Longest Post EVER

Hello everyone!

First off, I want to thank everyone that took the time to leave me a comment or send me an e-mail. Your words of encouragement really meant a lot. Secondly, this is the last entry in my series about failing at Ross. So, I warn you - it'll be long. I really don't want to drag out this "failing" topic any further. I would much rather get to writing about more interesting things such as ... ?? Actually, there isn't anything interesting really to write about. I'll think of something. Anyway, here it goes!

The last time I left you all, I had written a recap of my first, first semester. But what happened after the final? Well, as it turns out, A LOT. After I came out of the final exam, I didn't feel it had gone too horribly wrong. I did feel that the Biochemistry section was murder but the rest of the exam was O.K. Honestly, I couldn't care less how I did in the other subjects. I knew I would pass the other four classes just fine. I was just hoping I scored well enough to pass Bio. After the final exam, Michael and I had five days of riveting fun (NOT! The island is SO boring when everyone is gone!) until our flight home. Of course, with nothing to do, I constantly refreshed my e-mail hoping to see an e-mail from the Exam Center. However, five days passed and no grades were posted.

My grades were finally sent to my e-mail on April 30. (Our final exam had taken place on April 22, FYI.) As soon as I saw that e-mail, my hands started sweating and my heart began to race. I downloaded the document and opened it up in Microsoft Word. When the document opened, I immediately searched the page for the Biochem section. When I saw my grade, I couldn't believe my eyes. Under Biochemistry, it said "Letter Grade: C." YES, YOU READ THAT RIGHT! According to my grades from Ross' Exam Center, I passed Biochemistry! I don't think you could have found a happier person in the world at that very moment. After a quick glimpse at my other grades, I ran downstairs and woke up my mom to tell her I had passed first semester.

I went back upstairs and stared at the Word document with my grades. I just really couldn't believe I had passed Bio! Typed in a box at the bottom of the document were our semester's MPS scores for each subject. The Biochemistry MPS was a 57. I found it strange that even though my reported cummulative score was below MPS, my letter grade said I had passed. Normally, if your cummulative score is below MPS, that means you failed the course. But, in this case, an F would appear as your letter grade. My cumulative score was below MPS but my letter grade was a "C." Perhaps there was some sort of curve?? It crossed my mind that somehow Ross made a mistake but I just couldn't (or perhaps didn't want to) believe it. So many questions flooded my brain. If Ross did send me the wrong grades, how could a professional medical school possibly make such a horrific mistake? How could I receive a grade that said I passed when in actuality I failed? Even though I thought this possible, I dismissed the idea because it seemed too implausible. Also, my other four grades were correct. My cummulative scores matched the letter grades assigned. So, why would my Biochem grade be the only one that was incorrect? This, coupled with the fact that I NEVER received an e-mail or notification stating otherwise, made me believe that when I got back to Dominica, I would be a second semester student with my cousin, boyfriend, and the rest of my class.

The next day, I went on ValueMD to see if other people were in my same situation. It turns out, there were. And there were people in the opposite situation. Someone wrote that the Exam Center had sent them an "F" in a class they really got a "B" in. Quickly, things weren't looking too good for me. It looked like Ross really was that unprofessional and irresponsible to send out the wrong grades to its students. I never thought a medical school could make such a mistake. Some students were told they passed classes they failed and others were told they failed classes they had passed. Still, there were no e-mails issued stating something like "Please disregard your grades. You may have received an erroneous grade." No e-mails were sent stating something like "I'm sorry to inform you that you failed a course." After Ross sent the e-mail with my grades, I didn't receive a single e-mail from them regarding grades or passing/failing a course.

So, I flew back to Dominica unsure if I had passed or failed first semester. But I quickly found out the next day at Registration. When I tried to register for second semester, the Dominican lady quickly squashed my attempts when she looked me up in her computer and informed me that I needed to see Dr. L. That's when I pretty much knew. If you have to see Dr. L, it's NOT a good sign seeing as to how she's the head of the Promotions Committee. (The Promotions Committee basically decides who passes and fails.) Unfortunately for me, it was 5 PM on a Friday so I had to wait till Monday to figure out my registration situation.

