If you have a gpa of >3.5 and an MCAT >30 you will be considered as good as a Yale or Harvard grad with a similar MCAT (although the aver. MCAT at those schools is even higher, around 32).[/QUOTE]
no, that's quite untrue. i'm at an Ivy and pretty much everyone from here who tries gets into a med school, including the guys with 3.3's, 3.2's, some even with sub 3.0's. Only the people who really **** up (ie no clinicals, low gpa + low mcat) dont get into some allopathic med school at least after reapplying. med schools know what a gpa from harvard, penn, etc means in comparison to a gpa from UFlorida, etc. I was at a med school fair last semester when a UF admissions officer told me pretty blatantly they regarded a 3.5 kid from FL at Harvard as at least equivalent to a 4.0 from their own undergrad. looking at mdapplicants.com, it seems that at HYP, a 3.7+ will get you into a top 20, a 3.5+ gets you into a top40, a 3.3+ gets you into a top 60 or your state school, etc. ..., but i do think there's a big disparity between different ivies too in their rel. adv.'s for med school admissions.
all other things being equal, if you do well at any school, etc, you'll do well, but attending a selective school does open doors in medicine, like it does in other fields, that attending another school does not.
