This is for instatewaiter or psuedoknot or any other current student.
First off, thank you so much for all your advice and for answering our questions. I have a few more for you if you don't mind.
1) About the grading system... I think I remember it being low pass/pass/high pass/honors right? Do people intently keep track of this or is it more of a "I passed and WOW I got honors... didn't see that coming" kinda of thing?
2) Are the students competitive or do they work together?
3) Are classes mandatory?
4) Whats your favorite thing about VCU and what is one thing you would change?
Again, to all of the current VCU students that have been answering our questions... thank you so much! I am sure we will have more questions before Aug arrives!
I'll go ahead and anwer too but I think Psuedoknot covered most of it.
1) As pseudo said, the grading scale is fixed.
>=92% Honors
>=86% High Pass
>~70% Pass (pass depends on the standard error measurement, but is usually around 70%)
65% +/- 1 SEM is a Marginal Pass (not technically a passing grade)
The great thing about this is that everyone knows that the person next to you could do great and it makes no difference in your grade. This makes people very, very cooperative. For every test people post charts, study sheets and the like that probably took them a few hours to create. They know it will make your score better but it doesnt matter.
Some schools have a pass/fail system. In reality this is not functionally different than the system we have at MCV. Those schools with pass/fail systems still rank students compared to their classmates and this rank will be revealed in the deans letter to residency programs. So while divisions may not be visible to students, they still are there.
There really are 3 tiers of students at MCV. Those that try and just pass everything (P= MD) those that try and honor everything, and the people in the middle. You will figure out where you stand by the middle of 1st year.
2) Everyone is very cooperative. Unless I havent met them yet, I dont think we have any gunners in my class. Sure we have very strong students but they are always nice.
3) Classes arent mandatory with the rare exception (ethics, FCM, TBL or anything with patients) I go to about 50% of the classes (if that). You really dont have to go since everything is provided for you in the syllabus. I find it easier for me to go through the syllabus on my own. I do very well in my classes even though I dont really go to that many classes. Again, you'll figure out what works best for you.
4) The faculty are nice, helpful and receptive to concerns. The hospital is enormous and the clinical exposure is top notch. With the expansion of the Critical care tower our hospital should be near 1000 beds. Almost all of the researchers and doctors at MCV are very open to having medical students in their labs or shadow them.
The thing that I would change is the urban campus. This is a plus and minus. It is good because of the patient population it provides and the volume of cases we see. That said, I really like rural campuses. I just think they are
prettier.
The only other thing I would change is the name back to MCV. All the doctors call it MCV, most of the students do too, and the hospital is called MCV hospital. Just personal preference though.
