Does it make a difference if you went to a regular undergrad or a well-known one?

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rc4ch

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Ive been wondering if it really does make a difference when you apply for medschool. I go to a local state school here in PA. Not Pennstate, just one of the regular not well known school. Wondering if anyone here graduated from one of these kind of schools and if they got in.

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rc4ch said:
Ive been wondering if it really does make a difference when you apply for medschool. I go to a local state school here in PA. Not Pennstate, just one of the regular not well known school. Wondering if anyone here graduated from one of these kind of schools and if they got in.
It does make a difference, but won't hurt you enough that you should really care. In other words, it won't stop you from going to med school but might stop you from going to certain med schools. Someone from Harvard with your GPA, for eaxmple, will get in instead of you...especially at top 10 schools... that's just life. The only reason for concern would be if you have sub par stats and go to an unknown school. In this case some schools would be justified in assuming you couldn't hack it at a tough school.
 
Sometimes the unknown ones to the general public are well-known by medical schools. Take LACs for example.
 
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Liberal Arts Colleges.

Off the top of my head, Swarthmore and Wellesley are two famous ones.
 
rc4ch said:
Wondering if anyone here graduated from one of these kind of schools and if they got in.

I would like to say that it does not make a difference, but it does. I am from Minnesota State University (approximately 15,000 students). The sciences at MSU are pretty exceptional, but I can think of one case where the state school hurt me.

At my University of Minnesota Twin Cities interview (even though I am a Minnesota resident), my interviewer was dumbfounded that I did not attend the U of M-TC for my undergrad (ego check, please). In fact, one of his questions was as follows: "How would you compensate for the sub-par education that you received at Minnesota State?" I wanted to just get up and leave then and there, but I figured he was just throwing me a curve ball and seeing how I would react to his outlandish questions.

My interviewer then proceeded to ask me questions about art history and classic literature (based off of some previous coursework, as if the fine arts are different at a state school), still trying to trip me up. Finally, he began to down play my research; until I mentioned the affiliation my research has with the Mayo Clinic.

In the end, I was waitlisted. While I would like to be accepted, I am not sure that I would even attend. All of my other interviewers were impressed with my overall application and they did not go for the jugular like this interviewer did.

The moral of the story: Unfortunately, name recognition can be a big deal and I would prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

P.S. I have been accepted to 3 D.O. schools, 1 M.D. school, and waitlisted at 2 M.D. schools.
 
I think going to a smaller, lesser-known school hurt me at Hopkins, Vandy and Columbia. But, of course, there's no way to know for sure...
 
Going to a smaller state school didn't seem to have any significant effect on me. In the least, it was beneficial because I got to be on very good terms with several professors because of the small class sizes. Which made classes more fun and I got more personalized help, etc...and in the long run put me in line for some good, more meaningful letters of rec.
 
If you're already in college, this question is moot so do yourself a favor and don't stress over it. There is essentially nothing you can do.

If you are still in high school and are considering colleges, all other things being equal, you want to go to the best name school you can get into. All other things, of course, are not equal, so the name should not be your top consideration.
 
Would I have rather attended any Ivy L. school? Absolutely! But I attended my state school for free and have not been held back at all. However, it really does depend on the school. In general, all big state schools will have excellent opportunities. So will most LACs. Go where you want to go to school and try not to borrow a ton of money doing it. Just remember that research helps a lot with big name med schools, so consider research opportunites at schools.
 
It depends to a certain extent I think. For the most part, the biggest difference can be seen on the extremes.

For example, on the higher extreme, if a guy has a 4.0 from an unknown school in juxtaposition to a 4.0 from a well known school (Harvard, Hopkins etc), it is obvious that the latter will have a better shot at getting into top 10 schools.

Similarly, a 3.0 from an unknown school may not get into med school while a 3.0 from a well known school may do the trick.

However, in the middle, judging a 3.5 from an unknown school with a 3.4 from a well known school is hard to judge.

Generally speaking, going to a good school technically raises your gpa by about 0.1 to 0.2 in my opinion. Other than that, I doubt there is much difference.

But I'm just starting the process, so I could be wrong.

