Grading System
The determination of the final grade is the prerogative of the Block or Foundations of Clinical Medicine Director in consultation with the Site Lead based on established criteria which are congruent at all sites.
Contact the Associate Dean for Curriculum who is working in collaboration with the Block Directors, Foundations of Clinical Medicine Directors, and Site Leads to ensure comparable educational resources, assessments, and evaluations across all WWAMI sites.
The Block Director or Foundations of Clinical Medicine Director has overall responsibility for ensuring that all grades are submitted via GradePage during the grade submission window for each academic quarter. More information on GradePage can be found here.
An academic file is maintained in the Academic Affairs Office on each student. This file includes a student’s undergraduate transcript, AMCAS application, grades, evaluation forms, curricular course and clerkship schedules, Student Progress Committee actions, letters of commendation, MSPE, and copies of other correspondence related to the student’s medical school training.
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) is a federal law that protects the privacy of students’ educational records. Information about students and their performance is confidential.
The Academic Affairs deans, directors, and staff, the student’s College mentor, and Regional Affairs deans who oversee first year sites, state tracks, and special programs have access to the file. In order for any other faculty member to see the file, the student must complete and sign a release form.
The Student Progress Committee (SPC) meets at the end of each Term of the Foundations Phase to review students’ performance. Block, Thread, and Foundations of Clinical Medicine directors from all sites provide information on the overall performance of their cohort of students and review the individual performance of students who had difficulty in demonstrating competency in the learning objectives, who did not pass the block, or for whom there were professional behavior issues. Recommended remediation plans and assessments on whether the student is ready to continue in the curriculum are discussed.
The SPC makes the final decision on the remediation, and may approve or modify the Director’s recommended remediation based on the student’s overall performance. If the student has had academic or professional behavior difficulty in prior courses, the SPC may determine that the student should not continue in the medical school program.
During exams taken with Examsoft, students can write notes at the bottom of a question, and check the “request review of feedback” box; these comments will be provided to the instructors following each exam. Additionally, the student is invited to write the specific concern and submit it to the Site Lead for review with the Block Director.
Final grade determinations will not be made until a meeting has been conducted by the block leadership to review the outcome of the examination. Grades will then be entered into Canvas and made available to students.
For computerized tests, students will receive immediate information about the number of items missed and their related course objectives. They will also receive a short content descriptor for questions they answer incorrectly that will guide them to what to study related to that topic. Because the questions are part of a secure question bank used annually, the questions and answers will not be shared with students after the exam.