<p>*USC has a LOT of gunners in its premed classes; competition is almost as fierce as the top UCs.
*</p>
<p>I copied the above post from another thread. </p>
<p>So, which schools are the ones with these gunners that cause a harsh grading curve?</p>
<p>I’ll start…</p>
<p>UCLA
Berkeley
USC</p>
<p>Where else?</p>
<p>Everywhere has this. The gap between the gunners and the rest is probably larger as you go to less-and-less selective schools.</p>
<p>Yes…that’s true…but some schools are going to be more notorious and cut throat.</p>
<p>Maybe we ought to define “gunner” first so we’ll know what we are discussing. </p>
<p>Gunner IMO is defined as someone who actively tries to poison the water to benefit themselves and undermine their classmates. IMO it does not include kids who will excel beyond their classmates simply by doing things the others aren’t willing to do, or making sacrifices the others aren’t willing to make, thereby setting the curve higher. Doing things better than your classmates does not make you a gunner. “Gunner” requires a conscious deliberate attempt to negatively impact the fortunes of others.</p>
<p>How about WUSTL, JHU ?</p>
<p>Gunner IMO is defined as someone who actively tries to poison the water to benefit themselves and undermine their classmates</p>
<p>Hadn’t thought to define it, but that sounds as good as any.</p>
<p>That said, I guess there could be 2 lists…</p>
<p>one list of schools with gunners (who sabotage others) </p>
<p>and </p>
<p>one list of schools so concentrated with ultra super stars (who go that extra mile that Curmy describes) that a student who is smart but not 99.9 percentile is likely going to end up being on the short end of a brutal curve.</p>
<p>^ ok, i did not understand the precise meaning of gunner. now i do.</p>
<p>One of my nieces graduated from UCSD 3 years ago. During her years there, she complained that there were students who literally sabotaged other students. One example was one such student would tell other classmates that an upcoming test had been rescheduled so that those students wouldn’t come to class prepared on test day. </p>
<p>It was the first time I ever heard of such a thing. It’s one thing to fairly compete…it’s another thing to do and say things that cause another student to do worse.</p>
<p>Perhaps parents who read this thread will be old enough to remember “reserve reading” that you’d have to go to the library to get (there would be just a few photocopies behind the circulation desk), and return within just a few hours. Perhaps they’ll also be old enough to appreciate this joke from the '80s that illustrates what a “gunner” is:</p>
<p>Q: How can you tell when a pre-med had done the reserve reading?</p>
<p>A: It’s highlighted in black magic marker.</p>
<p>lol. Yeah. I remember. I thought it best to define gunner as until recently I had not known that the definition had changed to exclude the category 2 students in mom2ck’s post. It is now a purely perjorative descriptor.</p>
<p>At some point it changed from “gunning for the top spot”, to academically speaking, “gunning down your classmates”.</p>
<p>i was in college in the 70s and grad school in the first half of 80s as an international student so had no idea what ‘gunner’ meant. the schools were very cooperative with no such competition for grades. of course in grad school you are working for research, not grade (which is only secondary). I am just learning about all this now with a s at cornell and another just applying college to be in premed or in combined bs/md program. i do not like this pure curve or absolute scale only grading. some degree of mixture, partially curve and partially absolute scale grading is what i like. this premed academic culture goes against nuturing new doctors with empathy or compassion toward weaker people. when you tried to squash one’s peers, how can they suddenly become so generous and helping those with problems? dmn, maybe i am too idealistic but something is terribly wrong. no wonder why most doctors come accross as arrogant and somewhat apathetic.</p>
<p>All prestigious undergrads are full of gunners if CC is any indication.</p>
<p>Most colleges are going to have gunners if you mean students who work hard and try to do their best. Heck, what do you think med school is? I see no reason to shy away from schools that have intelligent, hardworking students. </p>
<p>If by “gunner,” you mean students who intentionally try to sabotage other students, I think the incidence of those sorts of students are very exagerrated. You aren’t likely to meet many of those students.</p>
<p>^^ Fully agreed. One CCers once posted he sometimes feels that the whole student body at his prestigious school (esp. those academically capable ones) consists of pre-professional students who care nothing but squash those who may be in their way, and who may prevent them from achieving their ultimate career goals.</p>
<p>DS deeply dislike the premed culture (however, still like the medicine field), and is glad he has survived that and all of this has been behind him.</p>
<p>an easier, and extremely short list, would be which schools don’t have gunners. :)</p>
<p>* I thought it best to define gunner as until recently I had not known that the definition had changed to exclude the category 2 students in mom2ck’s post. It is now a purely perjorative descriptor.</p>
<p>At some point it changed from “gunning for the top spot”, to academically speaking, “gunning down your classmates”. *</p>
<p>When I first started this thread, I was really asking to list schools where there are students who are “gunning for top scores” hence a harsh curve.</p>
<p>But, then when curmy posted, it reminded me of what my niece complained about.</p>
<p>*an easier, and extremely short list, would be which schools don’t have gunners. *</p>
<p>LOL…probably true for the elites…but probably not for schools at large.</p>
<p>Maybe Kristin can mention what she experienced at her undergrad.</p>
<p>any school where class grades are based on the “curve”</p>
<p>The “Curve” would be interesting. It would be interesting to know, is it the school or the teacher that decides on using a curve.</p>
<p>D mentioned that some students appeared to take the AP courses BC got 5, etc., then still took the lower level class in college to get an A, killing the curve (especially when the lower scorers dropped the class) toward the end. Not all the classes had these curves. I guess is it up to the instructor? Not med school, but wondered if it works the same there.</p>
<p>
The higher ranking the college you go to, the more these kinds of students you will see.</p>
<p>I heard, at some colleges, some students are so far “ahead” academically before college that when they take the orgo class (let alone the typical freshman classes like calculus or gen. chemistry) in their home institute, it is their second time they take it in college. (That is, they took a dual-enrolled orgo class at a nearby college while they were in high school.)</p>
<p>DS met a coworker in his lab. He is 20 years old, and is already 2nd year into his PhD program. You could imagine how ahead he was when he was a freshman.</p>
<p>Most science college courses are going to be graded on a curve. And if you attend a top university, then many of the students are going to have already taken AP courses in the same subject.</p>
<p>I see no reason to be apprehensive of a curve. Competition is indeed inherent to the process of becoming a physician. The MCAT is scaled on a curve. When you apply to medical school, you are competing with 7000 to 18000 other applicants for 150 spots. AOA in medical school is relegated to only the top 16% of the med school class. The USMLE tests are scaled on a curve. When you are on your rotations, you are often compared with the 1-2 other students on your team, even though you are supposed to be graded on an objective scale. When you apply to residency, you are fighting with hundreds of applicants for, sometimes as few as 1-5 spots.</p>