do you really want this and less about the coursework. However, O-chem probably wouldn't have any students if it wasn't a premed course either.
- timr 4y ago
  100% agreed, except for the last line. There are plenty of O-chem dorks! It doesn't come into its own until you start applying it to problems, then it's fun. Also, O-chem would be a lot more fun if it were actually a small lecture course. Pre-med ruins it by turning it into "memorize this book of obscure recipes". You might as well point them to the Joy of Cooking and have them memorize that, instead. Same purpose, but at least the outcome would be delicious.
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  The AMA doesn’t control med schools at all. What they do is lobby the government to not increase subsidies for residencies. Without more subsidies new residencies don’t open, and since every med school grad needs to do it to become a doctor med schools can’t open more slots until the number of residencies increases.
  - nradov 4y ago
    That is partially misinformation. The AMA lobbies Congress to increase funding for residencies. https://savegme.org/ https://savegme.org/
    - theGnuMe 4y ago
      It's great how they get to blame Congress... instead hospitals and academic institutions could just you know fund residencies themselves. It's not like they can't afford it.

by timr 4y ago

humanistbot 4y ago

What is grade-grubbing?

PuppyTailWags 4y ago
This describes a pattern of behaviors in which a student's goal is to raise their grade. It can involve approaching after class to discuss an exam, asking for extra credit, asking for a regrading or retaking exams, asking for a small letter grade bump final scoring (B+ vs A-), etc. Students are especially motivated to do this because most future opportunities are locked behind specific grade point average cutoffs.
Jensson 4y ago
Some students go and complain when they don't get top grades. I can see it being very tedious when lots of students come and complain, so nice professors quickly go to other courses while only those who shrugs off complaints stay.

MichaelCollins 4y ago

Isn't an early weed-out a service to the students? The school could pass through 100% of their premed students, taking their money for all four years of their undergrad only for most of their premeds to get weeded when they apply to medical schools. If instead they get weeded a few years earlier, they still have time to change their major and go for an undergrad degree that will suit them better. Some may choose to drop out completely when they get weeded out of premed, and the school will lose tuition money from those. But what cynical advantage does the school gain from weeding out premeds? Besides tough love for the students who won't cut the mustard, what is their motivation for weeding out premeds?

timr 4y ago
I don't know if I'd say "service to the students", and I definitely have a few things to say about the artificial caps placed on med students and use of absolutely irrelevant courses (like biochemistry lab and anything beyond basic organic chemistry) but sure, I suppose some some filtering mechanism is of value. > But what cynical advantage does the school gain from weeding out premeds? Besides tough love for the students who won't cut the mustard, what is their motivation for weeding out premeds? Teaching these pre-med courses is expensive and hard. They're huge, require armies of TAs, and the educational experience blows (that's a scientific term) for both professor and student. Aside from the raw economic incentives (professors in this area tend to bring in far more money from research than teaching even the largest classes), believe it or not, a lot of professors actually want to teach their subject well. They love it. They do not love giving Biochem 101 lectures to a an audience of 100-1000 uninterested, uninspired undergrads who are only there because the AMA is making them jump through a hoop. Just to be clear, though: I don't think I'm suggesting anywhere that this is "cynical" behavior. Everyone is acting rationally given the rules of the game. Even the O-chem professor from my own life was acting in an extreme form of rationality -- I assume he didn't make the course hard out of some cynical motivation, but because he had a huge class and he wanted to provide a useful measurement of talent. One way to do that is to make it really, really hard and spread out the curve. (But he might also have been forcing the pre-meds into a different section by reputation.)
- 4y ago

at_a_remove 4y ago

Yeah, I've seen those curves. I had a chemistry professor announce "I like to construct my exams such that the best student can complete seventy-five percent of the material in the time allotted." Complete, not get right. Too bad for him he got slapped with the gauntlet he threw down.

jeff_carr 4y ago

> I had an O-Chem professor who explicitly set a curve and > gave incredibly difficult exams, such that only a few people > in the 100+ person class could get an A. Isn't that how an 'A' grade is supposed to work? I'm not suggesting you curve it to deliberately fail people, but an 'A', 'B' and 'C' should have some meaning. If 90% of a class get's an A, the grading is meaningless and might as well just be pass/fail.

piva00 4y ago
The grade will be meaningless anyway if all it's doing is comparing to that class performance. A grade C from a particularly talented year of students could mean a B or A- in a less talented one. Unsure if 100+ is a decently sized sample to say that a grade curve based on current class performance has any meaning beyond that class.
- colinmhayes 4y ago
  These classes are huge. The statistical difference between classes of 200+ students is minimal to non existent.

theGnuMe 4y ago

The US med/school complex is regulated by the AMA based on the number of residency slots. The schools get high tuitions and the restricted supply means we get less but higher paid doctors. The US doesn't have enough doctors and accordingly there is a large amount of medicine that we don't need doctors for such that PAs and NPs are taking over. In reality O-chem should not be a pre-med class nor should it be required by medical schools. Other countries admit straight to med school without a BS requirement. It's really more about, how much do you really want this and less about the coursework. However, O-chem probably wouldn't have any students if it wasn't a premed course either.

timr 4y ago
100% agreed, except for the last line. There are plenty of O-chem dorks! It doesn't come into its own until you start applying it to problems, then it's fun. Also, O-chem would be a lot more fun if it were actually a small lecture course. Pre-med ruins it by turning it into "memorize this book of obscure recipes". You might as well point them to the Joy of Cooking and have them memorize that, instead. Same purpose, but at least the outcome would be delicious.
colinmhayes 4y ago
The AMA doesn’t control med schools at all. What they do is lobby the government to not increase subsidies for residencies. Without more subsidies new residencies don’t open, and since every med school grad needs to do it to become a doctor med schools can’t open more slots until the number of residencies increases.
- nradov 4y ago
  That is partially misinformation. The AMA lobbies Congress to increase funding for residencies. https://savegme.org/ https://savegme.org/
  - theGnuMe 4y ago
    It's great how they get to blame Congress... instead hospitals and academic institutions could just you know fund residencies themselves. It's not like they can't afford it.