Best of luck anyway. :)
 
rc4ch said:
Ive been wondering if it really does make a difference when you apply for medschool. I go to a local state school here in PA. Not Pennstate, just one of the regular not well known school. Wondering if anyone here graduated from one of these kind of schools and if they got in.
I don't buy this business about undergrad school name being as important as people around here tend to think it is. There may be some med schools that care a lot about where you went to undergrad, but I don't think that it's a major factor to most of them. I went to a small, state school that not only have you never heard of, but that also does not award grades, credit hours, or GPA, and I still was accepted. At the moment, I'm a grad student at a not well-known state university, and plenty of the undergrads here manage to get in, many to several schools, as well. My advice is to study conscientiously to earn the best grades that you are capable of getting, prepare thoroughly for the MCAT, work on developing yourself as a person outside of school (evidenced by your ECs and LORs), and practice your interviewing skills. If you're a strong candidate, you're a strong candidate, and the name on your degree won't change that.
 
It's not that if you dont go to a top tier school you won't get into med school - med students come from all sorts of undergraduate institutions but I think that students coming from more prestigious universities are more coveted than those that come from less known schools...afterall, who wouldn't like to say that their medical school is composed of minds from yale, harvard, stanford, versus state university? In the end, i believe the UG institution plays only a small but still relevant factor in med school admissions.



QofQuimica said:
I don't buy this business about undergrad school name being as important as people around here tend to think it is. There may be some med schools that care a lot about where you went to undergrad, but I don't think that it's a major factor to most of them. I went to a small, state school that not only have you never heard of, but that also does not award grades, credit hours, or GPA, and I still was accepted. At the moment, I'm a grad student at a not well-known state university, and plenty of the undergrads here manage to get in, many to several schools, as well. My advice is to study conscientiously to earn the best grades that you are capable of getting, prepare thoroughly for the MCAT, work on developing yourself as a person outside of school (evidenced by your ECs and LORs), and practice your interviewing skills. If you're a strong candidate, you're a strong candidate, and the name on your degree won't change that.
 
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On the other hand, schools also like to publish how academically diverse they are. Doesn't really work if their class is composed of only students from the ivy league.

I wonder if much of the bias is because, just based on the fact that more "intelligent" people attend the top undergrads than other schools, the AdCom and interviewers are therefore more likely to be from a top undergraduate, and therefore more likely to prefer, even subconsciously, students from their alma mater? If this is the case, the interview should be prime time to show how your state school provided you with just as many opportunities as a top private school would have...
 
i feel that with my undergrad, i had to work that much harder to be competitive with students from more prestigious schools. but, in the end, i did get in to really good schools, the two schools where they asked me "cal state la? you mean ucla?" i got waitlisted
 
If your undergrad college was easy to get into and admitted most applicants with SAT scores of 1000 and above, then you are going to be considered a big fish in a small pond (it might be easier to be an academic stand-out in that school than at a school where most of the students had SATs of 1400 or better). So, you not only have to have an exceptionally high gpa but you need to do at least as well on the MCAT as the students from the "well-known" schools (level playing field & all that). A MCAT below a med school's average is not going to go over big if you are from a school that is not an academic power-house.
 
The only bad thing about attending a big name school is that there are a whole lot of pre-med like yourself. From my experience, all science class are curve base on the class performance and it is hard to distinguish yourself from the 400 hundred of smart people in your class and you ended up with lower grade than you should have gotten.
 
Yes, it does matter. the national acceptance rate to medical school is 50% about. The acceptance rate to medical school from Harvard is like 96%. Although, maybe its not so much the school as the quality of the student? Probably b/c the average mcat of a harvard applicant is like 33.
 
I went to a small, no-name liberal arts school. Decent GPA, MCAT, and research experience post-grad. I've gotten 14 interviews and 7 acceptances so far (Top 10 included). In the long run, the school doesn't matter, it's proving how good of a doctor you'll be through what you have accomplished as a well-rounded person and not just as a good test taker.
 
two things:

one, the reason that schools like harvard have such higher acceptance rates to top medical schools is because their application pool is stronger all the way through. if you take the best students from the majority of large state universities i think they would stack up extremely favorably with anyone at an ivy. i know many people at my school who have gotten into mayo, utsw, and other top schools

two, there is never a situation when an adcom would be comparing 4.0 from state school directlyl to 4.0 from ivy and have no other basis to make a decision other than undergrad reputation. there are so many other variables (interview, LORs, ECs) that the choice would never boil down to something so simple.
 
The fact is that a well known name helps. I don't necessarily like the idea but it is a fact. Check out all the top schools and see where the majority of their matriculants went to college. Adcoms have records indicating that students from certain schools usually do well in their med school and they actively try to keep up that record. Of course every now and then, they will accept students from non very popular schools.

