<p>As I recall, the lab classes consisted of a 1 hour lecture per week, along with a 4 hour scheduled lab. The lab classes could be taken separately from the intro bio classes and were run independently from one another (lab class required past or current in intro bio). It was my experience that the lab classes were time consuming, often with many assignments per week. One student said he spent more time in a 1-quarter bio lab class than 3 quarters of chem classes combined. The bio labs were graded pass/fail, and students needed to repeat any lab that wasn’t considered satisfactory, which also increased workload for some. The Stanford pre-med web page indicates that seniors can take the med school class Surgery 101 instead of one the bio labs. I don’t know anyone who did this, but it sounds like an interesting alternative, as the class involves regional anatomy and dissection of the human cadaver. I would have tried to enroll, had I known about the option. It sounds far more interesting than the plant biology lab.</p>
<p>Usually is is 3 or 4 credits for the lecture portion of the course, and 1 credit for the lab.</p>
<p>“Course Sequence – Average Grade
Chem 31a/31b or 31x – B, B+ or B+
Chem 135 or 171 and 181 or 183 – B+ or A- and B+ or B+
Bio 41/42/43 — B, B, B+”</p>
<p>Data - what gets lost in translation is that that 31 series in chemistry has about 300-400 students in each class, with 40-50% getting a grade below a B+, essentially a death knell to their aspirations for a career in medicine.</p>
<p>These are acting as weeder classes at Stanford where 600-700 students show up aspiring to be doctors each year and only 200-250 get there 4 years later.</p>
<p>And a very large number of them would be very successful, wonderful doctors today if they had gone to second-tier state schools.</p>
<p>
I’ve seen lower numbers for the percent that start out pre-med at Stanford. For example, the news story at [Stanford</a> welcomes Class of 2016 and incoming transfer students](<a href=“You’ve requested a page that no longer exists | Stanford News”>You’ve requested a page that no longer exists | Stanford News) mentions 17.4% of the class of 2016 were primarily interested in pre-med or pre-law, which is ~300 students. There is Daily article that mentions that 300-400 that apply to med school per year, but it’s not clear what percent of those are new grads and what are former grads. I do agree that a good portion of students do drop out of pre-med because of lower grades or perception of grades. The study at <a href=“The Leaky Pipeline: Factors Associated With Early Decline in... : Academic Medicine”>The Leaky Pipeline: Factors Associated With Early Decline in... : Academic Medicine; emphasizes chem classes in particular. There are also a good number of students who switch for reasons besides grades. It’s been my experience that many apply and get accepted with grades less than a B+ in multiple core science classes. The middle grade non-hook students I knew didn’t go to Stanford, Harvard, or similar extremely selective med school. Instead they went to quality schools that were less selective. I’d expect this group achieved quality scores on their MCAT.</p>
<p>“Asked what fields they’re primarily interested in at present, 26.9 percent said the natural sciences, followed by engineering (21.9 percent); pre-professional – pre-law and pre-medicine (17.4 percent); humanities (16.5 percent); social sciences (11.5 percent); undecided (4.1 percent); and Earth sciences (1.6 percent).”</p>
<p>There is no premed at Stanford. So many claim to be one of the majors. Those who claim to be premed are not sure of their major. My kid would have said engineering if asked. A lot would have done natural sciences.</p>
<p>Adding to my earlier post, if anyone is interested in the full study instead of the abstract, a PDF is at [The</a> Leaky Pipeline: Factors Associated With Early Decline in… : Academic Medicine](<a href=“http://pdfs.journals.lww.com/academicmedicine/2008/05000/The_Leaky_Pipeline__Factors_Associated_With_Early.18.pdf?token=method|ExpireAbsolute;source|Journals;ttl|1373853551247;payload|mY8D3u1TCCsNvP5E421JYPPlNl9ZUXrQDsjmMHeXqBgfxP56d5BAis+WhfSrPR1S6lcHrAT5WTvTkrI7Jc1zUq2UlEn8N1x7qr2heZXbSZE2/LnQkUnbAwLtuHlqxiruZhFw***f4aeU4rMgwns+8TDbNbAkOUlffcIt0OqswFvWf97qU1+XR+GRM7R1S2drJjlMZyk5umnCyX0ZsO+WQO3OqrC6kWZHGFmwsUyPoy3TkarWdvvy6Y+Y2j71uz08ZT48Kq4FnoD9k2sZ/f2+VtLuq7uoIKDiRliJeppVX+rw4UyT+wiUZhSlAJO7dAyjR9vmyVAWVtaC6WwAPrLYreszSV1KWThE7hh6oMJQ6lmjEbXKC+gaal/PsKlfuCcwBrUqJIORKZEJNXxZBdgr3PQsdpBR5D41VaEH2MOCVFQOReXo4fsg/YHzlI735ThKGKWml7j5Rn+50uie6sSdJqjf0QLWOa0q+IPzv3lP9DbtjtVBzj37I05+xyFEQYy8hkPvrHfu33uPvCYtoLj6J9uZawa0r/hG4jNiOlz9FC7GJdeYruj0bK5VQBSvsgdY/dBIMeG3lNTXUCUcvJSluK0aGIw6Dz6nHkcE/3S4anFLYlT+riIYTCGiEX23hvUO;hash|/0tCKZ5xGez14kRtK1IF2g==]The”>The Leaky Pipeline: Factors Associated With Early Decline in... : Academic Medicine) .</p>
