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Nah broski I go to Northsoutheasternwestern University. Get it right, K?
Why did you pick a top/ivy school?
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Nah broski I go to Northsoutheasternwestern University. Get it right, K?
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I'm not really sure who you're replying to here, or who would "fail, fail, fail", but I'll reiterate. Students at top schools are better, but only at one thing, high school. I think we can all agree that those were pretty silly days, with pretty silly grading metrics. Those were days when motivation meant far more than intellect.
Exactly! The classic type A personality that does well in HS, but struggles in college when the material gets harder. I saw them all over the place at my school. Valedictorians galore, and half of them couldn't make any sense of calc II. Remember in HS how there was that girl who did every extra credit assignment? Or that guy whose parents sat and watched him study for 6 hours a day? Well they go to Stanford now, or Dartmouth, or Brown, or wherever. Much more common than those extreme cases are the kids who are kind of smart, and who could do just well enough for As because they had good work habits and the teachers liked them. Then there are the kids from feeder prep schools, and of course the X-factor admits, like some guy who climbed Mt. Everest at 16, or some girl who started a successful online business that somehow helps disadvantaged populations. Undoubtedly awesome things, but it's not like the lifetime accomplishments of your peers are killing the curve. Point is, Ivy kids aren't always the cream of the crop academically. In fact, a ton of really smart people don't realize their potential until they get to college, and then they absolutely kill it. So don't assume that a 3.7 from X-state U is worse than a 3.5 from your school, the overlap in student "quality" is a lot bigger than you realized.
Nah,I don't think this has much to do with the school or it's teaching methods. There's two things at play, 1) the kids are naturally better at standardized tests (it was a criteria for admission after all), 2) the environment produces more serious applicants who perceive tougher competition and are more informed. So State-U kid is sitting back feeling real good about his 35 practice AAMC, but Harvard kid is feeling uneasy about his 35 practice because he just heard about Harvard kid 2 who got a 41, so he studies more. He's also more likely to start studying early since he knows what it takes to get a high score since he's part of that culture.
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This is the most important part of a "top school" education. There is very little memorization involved in most of our science courses here. This is why we can waltz in to the MCAT and do way above average with the same amount of work as everyone else puts in. (But actually; no humble brag or anything. There's a reason why average scores at Ivies for applicants are 34-35.)
This sounds like hyperbole, as there's still plenty of slackers here at Princeton…lol. But hey, what do I know. Maybe Pton isn't the toughest Ivy after all?
wow, I want to go to an ivy league school
. I wonder what Ivy step 1 averages are. All the bulk memorization meant for me is that i had to rememorize everything again for the mcat on top of learning the logic behind stuff that was never taught.
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You seem to have a very sheltered idea about the actual difficulty non-ivy schools can be. The Ivy Leagues consist of SOME of the top achieving HIGH SCHOOL students (emphasis on "some" and "high school"). High school and college are different. There will inevitably be correlation where the top high school students are the top college students, but you will also see the reverse being true. In the end, the difficulty between the Ivies and other Universities around the country should not differ immensely. 0.2-0.3 GPA points sounds about right. But believing that a 3.2 at an Ivy would get a 3.8+ at a non-ivy university is ridiculous (maybe MIT/Caltech/Princeton, but that's as far as I will extend my own beliefs).
Also, there are slackers EVERYWHERE. No admissions criteria is perfect where the whole incoming class in its entirety will be super motivated, masters at studying students. The SAT and high school GPA are terrible at predicting individual college level success.
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While I definitely love your posts, I sort of disagree with this statement, based on my experience. I know quite a few cross Ivy admits at my school who aren't doing very well. Many because they naturally struggle with college level courses but many who also have bad study habits. These students probably thought that their talent and intellect can carry them through college level courses without trying like they did in high school.
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All I'm saying is, throw someone who got into Harvard into a bottom state school and they'll get straight As with minimal/no work and probably score amazingly on the MCAT.
I can't even begin to correct everything you said.
You saw people struggle at a top school, because they went from high school material to HOLY **** material. There's always a struggle phase.
