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I think you have jumped to an erroneous conclusion here. The competition may be a bit stiffer at UCLA, but not enough to make a large difference. A B- at UCLA was not going to be an A somewhere else.</p>
<p>In my work as a tutor I observed that while grades are on a continuum, understanding was not. Once you get below roughly the B+ range, the students really don’t have a good understanding of the material. Instead what they are doing on exams is recognizing problems similar to the ones on the homework and applying the steps they can remember. Sometimes this works well, sometimes it gets partial credit, but it strikes out if the prof rewords problems to see if you understand the material instead of just recognizing it.</p>
<p>The solution is to spend the time to truly learn the material. It doesn’t take genius level intelligence, it takes spending the time working problems until you understand them and the concepts. A rule of thumb is to spend 6-9 hours outside of class for each math/science class you take. Thats a big committment, but it still leaves plenty of time to have fun in college as pointed out in post #2. In terms of what to do, extra problems from the text are good practice. There are also Problem Solver books for most math and science classes; these are like subject oriented SAT prep books and have thousands of questions with worked answers. Once you are solving the practice problems correctly you’ll find the tests take care of themselves.</p>
<p>Lastly, and maybe I’m reading too much between the lines, I hope you know that a strong GPA is (as our math friends would put it) a necessary but not sufficient condition to get into med school. Several other factors are also crucial, and if you haven’t taken the time to learn about them I suggest you do so pronto. One good starting point is the excellent guide at [Amherst</a> College Guide for Premedical Students](<a href=“http://www3.amherst.edu/~sageorge/guide2.html]Amherst”>Amherst College Guide for Premedical Students)</p>