Larrivee Posted March 28, 2011 Report Share Posted March 28, 2011 I agree with marathonrunner except that sociology and psych are classes that even poor students can get reasonable grades in (yes I have evidence for this based on many of my friends) but even exceptionally bright students have a hard time going above and beyond to get in the high 90's (although my last psych midterm was 98% ). These classes have higher averages but have fewer extremes at the low and high ends of the percentage spectrum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarathonRunner Posted March 28, 2011 Report Share Posted March 28, 2011 I agree with marathonrunner except that sociology and psych are classes that even poor students can get reasonable grades in (yes I have evidence for this based on many of my friends) but exceptionally bright students have a hard time going above and beyond to get in the high 90's (although my last psych midterm was 98% ). These classes have higher averages but have fewer extremes at the low and high ends of the percentage spectrum. Excellent points, Jake, I hadn't thought of it quite like that before, but it does seem to make sense. Been too long since I took those courses to check with my friends over their results to see if the trend held for us as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hking03 Posted March 28, 2011 Report Share Posted March 28, 2011 I agree with marathonrunner except that sociology and psych are classes that even poor students can get reasonable grades in (yes I have evidence for this based on many of my friends) but even exceptionally bright students have a hard time going above and beyond to get in the high 90's (although my last psych midterm was 98% ). These classes have higher averages but have fewer extremes at the low and high ends of the percentage spectrum. Reasonable grades being what? 70%? I tend to look at "bird courses" as what appeals to your strengths/skillset. Yes, some courses are invariably easier than others, but to generalize an entire degree program like mickjoe did is slightly irritating. My friend and I took all of the same classes for our major, we studied together and went to class together, we even took notes for each other and combined our notes when we studied. I would consistently beat him by about 15-20% on every single test/project/overall mark... he's a smart guy, but he had a different skillset that wasn't as beneficial to scoring well/retaining the information for those courses. Almost every single one of my psych courses had an average of 66-68% (max 72%) with a standard deviation of 10-12% and a relatively normal distribution. Several of my "traditional" science based courses had averages in the mid-high 70's with no regard for normal distribution... of course a couple of them had averages in the 50's with no scale... But I think that is more a function of how ridiculous the prof feels like making the exam vs. the actual difficulty of the material presented. So, bird courses are whatever you find easy... a lot of intelligent people find psyc/sociology courses easy as the information is presented in a clear/straightforward way and for the most part isn't designed to eff you up on the final, but ask a dude who doesn't speak English (therefore misses some of the subtleties of the required readings) as his first language or someone who has memorization problems or has an interest in Math and they may say the bird course is Stats or an upper level Math course. As for the comments surrounding how the pre-req average could be used pre-interview... well, assuming you are applying this year you would have probably completed all but one or two of the pre-reqs so the adcoms would be able to see whether or not a pattern is emerging in your pre-reqs... if it's a concern then it might be a flag they address and monitor with your final grades. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larrivee Posted March 28, 2011 Report Share Posted March 28, 2011 Reasonable grades being what? 70%? I tend to look at "bird courses" as what appeals to your strengths/skillset. Yes, some courses are invariably easier than others, but to generalize an entire degree program like mickjoe did is slightly irritating. My friend and I took all of the same classes for our major, we studied together and went to class together, we even took notes for each other and combined our notes when we studied. I would consistently beat him by about 15-20% on every single test/project/overall mark... he's a smart guy, but he had a different skillset that wasn't as beneficial to scoring well/retaining the information for those courses. Almost every single one of my psych courses had an average of 66-68% (max 72%) with a standard deviation of 10-12% and a relatively normal distribution. Several of my "traditional" science based courses had averages in the mid-high 70's with no regard for normal distribution... of course a couple of them had averages in the 50's with no scale... But I think that is more a function of how ridiculous the prof feels like making the exam vs. the actual difficulty of the material presented. So, bird courses are whatever you find easy... a lot of intelligent people find psyc/sociology courses easy as the information is presented in a clear/straightforward way and for the most part isn't designed to eff you up on the final, but ask a dude who doesn't speak English (therefore misses some of the subtleties of the required readings) as his first language or someone who has memorization problems or has an interest in Math and they may say the bird course is Stats or an upper level Math course. As for the comments surrounding how the pre-req average could be used pre-interview... well, assuming you are applying this year you would have probably completed all but one or two of the pre-reqs so the adcoms would be able to see whether or not a pattern is emerging in your pre-reqs... if it's a concern then