You saw some crappy school students not struggle because they went from high school (where they may have not cared) to high school 2.0. Less of a struggle phase. Lots of my friends can even tell you that it was easier since my high school was pretty rigorous.
And you just implied that a person who got a 35 but could have gotten higher didn't because of, what, laziness? Proves my point. He was lazy in high school, continues to be lazy/work somewhat harder, and gets by with As in state schools. The 35? Probably due to natural intelligence and minimal studying.
How can anyone possibly argue that top schools' exams are not harder than some state schools'? Some state schools have a 18% graduation rate, I highly doubt their exams are as hard as Princeton's with almost a 100% graduation rate. Would their professors make the exams SO challenging that 90% of the class is doomed to fail? The students try here, get a worse grade than state school students, continue to try, and graduate. Give
Someone got straight As in the most challenging courses in high school and a perfect score on an intelligence test and went to Harvard. Some student coasted in regular classes with Bs, got an average score on an intelligence test, and went to the state school.
Throw the kid with Bs into Harvard, I wonder which student would struggle more. The one that always reached for excellence or the one who coasted? Either way, they both can probably get the same grades at their schools, one with less work and one with more.
My friend got a 14 ACT. You really think it's "just a test"? Sure, within a range, but 14? She gets all As in her premed classes at this 18% graduation rate school. No ****, the MCAT is going to hit her like a ton of bricks, but STILL.
Yes, both students need to get great GPAs/MCATs at their institutions to get into medical school. But I wonder who had to put in more work at their school to achieve those scores. I also wonder how the worst student at an ivy league would compare at those schools. HECK, if they did, they'd set the curves, not the current "top students". But no worries, I'm running this experiment myself this summer with 3 courses at a private, 100 ranked, university. Pretty good school and no where near the universities I'm talking about.
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Is this.. uncommon at other top universities?
But I agree, my friend and I discussed over dinner how it's supposed to be 25% or so getting As at universities, some schools just decide to be stricter. I'm sure at Harvard, top 23% is very hard.
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It seems you only excel at killing your own threads.
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Northsoutheasternwestern represent! I didn't think there would be so many of us on SDN.
We're going to kill Northsouthwesterneastern at the regional quasisemifinals this year! Go Cougars!!!
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This.
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All I'm saying is, throw someone who got into Harvard into a bottom state school and they'll get straight As with minimal/no work and probably score amazingly on the MCAT.
I can't even begin to correct everything you said.
You saw people struggle at a top school, because they went from high school material to HOLY **** material. There's always a struggle phase.
You saw some crappy school students not struggle because they went from high school (where they may have not cared) to high school 2.0. Less of a struggle phase. Lots of my friends can even tell you that it was easier since my high school was pretty rigorous.
And you just implied that a person who got a 35 but could have gotten higher didn't because of, what, laziness? Proves my point. He was lazy in high school, continues to be lazy/work somewhat harder, and gets by with As in state schools. The 35? Probably due to natural intelligence and minimal studying.
How can anyone possibly argue that top schools' exams are not harder than some state schools'? Some state schools have a 18% graduation rate, I highly doubt their exams are as hard as Princeton's with almost a 100% graduation rate. Would their professors make the exams SO challenging that 90% of the class is doomed to fail? The students try here, get a worse grade than state school students, continue to try, and graduate. Give
Someone got straight As in the most challenging courses in high school and a perfect score on an intelligence test and went to Harvard. Some student coasted in regular classes with Bs, got an average score on an intelligence test, and went to the state school.
Throw the kid with Bs into Harvard, I wonder which student would struggle more. The one that always reached for excellence or the one who coasted? Either way, they both can probably get the same grades at their schools, one with less work and one with more.
My friend got a 14 ACT. You really think it's "just a test"? Sure, within a range, but 14? She gets all As in her premed classes at this 18% graduation rate school. No ****, the MCAT is going to hit her like a ton of bricks, but STILL.
Yes, both students need to get great GPAs/MCATs at their institutions to get into medical school. But I wonder who had to put in more work at their school to achieve those scores. I also wonder how the worst student at an ivy league would compare at those schools. HECK, if they did, they'd set the curves, not the current "top students". But no worries, I'm running this experiment myself this summer with 3 courses at a private, 100 ranked, university. Pretty good school and no where near the universities I'm talking about.
