When it comes to the transition from high school to university, an oft-quoted line is that “student averages tend to drop about 10-15%”. Looking at the basic numbers, this initially seems to be a pretty fair statement. For example, at York University, you need at least a mid to high 70s average to receive admission to one of its science programs, such as Biology (e.g. 77+ or so).

Considering several factors, such as the fact that fewer students probably got a 90+ average than the number of students who achieved a 77-89 average, it is probably safe to assume that if we computed the average of the final high school grades for a first year York science class, the number would be around 85. And I would imagine that most first year university science classes are made of students with similar high school marks.

Looking at the first year university science courses I have taken so far, the class averages have generally been around the ~65 mark, so it seems that on average, student marks do drop about 15%, and possibly more in some cases.

However, keep in mind this doesn’t mean that all students tend to drop 10-15% in their course marks; it just means that on average, students seem to achieve lower marks than they did in high school. Initially this seems to make sense: if a university class still needs to maintain a class average of 65, then obviously an entering class with high school averages of 85 should see a drop. As a matter of fact, however, the issue is much deeper and complex than this.

Consider the fact that there are actually some students who do better in university science than in high school. There are also some students, unfortunately, who do worse. And there are students who do about the same.

Moreover, there isn’t an obvious correlation between high school marks and university marks. For example, I know a student with a 95 high school average who now maintains a mid-80’s average in university, and can’t seem to break the 90 barrier. On the other hand, I know another student with a 95 high school average who completed first year university science with an even higher average. Myself, I had about a 94 final high school average and my first year university average was somewhere close to that.

NOTE: Universities generally use a GPA system which does not involve the averaging of numerical grades – rather, each numerical grade for a course is first converted to a value on the GPA scale, and these GPA values are then averaged. I’m just trying to make a point with my previous few statements.

Clearly, at least for science programs, the transition between years within high school (where students maintain the same type of marks) is very different from the transition from high school to university.

The Simple Reason: Marks, Difficulty, and General Academic Program Delivery Vary from School to School

Of course, we can try and explain this through the simple and obvious reason that no two schools are alike in their difficulty and education style, and so it should not come as a surprise that high school marks vary widely across Canada. As I have mentioned in a previous article, I am sure that my final high school marks would vary quite widely depending on which high school I attended.

This is partly the reason why some students’ marks tend to change when they enter university. At a university, the programs are composed of students coming from a variety of high school backgrounds, and therefore, a variety of educational experiences. Your high school marks become sort of irrelevant in university since you are no longer being evaluated in the same way you were before. The skills that you relied on to obtain a high average in high school may or may not be what works for achieving a high average in university. As a result, you will often see a pair of students with identical high school marks achieving very different marks in university.

Particularly for the science stream, I believe there is a clear difference between the skill set required to succeed at university compared to the skills needed to excel at high school. The bigger problem, however, is that in my opinion, these skills are actually never really taught.

High School: Memorizing Problem Types

While there are probably some high school science programs that are exceptions, for the most part, high school science can be mastered with a strong work ethic. All that you’re taught in high school are specific facts and problem types (both how to identify them and solve them). Essentially, all you need to do is memorize all the possible problem types, correctly identify those problem types on the tests/exams, and then regurgitate the answer to them. Any other types of questions you’re asked to solve simply require regurgitation of facts you needed to memorize.

Facts are exactly what they sound like; a bunch of statements you are supposed to know and memorize. For example, high school biology is full of facts you are expected to store in your head, such as “herbivores are organisms which mainly consume autotrophs” and other things like that.

But what are problem types? Problem types are simply specific types of questions or problems you are taught to solve. For example, finding the derivation of the function y = x2 in mathematics is a problem type. In physics, being able to find the net force acting on an object given its mass and acceleration is also a problem type.

Throughout high school science courses (primarily chemistry and physics), you are taught to memorize how to do specific problem types. Almost every problem you see on a test or exam is a problem type you’ve covered in class or the textbook. The numbers used in the questions might be different, but the problem type is usually almost exactly like something you have covered before. As long as you have memorized how to do these problem types, you should be able to ace your tests and exams.

The problem with focusing on memorizing problem types is that you do not have to understand how they work to use them effectively and properly. On your high school calculus test, you not need to understand what a derivative is or even means to correctly apply the power rule to a function. On your chemistry exam, you do not even need to know what an ideal gas is to plug numbers into the Ideal Gas Law and solve for a multitude of variables. And even if you are asked what an ideal gas is, all you need to do is memorize its definition from the glossary and write that down, regardless if you actually understand what it means.

The reason that some students ace high school science while other students struggle isn’t necessarily because the top students understand science better in the first place (whether they do or not isn’t that significant a factor). The only thing we know for sure is that the students doing well are better at or have devoted more time to memorizing problem types and facts, and are skillful at recalling them on tests and exams. There are of course the occasional exceptions on some tests or even some entire school science programs, but I believe this is generally true for most high schools.

Why am I concerned with this?

There are both short-term and long-term problems with an education focused on memorizing facts and problem types. The short-term problem is that while memorizing facts and problem types is still necessary for university science, they are not the only or defining skills required – this explains the “jump” from high school to university science. High school students simply are not completely prepared to handle all of the types of test questions in university science.

The long-term problem is that the skill of memorization is what’s being emphasized, and in my opinion, memorization is one of the least important skills in the long run. The difficult problems we face in our world today and in the near future cannot be solved by simply looking up a problem type in a textbook – it is always much more complicated than that. If this is true, then why does our science education emphasize memorization of problem types and solutions more than questioning, thinking, and discussion?

Throughout your life, parents, teachers and other individuals have told you that “understanding is more important than memorization”. If this is true (which I think it is), then why isn’t understanding really being taught in schools? Some people will say that I’m wrong and that it is taught in schools, but if that’s true, then why is the jump from high school to university science as big as it is? Why do so many students who did just fine in high school science now start struggling in university science?

Part 2: How to Think >>

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Read the other parts of the How I Aced First Year University Science series here:

• Part 1: The Jump from High School to University
• Part 2: How to Think
• Part 3: Lectures, Readings, Note Taking, and Forming Study Groups
• Part 4: Studying for Tests
• Part 5: The Art of Test-Taking