it might be a flag they address and monitor with your final grades. Good points Hking, and I agree with some of your points. However, my understanding of "bird courses" is that they are courses that outsiders would see as stereotypically "easy" classes. Because many people do well in courses they enjoy I wouldn't say that those are bird classes. Say student X loves math and does well in it, he's rocking 90-100 in all his classes, but while he does well they are still hard work. So in his fourth year he decides to take soc 101 and phil 100 because "everyone knows those are "easy" classes". These classes are not in his skill set but if he puts in a reasonable amount of time (although probably less than his upper level math classes) he can still pull off a mark between 80 and 100. I think these are the classes which med schools would view as "bird classes" classes which are somewhat incongruent with a students program of study with an "easy" stereotype tagged on them. At least, that is my understanding. I may very well be way off, though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cerena Posted March 29, 2011 Report Share Posted March 29, 2011 Mick, your speculations are fine, but it’s the fact that you are so sure of yourself, going so far as to “guarantee” me things, which strikes me as an attempt to make your argument sound more factual than it is, that I find irritating. In plain English, I just don't buy your argument Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hking03 Posted March 29, 2011 Report Share Posted March 29, 2011 Good points Hking, and I agree with some of your points. However, my understanding of "bird courses" is that they are courses that outsiders would see as stereotypically "easy" classes. Because many people do well in courses they enjoy I wouldn't say that those are bird classes. Say student X loves math and does well in it, he's rocking 90-100 in all his classes, but while he does well they are still hard work. So in his fourth year he decides to take soc 101 and phil 100 because "everyone knows those are "easy" classes". These classes are not in his skill set but if he puts in a reasonable amount of time (although probably less than his upper level math classes) he can still pull off a mark between 80 and 100. I think these are the classes which med schools would view as "bird classes" classes which are somewhat incongruent with a students program of study with an "easy" stereotype tagged on them. At least, that is my understanding. I may very well be way off, though. ahh, but i didn't say anything about a person majoring in math only having the skillset for math... i said intelligent people who have the right skillset tend to do well in psych/sociology courses. but yes, your definition of bird courses fits the stereotypical view quite nicely. i don't think it's very different from my view of what a bird course is. it just annoys me when people say all/most psych or all sociology or archeology or philosophy courses (insert non traditional science major here) are easy. i'm not saying you said that. at the end of the day, you still need to either be fairly intelligent or put in quite a bit of work to do well in almost any university course... bird or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anna8 Posted March 29, 2011 Report Share Posted March 29, 2011 I'm not sure if this adds anything substantial to the conversation but Psyc might be seen as "easy" in terms of content by some but upper level Psyc courses at UBC are required to have an average of ~68%, so that kind of screws things up if you intend to get straight As for med school. So I dunno if that can still be classified as a 'bird' course. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Ace of Spades Posted March 29, 2011 Report Share Posted March 29, 2011 And this is why they should scrap GPAs and focus more on the MCAT. Even prereq courses aren't of the same difficulty across universities, plus with all the 'bird' courses and different programs, GPAs must be pretty variable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darknebula Posted March 29, 2011 Report Share Posted March 29, 2011 I agree with marathonrunner except that sociology and psych are classes that even poor students can get reasonable grades in (yes I have evidence for this based on many of my friends) but even exceptionally bright students have a hard time going above and beyond to get in the high 90's (although my last psych midterm was 98% ). These classes have higher averages but have fewer extremes at the low and high ends of the percentage spectrum. Could you define the terms "poor students" and "reasonable grades"? And your post also implies that you think many of your friends are poor students Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K-Doc Posted March 29, 2011 Report Share Posted March 29, 2011 And this is why they should scrap GPAs and focus more on the MCAT. Even prereq courses aren't of the same difficulty across universities, plus with all the 'bird' courses and different programs, GPAs must be pretty variable. Why would they want to put more emphasis on ONE Test? Someone could study for the MCAT three years and take it as many times as they want and end up with a crazy score. MCAT can be easily fixed whereas GPA cannot. I think the reason for such an emphasis on overall GPA is that it shows consistency and takes hard work to maintain. It's not easy to maintain all A+'s, all A's etc... I think what UBC has done is really good. They have now given applicants with enough credits the chance to omit a bad year, whether that's first year due to adjustment issues, or a bad year somewhere in the middle due to medical issues, family, or other extentuating circumstances. I think that is more than enough. I mean after first year, if you are serious about medical school, you should be able to adjust to the rigour of University, which is nothing compared to medicine. If you can't, how are you going to handle Med School which is that much more intense? