CHEM 14A
General Chemistry for Life Scientists I
Lecture and discussion. The registrar has published a final exam time.
Fall 2026: 2 lectures and 12 discussions. 1 lecture and 1 discussion are open. The oldest of these readings was 45 minutes ago.
Grades
3.28
Average grade awarded in CHEM 14A. Not a student rating: this is what the grades were.
In the A range
54%
of the 7,658 letter grades
D, F or W
3.5%
of every letter grade awarded, plus withdrawals
Taken pass/no pass
1%
79% of those passed
The registrar's own records: 7,658 grades over 14 terms, Fall 2021 to Fall 2025. Every instructor is pooled here.
What is inside that record
2 of those terms are summer sessions, and summer sessions are counted here.
The table below splits them, and term averages across those 14 terms ran 2.84 to 3.95.
Historical grades for LAVELLE, LAURENCE, across recorded terms. The course summary above includes all professors.
- A+ 353 · 11.7%
- A 660 · 21.8%
- A- 633 · 20.9%
- B+ 408 · 13.5%
- B 307 · 10.1%
- B- 220 · 7.3%
- C+ 152 · 5.0%
- C 137 · 4.5%
- C- 112 · 3.7%
- D 18 · 0.6%
- D- 5 · 0.2%
- F 23 · 0.8%
- P 15 of 3,050
- NP 3 of 3,050
- I 4 of 3,050
Percentages are of the 3,028 letter grades. Grey bars are non-letter outcomes: passes (P), no-passes (NP), and incompletes (I).
How the non-letter outcomes are counted
They are excluded from the GPA entirely rather than scored, because counting a P as a 4.0 would be a fabrication.
By instructor
| Instructor | Predicted GPA | Raw | n | Terms | A range | Workload | Fall 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| LAVELLE, LAURENCE reviews ↗ | 3.33 | 3.33 | 3,028 | 4 | 54% | average | Open, 1 seat left |
| SCERRI, ERIC ROBERT reviews ↗ | 3.09 | 3.09 | 2,143 | 4 | 44% | light | not teaching it |
| RESLAN, RANDA reviews ↗ | 3.29 | 3.29 | 694 | 2 | 62% | - | not teaching it |
| OW, FRANKLIN P reviews ↗ | 3.29 | 3.29 | 675 | 2 | 56% | average | not teaching it |
| CARAM, JUSTIN RYAN reviews ↗ | 3.76 | 3.78 | 384 | 1 | 86% | light | not teaching it |
| WU, ERIC C reviews ↗ | 3.36 | 3.36 | 352 | 1 | 65% | very light | not teaching it |
| NAVA, MATTHEW J reviews ↗ | 3.26 | 3.26 | 349 | 1 | 54% | - | not teaching it |
| RAMACHANDRAN, ROSHINI reviews ↗ | 3.72 | 3.95 | 33 | 1 | 97% | - | not teaching it |
Why Predicted is not the Raw average
“Predicted” is shrunk toward the course average, which is itself shrunk toward the department, so an instructor with a handful of students sits near the course mean rather than topping the list.
Grade records describe outcomes. For what a course is like to take, read student reviews written on dibs below or follow the separate external review link.
Workload and assignments
Reported assignments across instructors and terms. This term's syllabus may differ.
No assignment details are available in this review summary. Based on 176 reviews; source checked about 2 months ago. Missing details do not mean there are no papers or exams. Check the current syllabus.
In Falls
Ran in 4 of the last 5 Falls.
From the terms dibs holds, which start in Fall 2021 and exclude summer. A department can run a course in a quarter it never has before.
From the registrar's catalog
Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Preparation: high school chemistry or equivalent background and three and one half years of high school mathematics. Requisite: completion of Chemistry Diagnostic Test. Enforced corequisite: Life Sciences 30A or Mathematics 3A or 31A or score of 48 or better on Mathematics Diagnostic Test. Not open to students with credit for course 20A. Introduction to physical and general chemistry principles; atomic structure based on quantum mechanics; atomic properties; trends in periodic table; chemical bonding (Lewis structures, VSEPR theory, hybridization, and molecular orbital theory); coordination compounds; properties of inorganic and organic acids, bases, buffers. P/NP or letter grading.
Sections in Fall 2026
Choose an open discussion to enroll; an open lecture alone does not mean a seat is available.
Seat counts as of : the oldest of these 14 readings. Seat readings are snapshots, not live availability. Their timestamps show when dibs last checked.
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Seats
ClosedLecture: 340 of 340 enrolled
Instructor
3.33Predicted GPA
Historical records for LAVELLE, LAURENCE; 3,028 letter gradesSeat risk
high risk6 discussions, none open. No waitlist listed.Every discussion, with its time and seats: 6 discussions
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Closed
57 of 57 enrolled
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Closed
57 of 57 enrolled
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Closed
56 of 56 enrolled
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Closed
56 of 56 enrolled
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Closed
57 of 57 enrolled
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Closed
57 of 57 enrolled
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Seats
Open1 seat left in discussions.
Lecture: 339 of 340 enrolled
Instructor
3.33Predicted GPA
Historical records for LAVELLE, LAURENCE; 3,028 letter gradesSeat risk
high risk6 discussions, 1 open: Dis 2A, T 10:00am-10:50am.Every discussion, with its time and seats: 6 discussions
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Open
1 seat left.
56 of 57 enrolled
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Closed
57 of 57 enrolled
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Closed
56 of 56 enrolled
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Closed
56 of 56 enrolled
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Closed
57 of 57 enrolled
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Closed
57 of 57 enrolled
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Final enrollment, averaged across each term's sections: between 243 and 358 a term over 12 terms, summer excluded, most recently 339 in Fall 2025. That is the shape across years, not this term, which is above.
From the people who took it
Student reviews
What taking CHEM 14A was like: the work, the teaching, and what students wish they’d known.
Your experience could be the first.
No student reviews are available to read on dibs for this course yet. Took it? Tell the next person what helped, what was hard, and how you spent your time.
Looking for more perspectives?
External reviews are separate and do not count toward the dibs rating.
Seats over time in Fall 2026
How each lecture has filled since dibs first saw it. This course runs 2 lectures; the legend under the chart picks one.
A dot is a reading where something moved: the seat count, the status, or the waitlist.
What a flat run means, and where a line starts
Flat between dots means it did not drift, it held and then jumped, and a line starts when dibs first saw that lecture rather than reaching back before it existed. A lecture that has never moved draws a flat line across the whole window, and one with two or three readings draws a line joining them, which is too few to read a trend from.
Lec 1 · Lavelle, L. · 340 of 340 enrolled
Filled by 129 over 2 months
Lec 2 · Lavelle, L. · 339 of 340 enrolled
Filled by 128 over 2 months
How readings and alerts work
Dated seat counts can be available even when hourly check history is missing. Gaps do not show whether seats changed between observations.
Seat counts show the last successful read, not live availability. Refreshes can be delayed by request limits or upstream interruptions. Watched sections receive priority, but an hourly update for every section is not guaranteed.
The registrar can change a seat count between our checks. Alerts depend on dibs detecting an opening and completing delivery; a quiet watch does not prove that no seat opened. Check the registrar before enrolling.