Johns Hopkins Medical School Grading Changes Spark Student Concern

Under pressure to fall in line with other elite medical schools like Harvard, Yale, Duke and Stanford, the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine has replaced its letter-grading system with a pass-fail system.

Instead of students receiving 13 possible letter grades ranging from A+ to F, they now receive one of four marks—honors, high pass, pass or fail.

The new system began in April 1.

“This sort of ties in to a national trend and wave of trying to figure out how to assess very bright people and do so in a way that encourages them rather than discourages them,” said David Nichols, vice dean for education at Hopkins.

Nichols said the change at Hopkins was instituted partly due to concern that the letter-grading system turned off potential students and fostered an unhealthy, competitive climate.

A survey conducted by Hopkins’ admissions office of 129 medical students who had been accepted there but decided to go elsewhere showed that of the 62 who responded, a majority said Hopkins’ old grading system convinced them not to enroll.

At Harvard Medical School (HMS), students receive either a mark of satisfactory or unsatisfactory.

Third and fourth-year medical students are graded with marks of high honors, honors, satisfactory or unsatisfactory.

Vanessa G. Henke ’02, a first-year at HMS, said that after working hard to get into medical school, a letter-grading system only fueled excessive student competition and Hopkins had perhaps taken a step in the right direction.

“If Hopkins had changed the grading system when I was applying, maybe I could have considered it,” Henke said.

Raj Malhotra ’00 who had been admitted to Hopkins Medical School but enrolled at HMS said even though he chose HMS mainly due to the school’s programs, the grading system at Hopkins gave him the final conviction to enroll at HMS.

“Medical students are very busy, and such a [letter] grading system gives them more stress,” he said.

HMS administrators said the change in the grading system at Hopkins is not going to affect the number of applicants to HMS.

“We have no reason to believe the change in grading system at Johns Hopkins will affect the number of applications to Harvard Medical School,” said Mohan D. Boodram, HMS director of admissions and financial aid.

Boodram said the HMS admissions office has no indication that grading systems are a major factor among students in choosing a medical school.

“Every year we survey applicants who are accepted to the medical school but choose to go elsewhere. We have never seen anyone list grading system as an issue,” he said.

Walter Cheng, a third-year Hopkins medical student, said the new pass-fail system was a “nice cosmetic change” to a school with a reputation for being overly intense.

“[For] people who are applying to the school, it kind of reassures them that it really isn’t as cut-throat as its reputation may seem,” said Cheng, who sits on the education policy committee that first debated the change.

Nichols said the letter grading system had become complicated for outsiders to understand, requiring the change to a more streamlined approach to assess students’ performance.

The move was spearheaded by an Educational Policy Committee comprised of various deans, faculty from each of the basic science and clinical departments and one student representative from each year.

It took about an year to implement.

Administrators said it was still too early to determine what the change has in store for other medical schools.

Nichols said that first and second year students were receptive to the new system, but seniors were anxious that prospective employers would not be able to understand transcripts containing two grading systems.

“Most students are walking away with pass, which some have interpreted as Cs,” Cheng said.

“This transposition of grades is not really accurate, as the faculty have made a concerted effort to stress that pass at Hopkins will signify significant accomplishment,” he continued.

Cheng also said that some members of his class are worried the switch could hurt their chances of landing a highly competitive residency.

“We’re just a little bit worried that perhaps people might not understand what the change is all about,” he said. “There’s a little bit of anxiety there, but I think those are things that will pass with time as all the kinks get worked out.”

The new grading policy is designed in part to help change the mindset of those obsessed with getting an A, administrators said.

“Pre-meds live a very competitive life. Once they are in medical school, they would like to learn to be doctors without worrying about grades,” said Solomon Snyder, head of the neuroscience department and a member of Hopkins’ advisory board.

“Considering the excellence of virtually all medical students both intellectually and motivationally, there is probably no need to focus much on grades,” added Snyder.

The faculty members stress that the new grading system is not going to compromise the academic standards at Hopkins.

“We have changed the grading system, but we have not diluted our standards,” Nichols said.