This class was not TOO bad. I ended up with an A, and I went to it thinking it will be hard so I studied A LOT. I also didn't take gen chem (had AP chem) but there weren't that many concepts based on gen chem content. If you do all the textbook practice problems and do problems in class (including Friday practices + discussions), you will do fine on your exams. BUt make sure you try your best for the first exam since you will want to keep your score. She lets you drop one midterm score and I ended up dropping the last one (also bc i had high enough scores for first two midterms). I would say the final is pretty difficult. I didn't really know how to study for the final bc I already did all the in-class practices for my midterm exams. It ended up not being as bad as I thought it would be when I got my score, but while I was taking the final, it was pretty difficult. It's true that you will get 10 points below your midterm scores.

Frantz is a really good lecturer and her class is very nicely structured. I would do everything that she says from the beginning of class and make sure to never get behind. Go to her lectures as her lectures are not recorded. Overall it wasn't as bad as I thought but also bc I put in a lot of time!

Love my girl Alicia. I took this course last fall with Stains and ended with a C-, I retook it this fall with Frantz and received an A. Frantz has a harsh reputation, but she truly knows her stuff and is an excellent professor who genuinely cares about her students' learning. Don't be afraid of the other reviews about her; I would retake with her in a heartbeat. Frantz's grading scale is forgiving; you can get 50% points back on midterms by completing corrections, and the other categories are easy 100s. The only thing to worry about is the final; it is cumulative and does not offer an option for test corrections. My best advice on that is to remember that when she says cumulative, she means cumulative. Pay attention to what she mentions in class because she will hold you to it. She really could test you on anything on her list of learning objectives, and learn your pKas!! Good luck!

This class is definitely hard, but it is so much more doable than people make it sound. Do not let yourself get scared off by the people saying you'll be lucky to end with a C. I ended with an A in this class, and it did not take much more effort than any other pre-med prerequisite classes.
Frantz's schedule is awesome since she does new content Monday/Wednesday and then does review on Fridays in class. This gives you a chance to catch up on the content that doesn't make sense for a couple of days before taking in new content.
The strategy that I adopted mid-semester was to not actually do the full readings but to do the warmups and reference the reading as needed. I found this to be beneficial for me because it weeded out the information in the readings that was not necessary to know, since they are super long sometimes, but this may not work for everyone.
Show up to lectures not just because Clickr credit is 14% of your grade, but because Frantz is incredible at breaking down the content and making it more approachable.
Discussions are sometimes a bit tricky, especially if you're confused on a topic, but my group averaged around a 9.5/10, so it should still be a grade booster for you as long as you stay focused with your group and check work with TAs as necessary.
Now, the exams. Everyone will tell you that Frantz's exams are insane and unreasonable, but this is not true. I started dedicated studying one week before the exam. Start with just making sense of everything. I would do organic chem tutor videos, go through the lecture slides, and do old warmup problems for this. Once you feel confident enough in everything, you can start to do the recommended practice problems in the textbook that she has on a PDF in Canvas. Make sure to do the end of the chapters that are challenge problems, since these are most similar to what Frantz will put on an exam. You can also do old discussion problems, but be warned that these are significantly easier than what will be on the exams. I got Bs on basically all of the 3 midterms, but with the corrections that get you half credit back got an A/A- average for the midterms.
The final. I was absolutely terrified for the final because of her reputation for giving insane final exams, but I ended up getting a B+ and a higher raw score than I was able to get on any of the midterm exams. I only studied for about 4 days before the final. It was very fair, and if you just do all of the PDF practice problems again, you will be perfectly fine.
I'm not saying to underestimate this class, and you definitely still need to put the WORK in, but don't underestimate yourself either! I would 100% recommend Frantz as your orgo prof over the others as it stands now, but know that she doesn't take BS from her students. She wants you to succeed, but she will not carry you through it or give you special treatment. You got this and GOOD LUCK!

Frantz is a very knowledgeable instructor and does teach the concepts well. The general understanding is that she has the hardest test out of all the orgo instructors at uva. I got an A- in this class and I crammed for the all the exams, but I did take the reading seriously and do the practice problems in the book as I was going through the pre class reading. This is a must. If you do the preclass readings, problems in the book and go to office hours I think you could very easily get an A. This class is all about the amount of hours you put in.

As for exams. The first exam is mostly chem one review with some easy orgo concepts, so you want to do as well as you can on this exam since the other exams are harder. The first exam is not easy so keep that in mind. The second exam I was pretty similar to the practice problems in the book, make sure to the challenge problems in the book as just doing the easy one is not enough. The third is the hardest and requires deeper understanding. Even doing the practice problems didn’t help that much, you really need to understand mechanisms and be able to apply them to things you’ve never seen. I don’t study that much for three because you can drop one exams but my score went 92/92/58 and 78 for the final.

