Holy shit. I passed.

You know, I swear on this blog occasionally.  Sometimes it's just how I talk, other times it's to emphasize a thought or emotion, and many times it's probably unnecessary.  But in this case, I think the title of this post is appropriate.  Holy shit.  Let me walk you through what I've been going through in the past 3 weeks just so you really understand how close this was.  I'll also finally post the Mini 3 scores that I was too embarrassed to share:

My 1st Semester Grades Excluding Mini 3 and the Final:

• Cumulative Anatomy Grade = 63.50%
• Cumulative Biochemistry Grade = 65.28%
• Cumulative Histology Grade = 74.60%
• Cumulative Physiology Grade = 81.71%
• Cumulative DPS Grade = 71.62%

I was feeling pretty good this point.  Not too bad and it was all manageable.  But now let's take a look at what happened from there:

My 1st Semester Mini 3 Scores:

• Anatomy = 47.37%
• Biochemistry = 58.06%
• Histology = 57.89%
• Physiology = 52.50%
• DPS = 73.47%

Like I said earlier, every single one of my cumulative grades dropped.  Mini 3 also counted for 40% of the cumulative physiology grade.  Physiology was supposed to be one of my "safe" subjects.  And all of a sudden it went from an A to a C and was falling into that danger zone along with anatomy and biochemistry.  Histology and DPS were the only two subjects that I was comfortable with going into the final.

My 1st Semester Grades Excluding the Final:

• Cumulative Anatomy Grade = 60.48%
• Cumulative Biochemistry Grade = 63.22%
• Cumulative Histology Grade = 71.47%
• Cumulative Physiology Grade = 66.13%
• Cumulative DPS Grade = 73.47%

I wish I had kept the Minimum Passing Scores (MPS) from last semester, but I didn't.  From memory all of the MPSs fell between 58 - 62, but I didn't know for sure.  This would mean that I needed a 70% for anatomy and anything about a 63% for biochemistry.  This semester I've never gotten either of those grades for those subjects on any Mini exam.  (I did reasonably well on the anatomy practicals and my biochemistry grades on the 3 Minis were 62.22, 60.00, and 58.06, respectively.  Anatomy felt out of reach and biochemistry was on a downward trend.)

My 1st Semester Final Scores:

• Anatomy = 68%
• Biochemistry = 48%
• Histology = 48%
• Physiology =  48%
• DPS = 50%

My 1st Semester Cumulative Grades:

• Cumulative Anatomy Grade = 62%
• Cumulative Biochemistry Grade = 59%
• Cumulative Histology Grade = 67%
• Cumulative Physiology Grade = 62%
• Cumulative DPS Grade = 68%

Terrible, yeah? But wait a second, let's take a look at the MPS for this semester:

1st Semester Minimum Passing Scores:

• Anatomy = 61%
• Biochemistry = 59%
• Histology = 61%
• Physiology = 61%
• DPS = 61%

I passed.  I barely (barely) passed, but I passed.  If I got a single additional anatomy or biochemistry question wrong on any of the Minis or on the final, I would have failed.  If the biochemistry MPS was 1% higher I would have failed.  If I wasn't doing as well it either histology or physiology before Mini 3, I would have failed.  If my PBL group wasn't awesome and if we didn't get a 99.5% for the semester -- translating into an additional 4.48% for each subject -- I would have failed.

There a couple things to note here.  The first is that I passed.  The second thing to note is that I'm a straight C student.  Even histology and DPS dipped down into the C range.  I know a lot of people ask me questions here on this blog, but put my advice into perspective.  Until I can prove otherwise in any of the following semesters, I'm going to be a straight C student.  Until I can prove otherwise, this is part of my identity and it's not pretty.

The third and most important thing to note is that this can't happen again.  I started off strong and was doing reasonably well the entire semester and it all fell apart on Mini 3 and the Final.  I just spent the last 17 hours traveling from my apartment on Dominica to my parent's house in California (taking 3 flights from Dominica to San Juan to Miami to San Francisco) and you can imagine I had a lot of time to think about what I was going to write about in my letter of appeal to the school to reconsider my dismissal.  I was going to tell the truth.  The truth is that I think I have what it takes and I know how to succeed at Ross, but in order to pass I need to keep up my study habits and discipline for the full 15 weeks of class instead of just the first 12.

I'll have more thoughts on what to do for 2nd semester later.  For now I'll just take it as a sign that it wasn't a mistake that I was accepted into Ross in the first place and I'll reset and regroup for 2nd semester later.

This was way too close and I can't go through this every single semester or I'm going to lose my mind.  I have to do much better next semester because from everything I've heard, 1st semester was the easy part.