Information Sharing in a School With Relative Grades

I'd like to think of myself as a pretty friendly, open person.

In the past I have played on team sports, I would hope that those people on my team would say that I am a "team player."

But if I knew of a website that I thought could help students to do better on a test, I would in no way feel morally bound to inform my entire class via an email.

First, for the unindoctrinated, this is what I mean when I say relative grades. The basis for grading in medical school is done by standardizing how you did on a test with how everyone else did. Therefore if you scored lower than average on one test, your standardized score would reflect that--even if your raw score was 98 out of 100 possible, if everyone else got 99% you would have an unimpressive looking relative score. In the opposite scenario, if the average score on a test was 50% and you got a score of 65% correct, you would probably honor.

ALL medical schools must quantify how students rank within their class. Before one of the two people who read this write an angry comment, read on. You may say, but my school doesn't have grades. Generally people that say that follow up by saying "all we have is Fail, Pass, and Honors." I've got news for you, when you fill out an application for residency you medical school must provide some way of distinguishing your Pass from the other 100 students, if I'm not mistaken this is given on a scale of 16 with the middle of the bell curve set at 8, and with a 16 representing the top 1% of students or so. Although I have not confirmed this personally, I've heard people say that the only time they are graded is in 3rd and 4th year--I find that hard to believe, but I'll take their word for it.

By way of example (hopefully I'm not belaboring the point), at Wayne State we have a system of Z scores where the average on any given test is set to equal a Z score of 500. For instance, if I scored 75% and the average was 75% then my Z score was 500. If I scored an 85% my score would be near 600 (considered "Honors"). A score of 65% would be on the border of failing. Unfortunately, as mentioned above, you can have a very high raw score and a relatively low Z score (once I scored 92% with a z score of 460).

Getting back to the topic, one of the questions someone told me to ask the interviewer when I interviewed for medical school was, "How competitive are the students at the medical school?" In other words, is there a sense of teamwork at the medical school or is it everyone for themselves. To which, most would answer that there is a sense of comraderie in medical school. And there is. But can there be comraderie among people that are competing. I think that there can be, and I don't buy that competition is a bad thing.

Like it or not, we live in the era of American Idol and banning red pens. Perhaps in a reaction to how they were treated as children, there is a whole generation of parents that thought they should lie to their children about their children's abilities. "Sure Johnny, you can be a professional singer, you've got a great voice!" "Of course you can play in the NBA, who cares that you can't make it in the basket." At the same time we tell our teachers. "Don't use red pen to correct homework--it hurts students feelings." Luckily my parents always told me I could do anything I set my mind to, provided that I had some degree of God-given giftedness (I could practice basketball 'til I was blue in the face, but there isn't much need for undersized guys who can't jump).

I hope that our generation treats our children the way that my parents treated me. So that we don't have shocked children who are told for the first time that they can't sing by American Idol. And who realize that to become a doctor/engineer/teacher, you have to outwork a lot of people and that maybe it takes a C or D to realize that.

I've come to the point where I can admit that having a life is going to cost me getting an "Honors" in medical school--it just isn't worth losing all social interaction in the name of grades. Because of competition, I am driven to study many times when I'd rather relax. Because of competition I am able to set realistic goals. Because of competition we have highly educated doctors. Because of competion, I won't send out a mass email. Now if I can just figure out where to find all the information I want to keep to myself.

“Life doesn't imitate art, it imitates bad television.”

-Woody Allen