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larrivee Posted March 29, 2011 Report Share Posted March 29, 2011 Could you define the terms "poor students" and "reasonable grades"? And your post also implies that you think many of your friends are poor students Poor student - apathetic towards school, don't really study, don't pay attention in class, don't make much effort to do their best reasonable grades - mid 70s to 80 And many of my friends openly admit to being poor students Also I am not trying to say psych/soc classes are easy. But in my experience with first year classes, these have covered MUCH less material and cover concepts which are somewhat intuitive and can be experienced in daily life. Not so much memorization. Tis is a huge generalization and it is just from my experience at my school. I am not trying to speak down on any classes. Mine is but one humble opinion so take with a grain of salt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hking03 Posted March 29, 2011 Report Share Posted March 29, 2011 Mick, What's your definition of succeed in the above example? Do the psyc students have to beat the avg of the engineering students from when they were in engineering and vice versa or is it a comparison of grades across the majors? Does that make sense? Also, do the engineering students taking psyc have a firm grasp on the English language? Do the psyc students have a firm grasp on basic physics/math? I feel, from my own personal experience all courses and the grades you get stem from the amount of information you are able to memorize and cater to the prof's teaching/testing style. I've taken courses from almost every major and found that I was able to cope just fine. Granted I had a science background, but I also performed well in my 400 level English courses without too much trouble. So my experience may not be representative of the average student. Also, Jake- saying that a poor student receives reasonable grades of 70-80 seems a little off. An avg. Student receives avg grades of 68... So that would mean your friends are not poor students, but rather above avg... With different study habits than you. At least that's my take on it... I may have misread what you wrote though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
darknebula Posted March 29, 2011 Report Share Posted March 29, 2011 Poor student - apathetic towards school, don't really study, don't pay attention in class, don't make much effort to do their best reasonable grades - mid 70s to 80 And many of my friends openly admit to being poor students Also I am not trying to say psych/soc classes are easy. But in my experience with first year classes, these have covered MUCH less material and cover concepts which are somewhat intuitive and can be experienced in daily life. Not so much memorization. Tis is a huge generalization and it is just from my experience at my school. I am not trying to speak down on any classes. Mine is but one humble opinion so take with a grain of salt. hmmm... i see. 75-80 is considered good at UBC since its usually above average. Maybe UFV has higher standards Oh and I dont think someone would be apathetic towards school if they pay cash for it. if they really were apathetic, they wouldnt bother writing the exams. Some people just pay for the credits so we cant call them apathetic or "poor" students. Disclaimer: this is in no way supposed to be an attack on you. I just had a problem with seeing someone calling other students "poor". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TankMasterFlex Posted March 29, 2011 Report Share Posted March 29, 2011 Just to clear up any confusion, here is a link to the senate minutes where this issue was brought up. I don't think it was a UBC med faculty member that said this, I think it was simply a concern from someone in the room and I don't think it means anything as far as what UBC med has planned. http://www.senate.ubc.ca/vancouver/minutes.cfm?article=minute09-10/0310/march31.pdf "Dr. Dunford observed that students intending to apply to the Doctor of Medicine tended to select courses where they could obtain high grades so as to present the highest possible admission average, and that many of those course selections were unrelated to the study of medicine. He expressed the opinion that an applicant’s grades on MD prerequisite coursework should be considered most important. Dr. Fielding suggested that the MD admissions process did consider this factor. He explained that three averages were calculated for each applicant: one overall average, one average on the most recent 60 credits, and finally an average on the prerequisite coursework." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hking03 Posted March 29, 2011 Report Share Posted March 29, 2011 You have to successfully complete the degree in 4 years. No. You just have to pass. I would randomly select 100 engineering grads on graduation day from a anglophone Canadian university. I would expect they would have a decent grasp of the English language. The vast majority of engineering undergrads are not ESL. You have to take statistics to graduate from psych, so I would assume they have basic math skills. If they do not have the right science courses from high school, I would allow them to do the high school courses before they start engineering. (I mentioned that in my original post, but didn't repost that part.) So they this would allow them to be at the same starting point that the engineering students started at. I've taken courses from many majors as well. You can't do well in a course in which you are required to write a 20-page paper merely by memorizing facts. The same goes for a course in modal logic, computer programming, or statistical mechanics, for example. You can do well in a psychology course on the basis of merely memorizing facts. I like the effort you have