You should also keep in mind that premed advisors from well known schools often have solid connections to adcoms in top schools. While this may not lead to an overt bias, the presence of bias, even in the slightest sense cannot be denied. Adcoms are humans and humans undeniably are biased creatures. After all med school is an economic instituition and bias in selecting students is just a way to maximize profits.

Does this mean you won't get into a top med school if you attend a relatively unknown college. The answer is no. As a smart student, one of the things you should learn is to turn you weakness into strenght. As a student from one of this "well known" schools, I know one of the weaknesses is that my school (as well as others in this category) pump out premeds. While our students constantly take a good chunk of all top medical schools, the reality is that many of our students still have to go to other "not so prestigious" med schools. There are so many smart premeds in my college, that it becomes quite difficult to outshine others. Even professors have a difficult time determining grade cut offs.

The advantage for you is that you can explore the uniqueness of your circumstance. Your relatively unknown school name in addition to your great qualities (you must posess this) as an applicant makes you an exotic being to med schools. They will try to get you in because people like you just aren't that many.

I also think it is possible to overcome the unknown name of your school by taking advantage of all the resources thrown at students from the so called "popular schools". For example my friend went to a virtually unheard college in the south, but when he finished assembling his application, a lot of "popular school grads" paled in comparison to him. How did he do it.

-He did several semesters prestigious schools and earned top grades (he completed most of his med school science requirements this way). Most colleges allow this, but a lot of students don't take advantage of it.

-Did research at Harvard for 3 straight summers (and continued while doing his semester there)

- Really made it a point of duty to know top guns at Harvard and hopkins (those guys basically wrote the majority of his rec. letters. All his interviewers commended him on recieving great letters of rec.)

-Did relatively few but deep, insightful and applicable community service/ EC type of activity.

- Earned great (but by no means perfect MCAT) scores. He had a 3.7 Science and cumulative.

-Also had personal letters of recommendation from two professors at his home college.

In the end, you could basically call him an Harvard grad. Med schools were also impressed by his ability to take advantage of the resources offered to him. While people are waiting to hear from schools, he has basically finished his season and recieved a couple of scholarships (even from schools that "supposedly" haven't sent out decisions yet). It is also worth realizing that most of what he did (except for the implications of his community service project) is not really that special. Most premeds have research experience (often with publications), and great scores. What makes him totally special is the fact that he was somehow able to utilize resources that were "supossedly" beyond his parameters.

I think anything in life ( not just med schoo appl. process) is like this. You realize your position, learn it positives and negatives. You then maximize the advantages presented to you, by turning the negatives around. This whole process will make you smarter while earning regards from your peers.
 
There's also something to be said for the willingness to take on a challenge. You might be brilliant, but if you are, what are you doing at the U of Southern Utah? Money is obviously an issue, but most good schools offer sufficient financial aid that your undergrad debt will be pocket change compared to the debt you'll end up incurring in med school. To me, it boils down to this: if you're so smart, why don't you come play with the big boys? Adcoms likely see it the same way.
 
I went to a small private liberal arts college my freshman year... I transfered to a top 25 school because i discovered their med school placement was approx 1-2 students each year out of 150 pre meds. Moreover, most placements were out of country schools. Perhaps it was just a crappy school (that it was), but I am certain the nam,e of my school carries some weight when applying to jobs and medical school. IT isnt everything but it counts. My new school placement rate is 75%.

Also, at some of my interviews I was specifically told by tour guides a big name medical school opens doors for residency placement as well.
 
eastsidaz said:
To me, it boils down to this: if you're so smart, why don't you come play with the big boys? Adcoms likely see it the same way.
That's ridiculous. Money is a huge deal to some people. So is healthcare. My brother went our local university because A) he got a fantastic scholarship that paid him to go to school for 4 years and B) his doctors were all in town. With a persistent health condition that was a big deal to both him and my parents.
He went on to "play with the big boys" in graduate school and beat the crap out of them on their turf. Now, when he applies for grants from the NSF and PhRMA, the reviewers actually mention that he went to a less prestigious undergrad with a scholarship and succeeded in graduate school and at his post-doc.
I think if you go to a less prestigious undergraduate school and you get good grades you really need the test scores to validate those grades and overcome the "ceiling effect". Going to a lesser-known undergrad is wholly defensible.
 
rc4ch said:
Ive been wondering if it really does make a difference when you apply for medschool. I go to a local state school here in PA. Not Pennstate, just one of the regular not well known school. Wondering if anyone here graduated from one of these kind of schools and if they got in.

