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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This is abt my niece who I know well.   She is having a terrible time with organic chemistry.

She is a genuinely smart girl and a good test taker generally doing well at a top 50 school in her intro stem classes but this class seems like it’s going to break her-she will be extremely lucky to get a C.

My question is-what’s going on/how common is this? If this happened to your adult kid what did they do?

For context-this really is my niece. (My own college kid is an English major and would def bomb this class. )

also, I actually took two semesters of orgo in college myself and I remember it as quite hard but not impossible for me, a not highly diligent student. Thats actually partly why I’m asking-I know this kid and remember the class I took and it doesn’t make sense to me! [/quote]

These days getting a C or worse in OChem makes it unlikely they will get into an MD program in the USA, unless they do a lot better the second semester and have close to all A range in the other stem classes. Occasional C's used to be fine because C's were common even in top schools: many of my MD friends had a C or two, usually Ochem or physics, hence a 3.2-3.3 overall; average GPA to get into med school was 3.5 yet the national acceptance rates were the same 40% they are today. 
This is not the case the past 8 yrs or more: C's are rare and Stem GPA of under 3.4 will knock you out of contention from a T50. The only students who can get into med school in the US with under 3.4 without an unusual background are from med-school feeders where a 3.4 typically correlates to a 513 on the MCAT, and they usually get in with a gap year/postbacc/masters.  A 3.8 is around average at these schools and correlates to a 518, they easily get in to med schools. I have experience inside med admissions. Grade inflation is much more extensive than parents of premeds realize. 
At colleges where C's are still given readily in in specific courses like Ochem, the majority of the class are able to get B or above and even the ones who manage B+/A- (top third) in Ochem from these schools still typically struggle to get above a 507 MCAT, the bare minimum needed to be in contention for MD. Most of these schools that give plenty of C's in Ochem have significant inflation(B+ avg) in other stem classes that are more rote memorization than process/application at these schools: Ochem remains the only "weedout" and is intentionally so. 
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