<p>It mentions an average of 367 students stated an interest in pre-med on the Stanford freshman survey during 2002-2004. Some of the results were surprising to me, such as the extremely different reasons for loss of interest between male and female students (perhaps due to small a sample size), and how 100% of the participants who mentioned a loss of interest due to courses cited chemistry as one of the courses that caused the loss of interest. The participants who said courses increased their interest also cited chemistry.</p>
<p>Those numbers sound very understated for that era. One of my physician friends grilled someone from Stanford to decide whether his kid should go to NU HPME or Stanford in 2005 and decided his kid should take HPME in order not change his mind at Stanford. He was told only about 20-25% go on to medicine after starting out with an intention and many find other areas along the way.</p>
<p>
According to the link above, freshman questionnaire used to be phrased as follows:</p>
<p>“At this point in your life, if you are thinking of pursuing a graduate degree, in which area(s) would you do so?” </p>
<p>This question structure doesn’t limit students to choosing undergrad majors. ~21.5% of students answered that they were thinking about a degree in medicine during the study years of 2002-04 . I don’t thinking declining by 4% from 21.5 to 17.5 over a decade is unreasonable since a larger number of students choose tech fields than a decade ago.</p>
<p>You are looking at it wrong. It is 20-25% of those who started as planning to do medicine who go onto a medical school after 4 years. It means 75% dropped out from 1st to last year.</p>
<p>Those questionnaires are being given to students on a summer break after high school. It is not like they are even reading them.</p>
<p>The link above only specifies what percent start out pre-med. It does not specify what portion of those drop out from 1st to last year. You mentioned that a friend of yours was told that 75-80% do not go onto a med school. This rate does not fit well with Stanford Daily article, the rate suggested by the study (rough estimate based on % of students who did not mention decreased interest in pre-med after 1st 2 years), or the rate among the small portion of students I knew, so it’s not clear me that your friend’s data was accurate. Was this same friend the source that stated 600-700 students or about 40% of the freshman class start out pre-med? If so, overestimating the number of entering pre-med students could explain the difference .</p>
<p>He talked to the premed advisors to get an idea about the success rate.</p>
<p>You may want to check with them since there are many who start with an idea but don’t tell every pollster asking them.</p>
<p>I know someone going to med school this year as a biology major. He thought about 50 of 100 of the biology majors were going to med school and he did not know if the rest were interested in medical school or not. Some how I am not convinced that there are 50 kids majoring in biology at Stanford who did not originally have an interest in medical school.</p>
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<p>Not necessarily the ones who get grade below B+.</p>
<p>When UC StatFinder was up, it showed things like GPAs of transfer students in relation to their prior college GPA. Note that most transfer students to UCs came from community colleges, which are less academically selective than “second tier state schools” (since they are open admission). At the highest prior college GPA level (3.8-4.0), typical GPAs after transfer to UC were 3.4 to 3.7, depending on campus. While a small drop, that is significant for a pre-med. But at prior college GPA levels around 3.0 or below, there did not appear to be a difference in GPAs after transfer.</p>
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<p>Ability to do stuff that others can’t. My younger one had some serious terraforming done on her teeth beginning at a very young age. Ten years later, the before and after pictures are truly ‘beyond belief’. As are the bills. And she’s not really an orthodontist, just a pediatric dentist who knows what she’s doing.</p>
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<p>Data? Consider the brainpower we send to med school every year. Very few of them make it to research (much more money to practice I guess) and at the end of the day, have we made any progress towards cancer, diabetes, etc? not for what we’re spending.</p>
<p>We need doctors who can listen to what we want, not guilt-trip us into submission. Am I the only one who has figured out that a lot of this country’s health issues is because we’re being overworked to death (unlike in my native Europe?). Nope. Keep treating symptoms, it pays good money, but don’t raise your voice towards the catastrophe that is the US Health Care system or the reasons we’re getting what we’re getting out of what we’re spending.</p>