<p>norcalguy,</p>
<p>The important point here is in orgo classes in many colleges, the grade for 15% below the mean (using your example) is usually a C instead of the usual B/B-.</p>
<p>One of my good friends who is pretty bright and did well on orgo but managed to get just a B+ because so few A/A- were given. This is a guy who got accepted to HS but went to Northwestern for HPME. He also took MCAT without studying very hard (just for fun since HPMEs are guaranteed admission to NU med school) and got a very solid score (36).</p>