That Monday, I made the line to speak to Dr. L. Turns out, LOTS of people needed to see her. When it was finally my turn to see her, I walked into her office and sat down. She asked me for my name and then she asked me which classes I would be repeating. O.K., so now I DEFINITELY knew I had failed Bio in first semester. She informed me that I had to repeat a minimum of 3 out of 5 subjects.

Side Note: DPS is not worth as much as the other classes; it's only worth 2 credits while the other classes are worth 3. So, if you fail a class at Ross, you must retake that class plus two other classes. DPS cannot be one of those classes. You can retake DPS as a fourth class. For example, if you fail Anatomy, you can take Anatomy, Histo, and Physio. If you also want to retake DPS, you have to retake it as a fourth class. So, you would take, Anatomy, Histo, Physio, and DPS. DPS is not worth enough to be one of three classes you repeat. If you want to retake DPS, you have to choose your three classes PLUS DPS.

Double Side Note: When you repeat a semester, the repeat grade DOES NOT take the place of the original grade. For example, if you got a "C" in Histo and you retake it and get an "A", your "A" doesn't take the place of your "C." In reality, they average. Basically, your GPA for your two semesters (the original and the repeat) average to give you one GPA for that semester. Another way to think about it is that at the end of your basic sciences, you'll have a cumulative GPA based on 5 semesters instead of 4.

So, I decided to retake Bio, Anatomy, Physio, and DPS. The only class I'm not retaking is Histo. Even though I love Histo and I did very well in it last semester, I find Histo to be too time consuming. In my opinion, the most time consuming classes are Histo and Biochem. This semester, I really wanted to make Biochem my focus so I choose not to take Histo again. Once I told Dr. LaVille which classes I would be repeating, she gave me the famous letter you need for registration. I walked over to the Administration building, finally registered, picked up my refund check, and went home to prepare for another first semester. Good thing I kept all my notes organized and readily available!

After registration, I received an e-mail from Academic Success stating that a mandatory meeting for all repeaters would take place. I was instructed to reply with what course I failed and which classes I would be retaking. I assume the purpose of this was so they could group people that had failed the same subject and are repeating the same classes. In case you didn't know, when you fail and consequently repeat a semester, you're required to go to weekly Cognitive Skills sessions with your group. It's just one of the perks of being a repeater. Anyway...

So, we had this famous meeting during the first week of school. What an interesting afternoon that was! Before the meeting, I was really curious to see who else had failed. I mean, when you're going through all the emotions and problems of failing when all your friends passed, you start to feel very isolated. So, I was kind of hoping I would recognize a fellow buddy in the room so I wouldn't have to go through "repeating" alone. Well, walking in to that conference room, I was amazed by all the faces I recognized. Looking around, I was shocked to see that certain people had failed. It just didn't seem like they were struggling. And to be honest, I wasn't too surprised to see some of the others.

Side Note: Word of advice, don't listen to anyone here. One of the things I've noticed at Ross is that there are some major liars here! Apparently, everyone does "really good" on the exams. Then, weeks before the final, some of these people that were doing "really good" are all of a sudden confessing their fears of failing one or more classes. Case in point: After studying in the lab for the practical, my boyfriend and I ran into a mutual friend. As we walked away, my boyfriend told me, "that guy's a monster. Did you know he's got a 4.0?" I was all jealous (not in an evil way!) and curious as to what it was he was doing (and I needed to be doing) in order to do so well. Fast forward six weeks and that same "4.0" guy was sitting in that meeting for repeaters with me. The point is that it used to get me a little down that everyone around me was supposedly doing stellar while I was struggling. The truth is that a lot of people are struggling here and I think they're too scared or embarrassed to admit it. So, if you find yourself struggling, don't feel too bad because I assure you, you're not the only one - even if no one else is saying it. Back to the story...

Once the meeting began, it was like something out of an Oprah show. The academic success people stood in front of the room with a microphone and conducted what seemed like a therapy session. They asked lots of questions like:

"How does it feel to come back as a repeater?"
"How did you feel when you find out you failed?"
"Do your friends and family know that you failed?"