Your arguments are based off of specific cases (e.g. 14 ACT girl), which has a whopping sample size of... 1. Maybe you should retake statistics, it obviously didn't sink in the first time.
You seem to think that HS somehow provided a great environment to uniformly test the abilities of students. You went to some fancy high school with class sizes under 250 and did well there, so you saw the virtues of that separation process (because it benefited you). You saw where your classmates went, and assumed that they were representative of most people who go to those schools. Well some people got into ivies and chose state for financial reasons, others for personal reasons. Most importantly, most people's accomplishments weren't nearly as recognized as yours. You had a distinct advantage in college admissions due to your high school or background. At my high school there were over 1300 students in each graduating class. I think 4 of us went to top schools. Half didn't go to school, most who did went to CC. Those who went to public or lower tier private school did fairly well in high school (honors classes, SAT ~2000 w/o prep classes). There are a number of ivies that not a single person in my HS has ever gotten into, and this school has been around since 1940s. The conditions that most people go through to get to college just don't represent those of most students at ivy league schools. I expected some sort of shock at college. Suddenly everyone around me was supposed to be the absolute best. Well they turned out to be no better than the other kids in my honors classes, and I graduated with a near perfect GPA in engineering because the competition just wasn't that different compared to HS. Other top students from my school had similar experiences.
So no, the kid with B's from Harvard would not set the curve at a good state school. The kid with B's from Harvard was overestimated in his/her abilities from the start. College admissions is like a beauty pageant. You get up on stage, do your song and dance, show off your outfit, and answer the questions. Most people got a smack on the ass and an encouraging, "go get 'em, kid." Relative to most people, the kids who got into ivies and other top schools often had a make-up artist, a choreographer, a professional tailor, and someone to edit their responses. Hardly a fair competition.
So I guess my question is this, what was your advantage that got you into an ivy league school? Did you come from an expensive private high school? Did you have a family that lived and breathed college admissions the entire time you were in high school? Did you suck up to teachers in high school to get good grades? OR, and this is my personal favorite, did you peak out in high school? In other words, was high school actually hard for you? Hard enough that you had to push yourself really hard to do well academically? You might not be smart enough to do well in college. I'm saying this honestly. You see most people have to do other things (like idk... have a job) that detract from schoolwork and application enhancing activities. You didn't need to worry about those distractions, but you never considered that SO MANY other people might have succeeded at your level had they had your resources. Whatever your advantage, you were overestimated, or inflated, or whatever you want to call it. Based on how my other friends have done (both at my "top school" and those from HS that went to private colleges), if you're now pulling below a 3.5 at a top school, you probably would've gotten into a school on the caliber of Syracuse U or American U if you had gone to my high school, and you probably would've gotten at least a 3.5 in a similar major,a very respectable feat.
Also, most well-regarded state school graduation rates are much closer to 60-70%. I think you'll find there's a huge difference in the quality of students at a school like Ohio State vs. some unknown place like Youngstown State University, and this distinction is well reflected in medical school admissions, so in conclusion... quit your bitching.
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I totally agree, I think what I really meant was high school is like 90/10 motivation to intellect, and required less of both to do well, college becomes 70/30, and piles on more work. There are really only a select few fields that end up tipping the scale past 50% for intellect or talent, theoretical math/physics and the arts come to mind. I think some people struggle in college because of that 30% (more difficult material). Others certainly struggle simply due to the increase in workload (regardless of their cognitive advantage).
I'm glad you're enjoying my posts on here, they have been extremely self-indulgent (sitting up here on my high horse
).
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Well that wasn't really my point. I'm not saying they aren't great students, of course they are. I'm denying the notion that even a bottom student at Harvard would excel at a state university, and with an average GPA around 3.4, a 3.0 student is closer to the bottom of Harvard, not that that's a bad thing, it's just a fact.
I do think some students are overestimated, but only when regarding any Harvard student as superior to anyone elsewhere, or any top school for that matter. This is mainly a combination of two things.
