The following change in Baylor College of Medicine’s pre-clinical curriculum has been brought to my attention: “All preclinical courses will be Pass/Fail (afternoon and morning)” beginning with my incoming class.
As a student affected by this change, I’m really looking forward to it! UT Southwestern will be making a similar change for their incoming freshman class, but pass/fail will not be the standard for all their pre-clinical courses. Yeah, there are advantages and disadvantages, but hopefully this move will reduce some of the “gunnery” inherent to medical school. As time goes on, I’m beginning to love Baylor Med more and more. 🙂
UT-Southwestern and Baylor College of Medicine are the 2 medical schools in Texas that are in direct competition with each other by far.
Thus, anything that would push a student to select one school over another is important. My guess is since UTSW had changed it’s grading policy earlier, Baylor, who was still contemplating about how to change their grading policy – went even further and made all 2 years Pass/Fail.
It would not surprise me one bit to see UTSW then follow suit and do the same thing because the last thing they want to do is lose students in the applicant pool to Baylor.
However, as AOA selection relies on more than just board scores, like I suspected, Baylor will keep your grades internally for AOA and/or rank (if they calculate one), so really it still counts, the only good thing is that residencies will only see P or F.
I totally agree man. The best thing about BCM and UTSW “battling it out” is that the students benefit at both institutions. 🙂