You know, questions like that. So, they asked these questions and passed the mic around the room to whoever wanted to answer. And so we all sat around and talked about our feelings. However, the meeting took quite a drastic turn when they asked something like, "how did you feel when you saw your grades?" Someone raised their hand and answered into the mic, "well, it didn't feel good seeing my grade change from a 'C' to an 'F'." You wouldn't believe the shock on the faces of the academic success people. They were completely perplexed as to what this student was referring to. "What do you mean?," they asked. Well, to keep it short, we told them about how Ross sent us the wrong grades and how no one notified us that we had failed and how some of us didn't find out we failed until registration. So, for what seemed like forever, people spoke into the mic expressing their anger at Ross for handling (or rather not handling) the situation the way they did. At one point, one of the academic success people told us to "stop bitching because it wasn't going to get us anywhere." While I think that was a little inappropriate, they were right. Complaining wasn't going to get us anywhere because the fact that we failed was not going to change. It was visible that the students in the room were sad and angry and everything in between. For some in that room, they had just find out days before that they had failed. It was obvious some people weren't dealing with repeating very well. I guess that is why the meeting started out like a therapy session. From past experiences, they probably knew the students would be feeling the way they did. Though, there were some people that were surprisingly optimistic and grateful to be getting a second chance. Still, these people were in the minority from what I saw.

So, yada yada, they apologized for Ross sending out the wrong grades and everything else. We were also asked to write down on a blank sheet of paper about our experience with the wrong grades and lack of notification and so on. I guess they needed evidence? After, we broke into our groups so that we could meet our facilitator (as well as each other) and to set up our weekly meetings.

That's pretty much what went down in the meeting. One person did want to know how many people from our class had failed. The academic success person told us to look around and double the number. They said that about half the people chose to repeat. Well, there were about 50-60 people in that room. So, I'm guessing somewhere around 100-120 people total failed. I have never found out exactly how many people failed. All I know is that there are 50 repeaters. I know this because I counted all the e-mails in the "To" section in one of the e-mails academic success sent us.
PS: Do you think I use my time properly? And I wonder how I failed last semester.

Side note: I saw the list with the names of the repeaters and which class or classes they had failed. I'd say about 80% failed Biochem. A handful failed Histology, Physiology or Anatomy. I don't think anyone failed DPS from what I saw. And for the most part, people failed only one class. But, there are a few that failed Biochem and another class. For future first semesters, if you didn't already know, Biochem is the monster that trips people up. Look out for it...

Double side note: After every Mini, the Exam Center sends you a Word document with your scores. As it turns out, sometimes they get those grades wrong as well. There is one repeater (I shall call them "Shrek") this semester that failed because of an error in their Mini 1 Biochem grade. The Word document the Exam Center sent Shrek had a rather high Biochem score for Mini 1. Then, Shrek did well enough on Mini 2 Bio and Mini 3 Bio that when it came time to study for the final, he chose to spend more time on the other subjects. He neglected Biochem for the final because he felt he was in no danger of failing Bio based on the grades the Exam Center sent him. When Shrek came to register for 2nd semester, he was told he had failed first semester. Turns out, the score the Exam Center sent for Mini 1 Bio was in actuality MUCH higher than Shrek's real score. So, when Shrek's cumulative score for Bio was calculated, it was below MPS. So, my advice is this: When the Exam Center sends you your individual responses (sort of like an electronic version of your scantron), grade it against the answer key posted on Ross' Student Resources Page. This way, if you see a large discrepancy between the grade you calculated (make sure you grade it correctly!) and the grade the Exam Center sent you, then you know an error was made. You can also go to the Exam Center and see your scantron yourself. Bottom line: don't take the grade the Exam Center sends you to be set in stone because it could be an error. You need to know where you stand in every class so that you know how to distribute your study time and energy for the next exam. It's a numbers game. You may need to neglect one or more classes you're doing well in so that you can dedicate more time to the class/classes you're struggling in. If you don't have the right grades when you do these calculations, then what happened to Shrek could happen to you. So, make sure you have the right grades. Don't take the Exam Center's word for it.