First, college admissions are wonky. Those who know how to play the admissions game have a serious advantage. I had classmates who were specifically prodded to do very interesting ECs and pressured to get good grades for the sole purpose of getting into the school I attended. Meanwhile, that same student at another high school/community might not have even been aware of what colleges look for in a candidate until he/she starts applying. Same student, same abilities, entirely different applicants. This environmental effect diminishes considerably once students get to college since everyone is essentially at an academic institution of a certain quality (while high schools vary tremendously in quality and preparation), and the family influence gets smaller since they are living on their own.
Second, people take time to develop. No one is even close to their full potential in high school, or even college for that matter. Someone who was fairly unfocused in high school might turn into an academic juggernaut in college. This happens far more often at public schools than top private schools because those in top private schools were probably already pretty good students, and were selectively chosen because they'd developed these skills early.
These two things each make a small effect on the quality of the academic class of a school. State schools do a little better than they thought in the admissions, getting students who were talented and smart, but less well-directed, and top private schools do a little worse than they thought, missing students who could have been excellent, and taking some students who need the extra push they were getting at home. At the end of the day, the average Harvard student is still a lot better than the average Ohio State student, but with grade inflation, the GPA might not be so different, which is the point of grade inflation. I'm arguing that the gap is smaller than we perceive. We all saw our high schools separated out by quality, and didn't consider the discrepancies between different high schools, or the potential in an as yet immature student. Quantitatively what I'm saying is that an average "top school" student would maybe be in the 80th percentile at a decent state school. So since the average public school student has a 3.0, the Harvard student would probably have a 3.5, maybe 3.6, still impressive, but certainly not setting the curves.
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Sorry we're too pleb for you.
Considering you haven't even taken your MCAT yet, you really shouldn't be comparing yourself to other high performing students at 'lower-tier' institutions. There's a reason the MCAT is considered the great equalizer. Even if you manage a 3.5 but destroy the MCAT, your chances at med school still stand strong. I also went to a grade-deflationary undergrad where 95% of the student body had a below a 3.6 cGPA, including myself. Stop being bitter and work above it.
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I know so many people who have studied abroad or take summer classes at other institutions. Do you know what their consensus was? That the classes were not even close to the difficulty level of classes they were used to. To them, the classes were easy As, achieved with minimal amounts of work (that is, minimal compared to what they're used to). And these students were nowhere near the top of the class (GPA wise). In fact, I would say B students. So yes, based on all the anecdotes I've heard, I would not be surprised that a good portion of these "top students" would be at the top of the class at a "decent" state school.
Also, I totally agree that there are people who fall through the admissions crack who don't (but should) be going to "top schools" - I can think of several people I personally know, my sister included. But in the larger picture, they don't make up a significant portion of an average public school. Not to be presumptuous, I think you're overestimating the amount.
As a side note, you sound a little bitter regarding people who go to "top schools."
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are you cheechootrain reincarnate?
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Look at my previous posts. I went to a top 10 school, and did quite well there as well. Obviously I'm not trying to knock anyone who goes to a top 10 school, I went to one myself. I'm just sick of the attitude that because you got into Columbia or something you're better than any state school kid. I mean, I spent so much time with these kids at my school, and about one in five was brilliant, but honestly most of them just weren't that smart. I'm not saying that to be pretentious, I just don't know what else to say. If you're an engineer and you don't know integration by parts, you're not getting an A no matter where you go. Meanwhile, I worked with kids at a state school over two summers, and they were literally the same exact quality students. The difference was only one in twenty was brilliant, and one in five was a *******. The middle students in engineering/science were a complete wash. There's no doubt that the top schools hold better students on the whole, but more often than not, the kids holding these opinions are the ones struggling at a top school, and I could walk around a good state school campus and fill a bus with higher quality students in fifteen minutes.
I don't think summer classes or abroad classes are a good way to gauge the difficulty of a particular school. Summer classes are notoriously easier than their semester equivalents. In fact, I know a ton of people who specifically took pre-reqs over the summer at our school because it was reportedly a lot easier than the summer courses at other institutions nearby. I will point out that your sources are a little biased. Of course people are going to say the other institutions are easier, it justifies any poor performance at their current school.
