Vanderbilt Premed Weed Out

bernie12
Sat, 28 Nov 2015 21:44:38 +0000

@Daisy246

Excellent job and recognize that an A-/A is an A-/A…worry about your own success and the fact that your grade has improved dramatically. Your goal is to achieve for yourself and those you want to help in the future, not beat the person that scores 3-5 points higher on an exam…that is so insignificant in the end. In addition, sometimes it helps to be inspired by your peers. That is why you go to schools like this. If you feel so uncomfortable being surrounded by talent, you simply do not go to any top private or public school as the idea is that people at these places should enjoy being driven by their peers. The only time anguish is somewhat justified is if you are performing way below par and thus feel out of place. That clearly isn’t the case. If teachers at these level schools are doing what they are supposed to, then all students should be challenged at a higher level than if they had gone to schools outside of the elite (unless they of course got into an honors college). You never know the background of your peers, so it is simply best not to think in such competitive terms, especially in STEM courses which actively try to challenge even the best of students and Vandy has basically the best students ACT/SAT wise so it is natural that raw scores on things like chemistry exams will be almost as compressed as the score range. You can’t always expect to earn higher grades than folks as they are essentially the same level of talent in terms of test taking. And let us not talk about if you run into an instructor that gives exams that are actually difficult and yield 60 something averages.

@Sophie1295: Come on, Vandy is no different from how it was last year or even 3-5 years ago. The level of intensity in the classroom(especially that gen. chem class) is exactly the same, no need to rub in the top 15 thing (it is not some magical rank that completely changes the experience and level of academics, just like JHU is not suddenly different for rising to the top 10. WashU has the same rank and its pre-med courses are, for the most part, far more difficult than not only Vandy but likely several schools ranked above it). That doesn’t matter. If the class is challenging, then some students, no matter their standard incoming credentials (SAT/ACT and GPA), will struggle vs. their own or even the schools standards of achievement. At these schools, whether top 5,10,15,20,25,30, whatever, someone will always be more prepared (like a 1400 student can easily beat a 1500+ student if the 1400 student has AP/IB credit or experience and the 1500+ student does not. Let us not talk about the false confidence that can come from being in such a position. Hell, some courses at these places often get the best of AP credit students) or just happen to perform better. Not even a merit scholarship ensures perfect performance in every instance.