@PurpleTitan : I wasn’t all that great in undergraduate either, but I do appreciate having taken good courses that actually challenged me to do much more than memorize and pretty much regurgitate content or solving of algorithmic problems. You of course had to have a knowledge base achieved through some memorization, but I took many courses and professors (that would be considered by most students very challenging) that not only taught content but thinking and problem solving skills and were usually not taught in the pure lecture format. There were many elements that emphasized more engaged forms of learning. So even from courses that I did not score super well in, scoring a B grade actually meant a whole lot more than scoring an A in some courses. Scoring even in the B range in these courses meant that you had a solid amount of content mastery and skillsets that others would not have gotten from simpler courses. I do not regret going to Emory and being very imperfect (and choosing courses I wouldn’t be perfect in). I actually retained a substantial amount of content and skills and they have come in handy in research and even PhD interviews.
So I don’t know what this “scraping by” means. If I didn’t do well in simple courses of my STEM majors and was putting in a lot of effort, I would be discouraged, but since I was, for the most part, doing pretty well in courses that really demanded high level thinking skills that I use today, then I can’t really complain. I do feel like I am one of those people who acquired aptitude in particular areas and it took more than a year to do it. I think I was also just fortunate to not take too many STEM courses where people near the top were not breaking a sweat (and in some I was near the top). It is a completely different scenario to take easier STEM courses and instructors (very possible in the life sciences) where indeed most students are easily making B+ and higher and a student to be trying but not keeping up. The few times I dropped a ball in an easier course (some sort of B) was because I was putting in very low to literally no effort (was having personal issues or diverting effort to courses I enjoyed more).
However, in the life sciences, I must say that among many who appear to have “aptitude” based upon their transcript, many do not have aptitude of the form that translates to success in working in or doing research in the field. Many life sciences majors make it very easy to dodge challenging course work, even at elite schools. Many students can just find the instructors and courses that, say, emphasize lower levels of cognitive complexity comparable to high school life sciences courses and almost cruise their way through (it may be why even grades have been found to have limited reliability for success in graduate school research for STEM and why some programs put a premium on previous research experience and seemingly harder upper division and graduate level course work). Many imperfect engineers and even physics, and chemistry majors, due to more stringent course requirements often end up much more “tested” in their field and you have many more students with solid skill sets for a job or graduate student who are nowhere near the top of their class. In such a case, a rigorous education from some selective college can be beneficial if you can just do okay. Doing merely okay in some departments is indicative of a very respectable level of training (as in perhaps much better than that some top students receive in less rigorous programs, and trust me I know) especially if they are getting references and rec. letters from instructors who vouch for the intensity of their courses.
Also, as suggested, aptitude is relative. You may have aptitude in something, it just won’t be aptitude relative to a particular student body relative to a particular point in time. Again, I was a case that needed development and now I am good enough to tutor (and indeed do so) even many of the things I may not have scored an A in (not only that, I tutor the students for the same instructors). Having a rigorous program definitely made me better and I did better over time. Also, developing a desire to learn many things on my own (like through reading primary literature and books in fields) helped a lot so passion plays a role. If my course work was my only means of gaining ability in my areas of interest and I pretty much just disengaged it outside of class, I would be pretty useless and would have forgotten everything.
Also, American U’s use lecture too much do to efficiency. It is pretty hard to turn back because students actually do tend to like it precisely because they basically do have to “learn” less and certainly do not have to engage the material as much in and outside of class. It is hard to break “cram culture” and get students to commit to more time on task (which those other methods require or strongly encouraged). For flipped classrooms, a point of resistance comes from the fact that students naturally perceive teaching as the teacher talking at them the whole time especially if it is what is happening in other courses they take. Students feel only as if they are learning when being told to do or how to do or think about something. Self-directed learning with some guidance is a pain for many.