Top schools are harder. You will work harder for a good GPA at a top school, especially if you want a 3.9+ since being the smartest guy in the room becomes infinitely more difficult, but in the range where people are complaining, 3.0-3.5, it's almost a wash between grade inflation and easier competition. I'd give an top 10 school kid a +0.1 or +0.15, but I'm definitely not buying it if you try to tell me your 3.4 in chemistry from Stanford is worth a 3.7 in ChemE from Penn State.
One final note, when I talk about state schools, I do not mean some random no-name school, I mean flagship or flagship-esque state universities. I wouldn't doubt that every student at Harvard could set the curve at Morehead State. I'm talking about schools like Ohio State, Florida State, UD, UMD, KU, which are the kind of schools this thread is focused on anyway.
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Literally my thoughts.
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This shows that adcomms don't give you much slack for going to a "grade deflating" school more than anything else. Also, the average medical school applicant at MIT probably has a much higher than the typical MIT engineering student who does not need nor is expecting to earn A's every semester (the pool of undergraduate premeds at MIT is surprisingly small if you compare the numbers applying to the numbers graduating each year.)
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Not even all top 10 schools are made equal. Tough tits to swallow, but it's true. That's a big reason why your perspectives differ so much.We'll just have to agree to disagree. You have your opinions and experiences, and I have mine.
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Fair enough, but just to clarify, you think any Harvard student would set the curve? You think a 3.4 from Stanford beats a 3.8-3.9 at a flagship state school despite grade inflation? I can see a 3.4 being better than a state school 3.6, but beyond that is pushing it for me. To each his own, I just ask you to respect the little guy and give him/her a fair shot before you knock 'em.We'll just have to agree to disagree. You have your opinions and experiences, and I have mine.
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True. I have a friend from Princeton who was pretty smart, not brilliant, but pretty damn smart. Couldn't crack a 3.7 in MechE, when I knew a few kids in my school pulling 3.7-3.8s that were about as smart, though maybe they worked harder, idk. I won't say where I went, but I can say it is known for being a very tough place, but based on that one kid (which isn't much of a basis), I would say Princeton is on another level, and you could probs include Caltech in that league as well. This is all extremely subjective. It would be interesting to see the performance of kids who were accepted to top schools but chose state instead.
The grade deflaters are a separate issue, and I think adcoms are well aware that Princeton/MIT are both very tough. To a certain extent I think that pre-meds from Princeton, MIT, or Caltech, should get a little break at the bottom end of things (as in, if 3.5 is the supposed cut-off for most MD programs, maybe it should be 3.35 for students from those schools in difficult majors). My experience with students from other top schools has been similar to my experience at my home institution though. Since they do have the grade inflation advantage, I wouldn't pro-rate their GPAs by more than 0.1 or 0.2.
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I can't believe this is still a thing. It's been over 26 pages of this so far. Ground gained: 0.
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How?
I always hear about this .2 GPA difference being an equalizer, but that's BS in my opinion. I think a 3.0 vs a 4.0 is more likely when taking into account deflation vs inflation, rigor, competition, etc.
Are you talking about other great not "top" schools?
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Thanks for your thoughts. I'm not sure if the italicized comment is demonstrated by the data that MIT puts out, but I see what you're getting at.
The bolded is the explanation to which I had ascribed the high GPA for MD matriculants from MIT, as well. Do you have any idea what the average GPA at MIT is in general? Is the university as transparent with things like that? These questions are less important -- simply matters of curiosity. Thanks again, @wiloghby
I'm not sure that we know this. @wiloghby was the only one (to my knowledge) to post apparently reliable data about a school's accepted MD candidate MCAT average. I'm not blaming you either, by the way. I have no idea how to get hands on information like that from my school. It just so happens that MIT has posted the information on their website.
Finally @PurpleLove ... you have mentioned several times that you think people at low-tier schools can get away with not working hard, but they still do well academically - if they are smart. (I note that 'smart' as you are using it is poorly defined.) I can't rule out the possibility that there are people who could come to my school and do well without working hard, but I find this possibility unlikely. I worked really hard, and I think it shows.