The final I found to be much harder than the midterms and what other have been saying about it being 10% lower than your midterm average is true. These questions connect multiple chapter into single questions so you just have deeper understanding of everything. I highly recommend doing review everyday through the semester if you want to do well on the final.

Best of luck to everyone in the future to take this class.

This class was honestly super fun and interesting, and I loved Professor Frantz. Her lectures are structured so you do the textbook readings and a warm up the day before, on Mondays/Wednesdays she'll introduce the topic and lecture/do practice problems, on Fridays she just does practice problems with the class, and honestly this was so helpful when it came time for the exams. Her exams are mostly fair and if you do all the recommended problems and the textbook problems in general the exams are not too too difficult. Overall, this course was so incredibly interesting and the professor is honestly one of the best professors I have had at UVA. She is knowledgeable and friendly. Just put in the time and effort into studying and actually understanding the concepts rather than memorizing them and you will be just fine.

Dr. Frantz is one of the best professors I have had here at UVA. She makes it to where you actually learn the information. With that being said, Orgo is extremely difficult, you have to put a lot of time practicing, going to lecture, reading the textbook, etc. Frantz is the only professor I would recommend taking orgo with. She gives you the opportunity to get half of the points you missed back on exams (through correcting each question and explaining what you've learned). I also appreciated the way she didn't tell us exam stats, as she thought it was more important to focus on how you can improve yourself and your learning, not yourself in comparison to how others are doing. She was truly awesome, and made orgo bearable. Go to class, study study study, ask questions, and read the textbook!!

Extremely high quality professor overall. She explains things very clearly, is friendly and very accessible, and clearly puts in the work on her end to help us succeed. With that being said, this class requires a ton of effort if you want to end up with an A for most people (unless you’re naturally very talented in chem). You really have to do all the assigned readings and work (which is a good 4 hours a week) as well as all of the additional practice problems she recommends, and even some more challenging problems in excess of that (the integrated problems and challenge problems in the textbook are good for this) if you want to get an A as an “average” student. However, 45% of the grade is readings/participation/homework/discussion so it’s really easy to pass the class.

A few things that might be helpful to know: three midterms, lowest one dropped and you can do test corrections for 50% credit back. Each midterm makes up 15% of your grade (so 30% total after one is dropped). The midterms were challenging albeit fair. The main thing that got me on tests were things that were very briefly brought up in class being tested, but this only happened a few times. You can’t do test corrections after the final exam. The final was very reasonable - about as hard as the midterms were.

Just found out I finished with an A in the class and here’s how to do it:
-Approach this class understanding that it is both heavily memorization based as well as application based. You need to take the time to get the large amount of info in your brain before you will be able to even approach the conceptual questions. This means a lot of intermittent review and quizlets (especially for pKas, solvents, reagents, etc.)
-Before every class there are readings that cover the content in the lecture, read and take notes diligently. It will take you a few hours to get through the content meaningfully, but it is worth it. Don’t ever fall behind on the readings. At first there’s so much content that it is overwhelming, but after a while you find a routine.
-Warmups are due before class at 11:59pm, don’t wait until the last minute. Some are easy, but some will be hard. You get to basically “drop” a few at the end of the semester, but always do them all, it’s your first line of practice after reading the material.
-Go to every lecture. Not only is she an insanely good lecturer, but she does clicker questions in class based on participation (not correctness) which are easy boosts towards your grade. You can basically “drop” a few at the end of the semester so don’t worry if you have to miss 1 or 2 lectures. Clicker questions are the second line of practice with the material.
-Wednesday nights you will have discussion where you go through problem sets in small groups. We always went through every problem together which really helped. Some groups split the work to get out faster, but if you do that, go back and make sure you can do them all yourself. It is the third line of practice with the content. You can drop two scores at the end of the semester, but don’t bank on it, always give it your all and don’t ditch your group, there will be peer evals.
-Fridays are always review based and no new content is reviewed. This is your fourth line of practice with the material.
-Homeworks are due on Sunday nights and are much more complex than the warmups. Don’t start it at 11:30, you won’t finish. You basically “drop” some missed points at the end of the semester. This is your fifth line of practice with the material.
-About twice a unit, or every 2-3 weeks, I would go back and study all the material I learned. Sometimes this simple repetition of notes and practice problems is what you need to get the info into your brain. She recommends every day to every week, but my schedule ended up working for me. This is your sixth line of practice with the material.
-Since I had 6 lines of practice with the material throughout the semester, the material was basically memorized before each exam and studying was purely practice problems. Go back and read through all of her slides, redo the clicker questions, do the hard questions at the end of the textbook, and redo questions from old tests (past test 1 ofc) at the minimum.
-Study like never before for the first exam. It is about 70% gen chem review with orgo based applications, so you have the best chance to do very well. However, do not underestimate her and study less since you “know it all”, trust me, that won’t go well. If you don’t do well, you can still succeed, don't worry, but having this exam in your back pocket will do wonders for your confidence.
-Every test has test corrections that you can do to get 50% back. Do them every time. You can drop one of the three midterms by the end of the semester, so you may not want to do corrections for your drop, but do it anyway. Her exams have questions unlike anything you’ll see, so using her own material to help with studying is vital.
-Whatever your raw score average is for your midterms, drop it about a letter grade and that will be your final exam score. The final is 25% of your grade and there’s no corrections, no drop. I did very well on my final, so I’m not the best example, but to be fully transparent I’ll say what I got. I averaged about a B+/A- raw score on my midterms and got borderline B-/B on the final. So you never know, it could help you, but my advice would be to cushion your grade by preparing for the fact that it will not help you.