In my experience, the people who are worth impressing would know the rank and importance of an undergraduate institution during the admissions process. Goes the same way for Residency Placement and whatever else you want to do down the road. Don't sweat it!
 
JustBreathe said:
I think going to a smaller, lesser-known school hurt me at Hopkins, Vandy and Columbia. But, of course, there's no way to know for sure...

Just Breathe: Why are you only "most likely" to go to WashU? Is that b/c you might consider Columbia over WashU? Personally I say to heck with Columbia and go with the school that gave you the most love, rather than the randomness that is Columbia.
 
Zoom-Zoom said:
It does make a difference, but won't hurt you enough that you should really care. In other words, it won't stop you from going to med school but might stop you from going to certain med schools. Someone from Harvard with your GPA, for eaxmple, will get in instead of you...especially at top 10 schools... that's just life. The only reason for concern would be if you have sub par stats and go to an unknown school. In this case some schools would be justified in assuming you couldn't hack it at a tough school.


I wanted to say I agree with the above. To add to it, If Penn is your home state then I'll be the first to tell you it is more competitive to get into a med school there then say Tx, Fl., NY, or a few other states because the majority of the schools there are private or state but not state schools that give 98% of the state residents preference. For instance, Penn St. gives 50% in state and 50% out of state.

However, if you do well, and do all that you are supposed to do such as volunteering, exposure to med field, research, etc. you should still be ok.
 
JustBreathe said:
I think going to a smaller, lesser-known school hurt me at Hopkins, Vandy and Columbia. But, of course, there's no way to know for sure...

so why did it not hurt your chances with wash u.?
 
Dr. Pepper said:
It depends to a certain extent I think. For the most part, the biggest difference can be seen on the extremes.

For example, on the higher extreme, if a guy has a 4.0 from an unknown school in juxtaposition to a 4.0 from a well known school (Harvard, Hopkins etc), it is obvious that the latter will have a better shot at getting into top 10 schools.

Similarly, a 3.0 from an unknown school may not get into med school while a 3.0 from a well known school may do the trick.

However, in the middle, judging a 3.5 from an unknown school with a 3.4 from a well known school is hard to judge.

Generally speaking, going to a good school technically raises your gpa by about 0.1 to 0.2 in my opinion. Other than that, I doubt there is much difference.

But I'm just starting the process, so I could be wrong.

Best of luck anyway. :)

I dont agree with what is bolded...according to someone I know who is an adcom...in that situation there is a difference (at most schools)
 
I attended a top undergrad and I think it helped, but not in the 'holy smokes she went to X school, let her in!' type of way.

I did ok at my undergrad, and ended up with a 3.4 but got into my instate med school anyway whose average was a 3.7. My MCAT score was on par with their averages so my MCAT score didnt' compensate for my GPA.

Had I gone to the state school which this med school is semi-attached to, I was told by that school's premed advisor (who also wrote me a rec letter after I took her class), I would need at least a 3.7. But I could slide by with my 3.4 at my 'prestige school'. This is an extreme example since I also had other stuff going for me (tough major, work experience, took some more classes etc), but I've been told, had I gone to the local state school, they would have scrutinized my GPA a lot more closely.

My advice to anyone contemplating college is this: when choosing which school is right for you, consider where you stand in the applicant pool.

If you are the top or the bottom of the pool, I recommend attending elsewhere. If you are middle of the pool, stay there.

This is my reasoning: if you suck, no matter where you are, it will reflect badly on you. And when I say 'suck', I mean, getting C's or worse in your pre-reqs. Yes, you can attend med school with Cs on your record, but it'll be an uphill battle.

If you are top of the class, then you may not be fulfilling your full potential. Case in point: a 4.0er at State U may have hit the 'class ceiling', had she gone to Harvard, maybe she would have gotten a 4.0 there as well. And of course, the 4.0 at Harvard will carry more weight than at State U in admissions. So you'd maximize your chances of med school if attended a school which gives you maneuvering room on your GPA.