I admit that it's not clear that I would be able to achieve the same GPA at Harvard/Princeton/MIT/Chicago that I did at my state school, but I think it is an open question. Unless you present evidence to the contrary, I won't concede that point.I think the conversation could be more productive if you don't make generalizations like: "All I'm saying is, throw someone who got into Harvard into a bottom state school and they'll get straight As with minimal/no work and probably score amazingly on the MCAT." How are you defining "amazingly on the MCAT"? The average for matriculating MD applicants who graduated from Harvard (I've heard) is 35. Are you saying that any student at Harvard would come in and put up a GPA north of 3.8 at any state school?
Note that I am not arguing that your suggestion that applicants from grade-deflating and/or top schools should be given a break is invalid. I'm not even saying that state schools aren't easier in general. I am saying, however, that your polarization of the discussion will distance people like me on the opposing side who might agree with some of what you are saying, if it were more restrained.
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It's important dammit! (It's not.)
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Okay I nerded out super hard, and I really don't care if any of you judge my internet persona, but I did my best to roughly quantify, on average, the "bump" a top school GPA should get when compared to a public state school using SAT as the equilizer. This is kind of a ridiculous and silly thing, and it means NOTHING, but I had two hours to kill and I had some fun with it. I personally don't think it's this drastic, but it's an interesting thought. I didn't go into the technical details of solving the normal distribution, but they're there (I am still an engineer until I start med school haha), so here we go.
First the results, this is the theoretical GPA "bump" for an average student vs. Penn State for a number of top schools
University of Pennsylvania- 0.33 (using avg. GPA 3.44)
Stanford University- 0.27 (using 3.55)
Harvard- 0.42 (using 3.45)
Yale- 0.36 (using 3.51)
Princeton- 0.59 (using 3.29)
MIT- 0.57 (using 3.26)
Columbia- 0.44 (using 3.42)
Duke- 0.31 (using 3.44)
Brown- 0.12 (using 3.61)
U Chicago- 0.5 (using 3.35)
Johns Hopkins- 0.46 (using 3.24)
Dartmouth- 0.38 (using 3.42)
First, I used SAT quartiles fit to a normal distribution (have to assume linear between 75% and SD1 blah blah) to match the average score of student at a top school (I'll use Penn) to the percentile of SAT within a state school (I'll use Penn State). So the average SAT for Penn is a 2170. At Penn State, this is the 96th percentile (using 25th- 1630, 75th 1940, median 1790 on a normal distribution). This analysis gets less and less accurate and more skewed as scores get closer to 2400, and it doesn't work well for anyone outside one standard deviation of a top school's average.
Now we amend our numbers and compare against grade inflation for an average student at a top school vs. his/her equivalent at a state school. The average student (50th percentile) gets a 3.0 at Penn State, premeds theoretically come from all majors so let's keep it generic for now. We assume that GPAs behave according to a normal distribution (since most often they ate assigned that way), with a mean at 3.0. Deviation becomes much more tricky at this point, but I think we can safely model the GPAs from 2.0 to 4.0 (2.0 needed to graduate most departments) and get an accurate estimate of the higher GPAs. We might be missing a small number of stragglers at the bottom, I think they are few enough that they wouldn't drastically affect outcomes at the top. Assuming we have 2 standard deviations in this range, which is reasonable for most college grade distributions (25% C-,C,C+, 25% B-,B, 25% B, B+, and 25% A-, A GPA ranges) the 90% GPA falls at 3.77. Now compare this to the average GPA of top schools (in this case Penn), which is around 3.44. That gives us a 0.33 bump for Penn.
A few things to note
1) SATs are far from the best initial comparison metrics. Primarily because they've been shown to be a poor indicator of college success. Secondly, a far greater proportion of students at top schools went to prep high schools or were simply better informed of the system due to their environment (students growing up in well-off communities would tend to be around people who would encourage them to practice the SAT or take a prep class compared to a student in a working-class neighborhood). So taking the two bell curves and equating percentages and matching scores gives a slight environmental advantage to the top schools. Any bump in performance due to environment probably should be offset when assessing applicants since in the next step they're being considered for the same environment (the place they are applying). There is no easy way to quantify that effect. Thus far it seems that adcoms in both college and professional school simply look at your background and try to judge your advantages/disadvantages.
