MedChatter's Guide to Grades

1) Know the System

Always be aware of your no-penalty withdrawal date (can withdraw without it showing up on transcript), penalty withdrawal date (withdraw with a note on transcript), not allowed to withdraw date (withdraw with an Incomplete or Fail), etc. and understand situations where those dates do not apply. If you have a legitimate reason for missing a deadline to withdraw (you get overwhelmed because of death of a close family member, psychological issues, financial issues, etc.) be sure you collect the proper documentation to support your reasons. It is NEVER too early to seek help, and this also helps to create a paper trail in case more drastic action needs to be taken (e.g. starting counselling sessions the day before your final exam and trying to get out of it now is not very convincing, having taken them since the start of your term and realizing mid-way that you can't handle your current courseload is relatively more so).

Know both the university policy and professor policy on late assignments and missed exams. If you do have to miss an exam, be sure to keep documentation on why. If you know you will be late on an assignment, talk to the professor or TA ASAP. The earlier you contact them, the more lenient they typically are and this is esp. true in smaller classes where you may develop a rapport with the instructors. Besides, the worst that can happen is they don't do anything.

2) Choose Wisely

Look up your future professors on www.ratemyprofessors.com. It is hardly perfect, but is is often much better than nothing. What is better is if your school (typically your student association) publishes public reviews of its professors. Typically if it is a required course for your major, there will be multiple course options and even if the exams are the same, having a better professor can greatly influence your performance. Caveat: ratemyprofessors is not infallible and often a great professor for one student is a horrible professor for another. Similarly, a professor that is not listed on ratemyprofessors can either be a blessing in disguise or a professor from hell. If possible, also look up course statistics for past years and ideally, compare the same term to the same term, as summer course averages tend to be higher.

In the 1st few days at a class, carefully review the syllabus and ask yourself:  is the courseload reasonable, are there participation/bonus/"free" marks (be sure to get these as they provide a nice buffer), are grades curved, and so on. If grades are curved, understand how it is done: are all grades curved to match a course average (bad if the course is easy and everyone will score high), are they only curved to boost the average (can put you at ease if you do bad on an exam as long as others do bad as well), are curves done the simple way (give everyone +2 or -2%) or the hard way (curve the grades to a specific average AND standard deviation)... for the latter, this can make the curving process appear mysterious as you might go from a 72 to 73% while your friend went from an 82 to 85%.

Taking 'bird' courses may boost your GPA (find them at www.birdcourses.com), but some schools will look down on this practice... especially if you have many of them). You have been warned! Instead, we suggest taking courses in subjects you are relatively strong in, as you will still perform well while the rest of the class suffers (relative to you).

3) Have a Study Schedule/System

If you are smart enough, chances are you can cram for 90% of your courses and still do reasonably well. However, this is highly not recommended as this will definitely hurt you once you are in medical school... it's easier to develop good habits in undergraduate studies. Determine if you are generally a class learner or independent learner and study accordingly. Caveat: some courses cannot be skipped no matter how independently you learn, as exams will be based on inclass material - be sure you know this beforehand. Do not bank on a good final exam schedule. Study enough beforehand so that even if you have 5 exams in 5 days, you can still do okay. The most important thing to realize is that in university, no one cares how hard you study, whether you go to class, whether you go to exams, etc. ALL THE RESPONSIBILITY FALLS TO YOU. Keep this in mind and you should be fine.

Bonus) Laboratory Courses

Such course are quite different in format from traditional lecture or even seminar-style courses. The key thing is team-work: unless you have extensive research background in the topic, you will likely not know everything each lab report wants, but by pooling resources with your labmates, you'll have a pretty good overall picture. During lab time, go at a steady pace: while it is not good to lag behind, it's even worse to rush and then have to start over. Put yourself in the scientific frame of mind before every lab session and ask yourself "what is the PURPOSE of these experiments" and KEEP THIS IN MIND. if you know WHY you're doing what you're doing then this will prevent 99% of any mistakes.