If you are the middle of the pack in your college, it's the right place to be. It allows you 'room to grow' but gives you enough berth to not see a huge drop in your grades. That's how I picked my school. Of course, getting alot of money also helped. :D

This advice is only solvant for future med/law/bschool students---anyone looking to attend grad school and who cares about their grades. If you only want to come out and work, attend the best school that you can afford. Grades matter a bit, but they won't be scrutinized like they would by adcoms.

To the OP: you'll be fine as long as you are a strong candidate. Yes, a Harvard grad with a 3.3 will still probably make it to med school whereas you will need to work harder if you had that GPA but as long as you do well at your respectable college and do well on the MCAT, you will get in somewhere.

However, if you want to make it into a top med school, it would help if you went to a top undergrad. It won't guarantee anything, but from I've seen, top med schools accept a disproportionate number of students from top undergrads.

At my school, only a small percentage of applicants (~10-15%) attended what I consider 'prestige' med schools while the rest of us went to the normal med schools...however, with a successful rate of 90% (from personal experience, I would concur with that), while the national average hovers at 50%, it's not a bad gig to attend a 'prestige' school. However, it's not going to end your med school career if you didn't.
 
LizzyM said:
If your undergrad college was easy to get into and admitted most applicants with SAT scores of 1000 and above, then you are going to be considered a big fish in a small pond (it might be easier to be an academic stand-out in that school than at a school where most of the students had SATs of 1400 or better). So, you not only have to have an exceptionally high gpa but you need to do at least as well on the MCAT as the students from the "well-known" schools (level playing field & all that). A MCAT below a med school's average is not going to go over big if you are from a school that is not an academic power-house.


Does it work the other way as well? I.e., is the damage from a GPA below a school's average mitigated somewhat if the undergrad institution is a top 10 and extemely difficult to get into?
 
sit down lucy said:
Does it work the other way as well? I.e., is the damage from a GPA below a school's average mitigated somewhat if the undergrad institution is a top 10 and extemely difficult to get into?

Hmmmm... you can get away with a gpa that is -0.2 to -0.4 below the med school mean provided that 1) the school is highly regarded academically, 2) your major was considered a difficult one (engineering almost anywhere) and 3) your MCAT scores are at least a point above the med school's mean in each of the three sections.
 
rc4ch said:
Ive been wondering if it really does make a difference when you apply for medschool. I go to a local state school here in PA. Not Pennstate, just one of the regular not well known school. Wondering if anyone here graduated from one of these kind of schools and if they got in.

I attended a school that is a local state school and in many ways thought it was an advantage because you have so much access to professors and opportunities, especially if you work hard and stand out a bit. I got into two schools (Case and MUO) and I am waitlisted at Cornell and Mayo so, I dont know if it hurt me or helped But I dont have any regrets.
 
ruglazier said:
I attended a school that is a local state school and in many ways thought it was an advantage because you have so much access to professors and opportunities, especially if you work hard and stand out a bit. I got into two schools (Case and MUO) and I am waitlisted at Cornell and Mayo so, I dont know if it hurt me or helped But I dont have any regrets.
And I think to some degree a solid MCAt validates GPA from a school without a long standing reputation for eminence
 
One of the major problems that I observed during my undergrad years (I attended a "top 25"):

Our pre-med classes would invariably institute the TOP 20% = A, 20-45% = B, etc (this was not a grade-inflated ivy school...) In other words, a student would need to break into the top 20% of a very talented group of pre-meds to land an A in that class. The challenge of earning the A aside, I feel like the toughest part about our curve is that getting B's or even C's would not necessarily reflect a lack of understanding the material. In fact, I'm almost sure that anyone getting B's in these pre-med classes at my school would not have had much trouble getting an A or A- at a "lesser-known" school. That is a HUGE difference (3.0 vs. 4.0)!!

I would advise the OP to definitely attend the "non-prestigious" state school if there is any doubt that he/she could not consistently score in the top 25% of a prestigious school's class (unless, of course, the school inflates grades to some extent). I think that most on SDN would agree that a 3.8 from your run-of-the-mill state school would likely look better than a 3.2 from any prestigious school.
 
It is not fair, but it does make a difference. If you went to a prestigous school, they give you a few extra points even though a city university is much harder on grading. I went to a city university and I definitely saw the admissions committes reject most (90%) of the students from my college applying with good credentials (such as myself 31MCAT 3.73 GPA, Biochem etc). I also know someone on one of the committies and another guy who knows people on committies and they both told me that it makes a difference. How unfair.