put into the hypothetical scenario... The only thing I don't like is the broadstroke generalization that all psychology courses require memorization of facts to do well in... you said it yourself that psych students require stats to graduate, at UBC that was Psych 218 the class average the year I took it was something like 65%... I also took the upper level Psych Honours Statistics course which wasn't a bird course and required some pretty decent math skills to perform well in. I've also taken upper level courses that were based entirely on critical thinking skills, not memorizing random facts... However, I do agree that in general Psych 100, Sociology 100, 200 and a whole bunch of other 100 level courses are very easy to perform well in provided you understand how to study for the course and have half a brain. But I would also extend that to Chem, Phsyics, Biology, French, Archeology... the list goes on. I'll leave it at that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larrivee Posted March 29, 2011 Report Share Posted March 29, 2011 hmmm... i see. 75-80 is considered good at UBC since its usually above average. Maybe UFV has higher standards Oh and I dont think someone would be apathetic towards school if they pay cash for it. if they really were apathetic, they wouldnt bother writing the exams. Some people just pay for the credits so we cant call them apathetic or "poor" students. Disclaimer: this is in no way supposed to be an attack on you. I just had a problem with seeing someone calling other students "poor". I am not saying that these students are good or bad people, but most people agree that there are some people that are good students. This implies that there are also people who are not as good students, I just happened to use the not so politically correct word "poor" I suppose. But can we not dissect every word we use in this forum? It's exhausting trying to defend oneself and we stray so far away from the original meaning of the post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hking03 Posted March 29, 2011 Report Share Posted March 29, 2011 I am not saying that these students are good or bad people, but most people agree that there are some people that are good students. This implies that there are also people who are not as good students, I just happened to use the not so politically correct word "poor" I suppose. But can we not dissect every word we use in this forum? It's exhausting trying to defend oneself and we stray so far away from the original meaning of the post. Wait... What are we talking about? Oh yeah... The 10 year rule and its replacement. On a related note- I can't believe it's been almost 8 years since I started my undergraduate studies... Holy poop. I could have almost used the 10 year rule if I wanted:p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kylamonkey Posted January 31, 2012 Report Share Posted January 31, 2012 Reviving this thread to state- UofC is introducing a 10-year rule for next cycle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
notmeadoc Posted February 1, 2012 Report Share Posted February 1, 2012 Wow. That's amazing. I wonder if UBC(Finkler) knows this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aaronjw Posted February 1, 2012 Report Share Posted February 1, 2012 Curious why is this good? Serious question btw Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Helix Posted February 10, 2012 Report Share Posted February 10, 2012 hmmmmm very interesting. Thanks for posting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JB. Posted February 28, 2012 Report Share Posted February 28, 2012 Curious why is this good? Serious question btw I think this benefits non-trad students who have done poorly in post secondary course work longer than 10 years ago. Instead of thar prior work being factored into their gpa, it's now ignored. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cottoncandy6827 Posted February 28, 2012 Report Share Posted February 28, 2012 I think this benefits non-trad students who have done poorly in post secondary course work longer than 10 years ago. Instead of thar prior work being factored into their gpa, it's now ignored. does this mean that if you took your pre-reqs 10 years ago or more, you would have to retake them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JB. Posted February 28, 2012 Report Share Posted February 28, 2012 I believe so. For more info, start at page 1 of this thread. There is a tonne of info in this thread about the 10 year rule. You won't need to read the whole thread, but just by skimming you can get quite a bit of info. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kylamonkey Posted February 29, 2012 Report Share Posted February 29, 2012 I think this benefits non-trad students who have done poorly in post secondary course work longer than 10 years ago. Instead of thar prior work being factored into their gpa, it's now ignored. This is the case. I have been open about my situation in particular, since it always felt like a 10-yr rule was made for me. From 1997-99 school years, I have a ~65%GPA and a 42% GPA. Since I returned to school in 2007, my GPA is around 87%. Recognizing that my 1997-99 years are not representative of my ability or work ethic today was a nice thing. I realize that I should have left school at that time, but hindsight is 20/20 and it's almost impossible to live down those marks now. I won't get into exactly what was going on, but suffice it to say it was a bad year, but made me a better person. does this mean that if you took your pre-reqs 10 years ago or more, you would have to retake them? Yes, it did mean that. I retook english, and had to take higher-level chem courses to satisfy the pre-reqs. When PMs are back up, feel free to PM me for other info. I'm more than willing to discuss any of this stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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