2) GPAs don't always fall on bell curves. I think in this case we're dealing with a big enough population that it's the best we can do, but there's no way of telling how off that assumption is.
Generalized Approach
To compare your school just take the median SAT and plug it into the normal distribution function solved for a model state school in this case Penn State, which is pretty close to most flagship state universities. Do this to get a result for some school:
1) Open Excel and starting in A1 make a list of numbers from 2 to 4, with intervals of 0.025 by typing the first two, highlighting both, and dragging the corner(2, 2.025, 2.05, etc...)
2) In B1, paste this formula: =0.02079*EXP(-1*(A1-3)^2/0.5), double click the corner to repeat it to the bottom
3) In C1 paste this formula: =SUM($B$1:B1), double click the corner
4) In E1 make a list from 1180 to 2400 with intervals of 10
5) In F1,paste this formula: =0.01749*EXP(-1*(E1-1790)^2/105800) and double click to drag formula down
6) In G1 paste this formula: =SUM($F$1:F1) and double click to drag formula down
7) In the E1, find your school's average SAT score
8) Look at the value (should be a percentage) in G1 and find that value in C1
9) The corresponding GPA is the theoretical average GPA at the model state school, Penn State, for the average person at the other school
10) Subtract to get the "bump"
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Yeah collectively on SDN, there is no way this is known, because all the information is stored within colleges and only given to premeds at that school. Health professions advising wouldn't exactly want this stuff to be posted publicly. I have friends at lots of top colleges (met through conferences and friends of friends), and so I have a lot of school-specific data in PDFs. I won't share exactly where accepted student averages fall for each university, but here's a flavor from one of the Ivies that I have (and they're all pretty similar). (Screenshot is edited to preserve anonymity of the school.)
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Yeah collectively on SDN, there is no way this is known, because all the information is stored within colleges and only given to premeds at that school. Health professions advising wouldn't exactly want this stuff to be posted publicly. I have friends at lots of top colleges (met through conferences and friends of friends), and so I have a lot of school-specific data in PDFs. I won't share exactly where accepted student averages fall for each university, but here's a flavor from one of the Ivies that I have (and they're all pretty similar). (Screenshot is edited to preserve anonymity of the school.)
Thanks for finding this, @moop
I have to admit I'm surprised that you have access to this data. If you have a second, I'd be interested to find out how you get it.
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I literally just ask my premed friends at those colleges to send over the PDFs. Started doing this once I saw all this talk on SDN about averages at top schools and stuff. Ask the right undergrads at the right places, and they can get it for you, too.
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Yeah collectively on SDN, there is no way this is known, because all the information is stored within colleges and only given to premeds at that school. Health professions advising wouldn't exactly want this stuff to be posted publicly. I have friends at lots of top colleges (met through conferences and friends of friends), and so I have a lot of school-specific data in PDFs. I won't share exactly where accepted student averages fall for each university, but here's a flavor from one of the Ivies that I have (and they're all pretty similar). (Screenshot is edited to preserve anonymity of the school.)
That eerily matches the national averages...
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MCAT average is higher by 2.5 or so.
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MCAT average is a 33...
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Median is 33. Mean is lower. I assumed 34 was the rounded mean, but I don't have good reasons for assuming that.
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Average is around a 31 I hope?
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Remember, this is a running average across TEN years. National average of 32-33 has only been around for the past two years. Big big difference in interpretations.
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So... 31, indeed... Wow...
32-33 was apparently the median. Was it really that recent?
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Yes; it's been going up one point a year. In 2010 it was still 30-31. Given that the 10-year average for that school I posted was already at 34 while the national average was probably still in the high 20s in the early 2000s, it implies that the accepted MCAT averages were consistently higher than the national averages.
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Wow, that's terrible news. It's a shame...
Although the fact that you actually obtained the accepted data made me curious about the results from my own... pathetic UG.
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Well that data ain't from my college. It's one of the Ivies, though.
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Still similar because they're in the same category. Curious how trends follow in this virtual tier system