I know for a fact that city universities or state run schools are much harder then most prestigous schools so I have no clue why they play favorites. Top 20% getting and A? I wish I was in your school. In my college, maybee 1-10% of students got an A- or A in chemistry courses and in some of the advanced ones no one got A's or A-'s or one person got an A. They mostly did not care how the class was doing and usually gave only mild curves.
 
I know for a fact that city universities or state run schools are much harder then most prestigous schools so I have no clue why they play favorites. Top 20% getting and A? I wish I was in your school. In my college, maybee 1-10% of students got an A- or A in chemistry courses and in some of the advanced ones no one got A's or A-'s or one person got an A. They mostly did not care how the class was doing and usually gave only mild curves.

Man, that does sound harsh. Most state/city schools in my state seem to have less stringent curves than that. In your school's case, however, it's definitely invalid for me to essentially claim that "a B-student from a prestigious undergrad would have earned A's at a less-prestigious school." This argument might only hold weight if comparing schools that have relatively equivalent bell curves. But I think the OP would definitely benefit from comparing the kinds of grading schemes that his/her potential undergard options will use.

I know for a fact that not every non-prestige state/city school only offers A's to 1-10% of the class.
 
I have always maintained that attending a highly-ranked undergrad only behooves those students that will be one of the best students at that undergrad (i.e. top 15 or 20%). Because there are so many pre-meds and everybody has impressive credentials, unless your grades are extraordinary, it is very difficult to gain acceptance to top schools. The top 30% of premeds get great grades and get into top medical schools. The rest of the students get mediocre grades and get into mediocre medical schools. I believe that those students could have gotten much higher GPAs from less rigorous schools, and fared better in the process.

So the gist is that if you want to go to a top med school, only come to a top undergrad if you are willing to bust your butt and be at the top. If you are not interested in attending a top med school, you will be able to gain acceptance just fine at a regular undergrad. On the other hand, because med school acceptance rates are so high (e.g. over 90% at my school), at a top undergrad you can coast through with minimal effort and still get in. But then you're wasting your money.

Of course it is possible to get into top med schools from less prestigious undergrads. But ON AVERAGE it is more difficult, and if capable of excelling at a top undergrad, it will benefit your chances.
 
jebus said:
That's ridiculous. Money is a huge deal to some people. So is healthcare. My brother went our local university because A) he got a fantastic scholarship that paid him to go to school for 4 years and B) his doctors were all in town. With a persistent health condition that was a big deal to both him and my parents.
He went on to "play with the big boys" in graduate school and beat the crap out of them on their turf. Now, when he applies for grants from the NSF and PhRMA, the reviewers actually mention that he went to a less prestigious undergrad with a scholarship and succeeded in graduate school and at his post-doc.
I think if you go to a less prestigious undergraduate school and you get good grades you really need the test scores to validate those grades and overcome the "ceiling effect". Going to a lesser-known undergrad is wholly defensible.


I entirely agree with your point that persistent health conditions and proximity to familiar doctors should take precedence over the rest of the discussion.

But I must interject to note that often the top undergrads are less expensive than state schools. These schools give generous aid packages to all but the upper middle-class and upper class. All of my friends from not-so-privileged were able to easily afford Duke because of the financial aid. The rest of the class comes from more privileged backgrounds and pay out of pocket. Money is a huge deal to people, but if you're poor, these top undergrads will help you out. If you have the money, but just don't want to spend it on education, that's simply a matter of misplaced priorities.
 
Uvault05 said:
Our pre-med classes would invariably institute the TOP 20% = A, 20-45% = B, etc (this was not a grade-inflated ivy school...) In other words, a student would need to break into the top 20% of a very talented group of pre-meds to land an A in that class. The challenge of earning the A aside, I feel like the toughest part about our curve is that getting B's or even C's would not necessarily reflect a lack of understanding the material. In fact, I'm almost sure that anyone getting B's in these pre-med classes at my school would not have had much trouble getting an A or A- at a "lesser-known" school. That is a HUGE difference (3.0 vs. 4.0)!!

Just fyi, the curve at my "grade inflated ivy" is top 20% A's, 20-50% B's for most science courses. That seems pretty comprable (and in fact slightly tougher) than where you go. The grade inflation reported at most of the Ivies is largely due to inflation in the social sciences and humanities; science departments typically have a curve like the one above.