Overall, Professor Frantz is probably the best professor I've ever had. She is an insanely good lecturer, everything she explains makes sense. Yes her class is brutal, but it sets you up so well for the harder challenge, orgo II. Speaking of which, if you don’t take Frantz for orgo I and get her for orgo II you will be struggling as she expects you to know everything we had to know in orgo I. If I had to do it again, I would take Frantz 10 times over. While you can take another professor and get a better grade easier, the comprehension and skills you learn in this course with Frantz are invaluable. It’s hard, but you can do it, and you’ll come out knowing orgo like the back of your hand.

This course is challenging but doable if you put in the work to be successful. Attend lecture (get completion Clicker Points!) and do the corresponding textbook practice problems the same day afterwards. Redo class practice questions (especially Friday Practice) before exams and utilize the Learning Objectives (on the course schedule) to make sure you understand the key concepts. You can do exam corrections to get up to half the points back. There are 3 midterms (drop lowest score) and a mandatory final that has no corrections. Definitely study the exams from the semester for the final to get a feel for Frantz's formatting. Going to Frantz's longer office hours where she does practice problems was extremely helpful. Also, utilize people who took this course the previous year and your TA's! They were amazing my year and super kind.
You have to do warm ups before each lecture which occasionally were helpful to see what I grasped from the reading but mostly frustrating busy work (don't study them for the exams). Frantz tests you on what was discussed in lecture, but I would recommend going through your notes from reading after lecture to pull out key points/details/clarifications. Definitely understand the "why" / reasoning behind concepts.
Study a little bit everyday so you don't get overwhelmed by the information and be patient - full comprehension of some concepts may take longer than you are used to.

Dr. Frantz gets a lot of hate and vitriol from previous students, but she honestly is one of the most underrated professors. She is an amazing lecturer. Whenever I go to lecture, I am able to understand the content so much better. At the end of the day, Organic Chemistry is going to be a hard class, so it's best to take it here with someone you know will thoroughly explain the concepts well. I'll admit, I was a little nervous about Dr. Frantz's class, as I heard so many things about her from other students. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I had enjoyed the class as much as I did and that's a testament to Dr. Frantz. I won't say the class is easy, as it isn't. But with Dr. Frantz, I feel like she lets you know the tips on how to succeed in her class. If you do all the practice in the textbook and do her slides, then that's a pretty good standing for the midterms. The midterms were definitely a little hard, but corrections are there and your lowest of the three midterms gets dropped. One thing I would recommend is going to her office hours if you can. She is incredibly approachable and will help you in any way she can. I know some people say she's intimidating, but that couldn't be further from the truth. She truly wants you to succeed. 45% of your grade is essentially on lock, so if you do the bare minimum on the homeworks, clicker points, warmups, and discussions, you'll be set! As for the midterms, make sure to do all the textbook problems and even if you think you're done with all the practice, do practice problems again and again. Practice is what makes perfect. At least for her Orgo 1 Final, it wasn't as difficult as I thought it was going to be. It was generally similar levels of difficulty as her midterms. I remember hearing so many bad things about the Frantz final and how it was gonna drop your grade a good ten points, but as long as you do all the practice problems in the textbook and all her slides, you would be in good standing. Overall, I would recommend her highly and don't feel afraid to ask her for help!