Anyway, so the semester began. As a repeater, our semester is a little different. Even if you're repeating, you still have to go to PBL. "Ugh" is all I have to say about that. And because we're repeating, we have our mandatory cognitive skill sessions every week. We also don't have to redo the blood pressure lab (that's a one time deal unlike weekly anatomy lab) because we did it the previous semester.

And then there's lab. Like a total loser, I actually went to the first lab of the semester. Man, that sucked. It was the worst case of "been there, done that" I have ever experienced. The first semesters were in awe of the cadaver much like I was my first time. They were all giddy and "this is so gross yet so cool!" I was all anti-social, depressed, and "yea, it wears off." I was all dark and twisty inside. At that point, I wasn't in the place I am now where I had accepted my fate. But, I soon cheered up after lab when I ran into a fellow repeater. She was confused as to why I was in my scrubs. I was confused as to why she was confused. That's when she informed me that I could opt out of lab. Since I was repeating, I didn't have to redo the lab portion of Anatomy. If I had known this, I definitely wouldn't have gone to that first lab. She also informed me that I had two options regarding the practical exams. I could either retake them this semester or keep my practical grades from last semester. I did not know this key bit of information. Are you shocked that Ross failed to inform me of any of this? Yea, me neither. So, the next week before lab, I marched into the head Anatomy guy's office and told him I wanted to opt out of lab. However, I did tell him that I wanted to take the practicals this semester. I chose not to keep my old grades because I knew I could do better. And I did! This semester, I got a 97.5% on my first practical. I missed ONE question. I know that sounds all show-offy but considering what I've been through, I am so happy and proud of myself that I did that well.

As far as exams go, we take the exact same exams as the non-repeaters. We just skip the questions from the classes we're not taking. Because of that, we get less time on the test. During the exam, all the repeaters sit in the same row and there's like a designated time keeper that walks around with a post-it telling us individually how much time we have left. For example, someone repeating four classes gets more time than another person who's repeating three classes. So, we all have our individual time.

I know that some of what I've written makes Ross look really bad. Truth is, I think Ross is a total mess. Sometimes it seems like they can't get anything right. Still, Ross isn't perfect but they do give you the opportunity to fulfill your dream. That being said, because they seem to get things wrong A LOT, just keep a look out for yourself. I choose to write about my experiences with Ross because I hope that other students learn from my experiences. I believe that if you're going to pay a school ~$13,000 per semester, you deserve the truth as to how they handle your education. So, it is never my intention to make Ross look bad. After all, no matter how imperfect this school is, it is still MY school. And I honestly can't say another Caribbean medical school is any better because I simply don't know. My only experience is with Ross. I just hope Ross realizes that they need to make changes to better serve their students. And if Ross can't make those changes, I hope the students learn to look out for themselves so that they can do what is best for their medical career. My best advice is to not put your future in Ross' hands as strange as that sounds. Instead, take a proactive role in getting what you want and need out of your time here at Ross. I know that's kind of ambiguous but once you get here (or if you're already here), you'll know what I mean.

So, now you know EVERYTHING. *YaY* I know this post was excruciatingly long. I've actually been writing it for weeks now. Every couple of days I write a paragraph or so. I promise I won't write this much in a single post again. We just took our Mini 2 exam yesterday. When I find out how I did, I'll write a much shorter post on how I've been doing this semester. Spoiler: I'm doing much better than I was last semester!

- Melissa

UPDATE: Call it coincidence but the day after I posted this entry, Ross sent its students an e-mail regarding last semester's final grades. According to them, it was a virus that affected the e-mail attachments with the grades. The virus somehow rearranged the letter grades but not the number grades. So, the number grades were right but the letter grades assigned were not. From now on, Ross is only going to send us our number grades. Then, at the bottom of the document will be the letters that correspond with the number grades. For example, 80-100 (A), 70-79 (B), MPS-69 (C), and below MPS (Fail). After 3 months, it's nice to see the administration address the problem and give an explanation for the error. You know, better late than never...