Moral of the story: don't believe everything you see on the news. Harvard may have some ridiculous percentage of their class graduate summa cum laude, but that doesn't mean it's that bad at *all* of the Ivies.
 
There was a thread on SDN a couple years ago where someone posted that the UC schools have a system that "readjusts" grades from universities depending whether they have higher or lower average MCAT scores. In other words, the average GPA from Berkeley, UCLA,UCSD and various Ivies are adjusted higher (i.e. a 3.0 might be adjusted up to a 3.3) whereas a GPA would be lowered from some of the state schools (i.e. a 3.0 might translate to a 2.7). One of the posters had a link to an LA Times article detailing the process for various universities across the US. I found the original thread, but the link no longer works.
 
runion said:
There was a thread on SDN a couple years ago where someone posted that the UC schools have a system that "readjusts" grades from universities depending whether they have higher or lower average MCAT scores. In other words, the average GPA from Berkeley, UCLA,UCSD and various Ivies are adjusted higher (i.e. a 3.0 might be adjusted up to a 3.3) whereas a GPA would be lowered from some of the state schools (i.e. a 3.0 might translate to a 2.7). One of the posters had a link to an LA Times article detailing the process for various universities across the US. I found the original thread, but the link no longer works.

are you thinking of Boalt Law's grade adjustment table? That's not used anymore. I think Howard U. threatened to sue them over it.
 
Yes. Interesting. That was what the LA Times report talked about. There was a retired faculty adcom member that posted briefly on the thread that said the same or similar method was used for medical school admissions. Was that overthrown as well?
 
riceman04 said:
so why did it not hurt your chances with wash u.?
Although WashU seems to be rather notorious on this board for their emphasis on numbers, I think they really deserve credit for being very progressive when it comes to taking students from state/smaller name schools. Unlike other schools of similarly high rank, I think they are more willing to look *past* your undergrad school. It's tough to bring diversity to the midwest, but they try.
 
Ultra7 said:
Although WashU seems to be rather notorious on this board for their emphasis on numbers.

The emphasis on numbers is a total myth. They just attract some of the best students and have the financial resources to offer scholarships that can't be turned down. Also, in the South and mid-west, they have little competition unlike the northeast schools. The students accepted there have all the soft factor stuff.

Off-topic I guess. I was just thinking how having an emphasis on numbers was a good thing.
 
solitude said:
I have always maintained that attending a highly-ranked undergrad only behooves those students that will be one of the best students at that undergrad (i.e. top 15 or 20%). Because there are so many pre-meds and everybody has impressive credentials, unless your grades are extraordinary, it is very difficult to gain acceptance to top schools. The top 30% of premeds get great grades and get into top medical schools. The rest of the students get mediocre grades and get into mediocre medical schools. I believe that those students could have gotten much higher GPAs from less rigorous schools, and fared better in the process.

So the gist is that if you want to go to a top med school, only come to a top undergrad if you are willing to bust your butt and be at the top. If you are not interested in attending a top med school, you will be able to gain acceptance just fine at a regular undergrad. On the other hand, because med school acceptance rates are so high (e.g. over 90% at my school), at a top undergrad you can coast through with minimal effort and still get in. But then you're wasting your money.

Of course it is possible to get into top med schools from less prestigious undergrads. But ON AVERAGE it is more difficult, and if capable of excelling at a top undergrad, it will benefit your chances.


I agree with the first paragraph somewhat but don't know if I misunderstood what you meant by saying "coast through" at a top university. My understanding is the rigor of the program is tougher and being with people who are all academically at the top makes it much tougher there then it is to maintain a great GPA at a lower undergrad.
 
You're all being tooled on by a simple selection bias.
 
Bottom line: Most people that want to go on to a Top 20 med school from a lesser-known ugrad, need an MCAT of 35+. But for those happy to go to their unranked state medical schools, MCAT and pedigree is not nearly as important.
 
Will Ferrell said:
are you thinking of Boalt Law's grade adjustment table? That's not used anymore. I think Howard U. threatened to sue them over it.

I am so not getting involved in this "debate" but my interviewer at UCSF said that this is still done. He said that there is a "multiplier" for your overall #s (he said its a multiplier for the MCAT, but that would double-count the MCAT, so I thought he meant GPA) based on your school's average MCAT.

Maybe he didn't get the memo that it's not done that way anymore, or maybe it still is.

Anyhow. Carry on!
 
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