<p>The fact that students and their parents have been saying that is almost hilarious (I can imagine the convs. of freshmen and have overheard some. “I actually have to study now, and I never had to in HS”. “I’m looking at the bio p-set and I have to look up most of stuff because it’s not even in the lecture ppts.” One would think they were never asked to apply material and perhaps do a little research in HS). Academics at Emory are not that “rigid” (hard) for most people. The only courses that typically give pre-meds a hard time are the chemistry courses, and that is often said of most elite schools. It’s the only department at most institutions that does not change the curriculum to accommodate the pre-health students (and it shouldn’t, because among the sciences, chemistry has a more even distribution of those who want to pursue prof. school, grad school, and industry. If you water down the courses, you only do harm to those pursuing the latter two who need a very solid foundation in chemistry to succeed). Neuroscience courses all have over a 3.0 average (except maybe NBB 301), and introductory biology, which most pre-meds take is likely well above 3.0 as well (so is physics and math courses are in the 3’s and sometimes approach high B+/A- averages). At tough schools for science, intro biology, chemistry, math, and physics classes are in the 2s. Those who find Emory “rigid” are often the spoiled students who have never seen even a B+ and freak out when they get them because not many people fail courses at Emory, even the chemistry courses (chem gives more C’s than the other depts, but not many Fs or Ds. Though if you earn it, they will give it to you, but it’s pretty hard to earn below C+ or B- if you are trying).</p>
<p>As for pre-med…there are many great classes (science and non-science) pre-meds could take that would help acquire the type of thinking needed to be successful on the MCAT (and if you do the work and are willing to adapt to different styles of courses, you’ll keep a decent GPA. Unfortunately, a lot don’t love the status quo “recall the info” type of classes and find it hard to adapt) and as a student/scholar in general, but many won’t take them because they believe they are too “hard” (they often aren’t, the students have just become complacent from following an algorithmic approach to earning good grades in science courses; For many of the better ones, that approach doesn’t work as well. They require more critical thinking and independence). If students at Emory were less fearful of rigorous academics which they are supposed to pursue anyway, the numbers would be better. Wouldn’t one want to have a legit edge over someone at another school paying 1/5-1/10 the price? Part of this comes from exposure to a more challenging curriculum. </p>
<p>If you give yourself a GSU rigor education when you can handle more, then money is wasted and the academic advantage is squandered (get ready to put the same amount of effort studying the MCAT as “student at school that costs 1/5-1/10” will because you did not really learn it as such courses allow students to “get by” on memorization or algorithmic learning for each exam; exams that often don’t assume you know stuff from the last exam). I mean, they could at least choose classes and profs. with medium rigor as opposed to always choosing the easiest courses possible. Much less than half of the fault for those numbers is Emory’s. Could Emory make changes to encourage a different environment where students embrace the curriculum? Yes. It would even be nice to have more of them take social science and humanities courses for more than just a GER. Those are some of the best courses and foster the development of many more skills than a lot of science courses could ever dream of doing. The writing of many science majors, for example, is atrocious.</p>
<p>Phil: Pre-meds don’t have to major in science and English majors who are pre-med apparently do well on the MCAT (and many other prof-school and grad. school entrance exams) so the quality of that or any other program is indeed relevant.</p>