I have lurked on these forums for some time since my daughter will be applying next year. I am a retiring prof who was on a uc adcom some years back. Wanted to let you know some info that may account for some of the "crap shoot" aspects of admission. Some of the UC schools, and probably many others throughout the country, have a system whereby they take the mean of the MCAT scores obtained by students at a particular university and compare them to those obtained at their own school...and then assign a weight to the GPA for all who apply. For instance, the GPA of a student applying from a 'generic' Cal State university or a university that has, on average, lower MCAT scores overall will be multiplied by a factor less than 1.0, depending on their average MCAT scores. In contrast, the GPA of a student applying from UCB, UCLA or UCSD (and perhaps more now) will be multiplied by a factor <1.0. Thus a 3.5 from UCB may translate to a 3.7, whereas a 3.5 from a State school may translate to a 3.3. And no, my daughter gets absolutely nothing in terms of extra points for having a parent on the faculty for nearly 3 decades. If anything, she will have a harder time...in the name of trying to be nondicriminatory.
adcom info
- Thread starter rat
- Start date
- Joined
- Jul 10, 2003
- Messages
- 1,261
- Reaction score
- 4
Thank you for the post,
and yet, somehow this information does not seem that suprising. The sheer number of applicants to the spots available, means that a system like this has to exist on some level, in order to "weed" through the Admissions process.
Thanks again for the info, and good luck to your daughter.
👍
and yet, somehow this information does not seem that suprising. The sheer number of applicants to the spots available, means that a system like this has to exist on some level, in order to "weed" through the Admissions process.
Thanks again for the info, and good luck to your daughter.
👍
- Joined
- May 5, 2003
- Messages
- 928
- Reaction score
- 0
patzan said:
they better...cuz i'm gonna kick a** and take names....
no, really, i don't know what it is, i've given up on wondering why...it just sucks when every person i talk to says, why didn't the uc's interview you? and i say, um, i don't know, i guess i'm just not what they were looking for....eh..who knows.....anywho.....
- Joined
- May 5, 2003
- Messages
- 928
- Reaction score
- 0
mikeyboy said:
but mikey, this crapshoot system may have waitlisted you, but you still got in (as if there was any doubt 🙂)......i like following people's waitlist stories....i was following yours....very glad you got in..... 😉
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2001
- Messages
- 5,527
- Reaction score
- 1,683
I smell a troll personally. This is what I smell that stinks:
1. This person has been a UC professor for 30 years. Let's say (s)he graduated at 22, did a PHD, then a Post Doc, so she is 30 at the earliest that she could have started being a prof at a UC. If the kid is 22 and applying to medical school, then he/she had the kid at 38 years old. Smells fishy.
2. Picked a name like "rat" for a user name?? For a 60+ person?? Doesn't smell right.
3. The part about the daughter not getting extra points for her being on the facaulty at the school. I know at USC, there are 5 sons/daughters who are in the school. If you teach 15 years at USC in any department, your offspring get's 4 years free tuition. Also, I know at least at UCLA, if you are on the facaulty in undergrad your offspring gets in on a full scholie if you have been there long enough. I just don't believe that the daughter doesn't get any extra points. I think they would get some, and I also think that this person being on the adcom committee for a long time would have had the experience with someones son/daughter and knows that there is preference.
All of that being said, I think the point that the poster is trying to make is totally right.
1. This person has been a UC professor for 30 years. Let's say (s)he graduated at 22, did a PHD, then a Post Doc, so she is 30 at the earliest that she could have started being a prof at a UC. If the kid is 22 and applying to medical school, then he/she had the kid at 38 years old. Smells fishy.
2. Picked a name like "rat" for a user name?? For a 60+ person?? Doesn't smell right.
3. The part about the daughter not getting extra points for her being on the facaulty at the school. I know at USC, there are 5 sons/daughters who are in the school. If you teach 15 years at USC in any department, your offspring get's 4 years free tuition. Also, I know at least at UCLA, if you are on the facaulty in undergrad your offspring gets in on a full scholie if you have been there long enough. I just don't believe that the daughter doesn't get any extra points. I think they would get some, and I also think that this person being on the adcom committee for a long time would have had the experience with someones son/daughter and knows that there is preference.
All of that being said, I think the point that the poster is trying to make is totally right.
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2001
- Messages
- 5,527
- Reaction score
- 1,683
More reasons that I don't believe this is a real person:
1. There was a poster called "resident1" (not the no caps) who posted earlier that he had a sister applying and that it doesn't matter if you leave California you can get back without a problem and he was proof of it. (although apparently she was believing an internet board over her own brother)
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=120563
2. There was a poster called "kittybreath" (note the no caps) who posted a whole 6 posts in the USC waitlist thread and then immidiately dissappeared when I sent a post to the moderators that I believed this poster was cbc and asked if they could check the IP addresses.
3. Last time I did that, I noticed that the last time all three of the users was logged on (cbc, kittybreath, and resident1) was within 4 minutes of each other. (camstah, trojan2004, a little back up??)
4. As it stands at this exact moment, you can look at the profiles, and the last time cbc was logged on was 10:10 PM. The last time "rat" was logged on??? 9:58 PM. coincidence, I think not.
1. There was a poster called "resident1" (not the no caps) who posted earlier that he had a sister applying and that it doesn't matter if you leave California you can get back without a problem and he was proof of it. (although apparently she was believing an internet board over her own brother)
http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=120563
2. There was a poster called "kittybreath" (note the no caps) who posted a whole 6 posts in the USC waitlist thread and then immidiately dissappeared when I sent a post to the moderators that I believed this poster was cbc and asked if they could check the IP addresses.
3. Last time I did that, I noticed that the last time all three of the users was logged on (cbc, kittybreath, and resident1) was within 4 minutes of each other. (camstah, trojan2004, a little back up??)
4. As it stands at this exact moment, you can look at the profiles, and the last time cbc was logged on was 10:10 PM. The last time "rat" was logged on??? 9:58 PM. coincidence, I think not.
- Joined
- May 5, 2003
- Messages
- 928
- Reaction score
- 0
Jalby said:
well, it didn't have anything to do with him being a prof...in fact, when they were doing financial aid, they didn't even know that my dad works there....i got the regents thing, but so did anyone with a high enough gpa and SAT score....
your PI probably thinks they will just because their grades are good enough....but the financial aid dept doesn't do that stuff for undergrads.....for grad school yes, but that's a whole different animal....
dammit, i shoulda been an engineer...my life would have been sooo much easier...
- Joined
- Mar 23, 2004
- Messages
- 180
- Reaction score
- 0
i had a professor who said something similar too, he was my research advisor and he was on med school committee for a while. he said that certain schools get weighed a whole lot more and some get weighed a lot less. he told me cornell got the highest rating, for instance. he had no reason to lie to me either.
- Joined
- May 26, 2004
- Messages
- 262
- Reaction score
- 1
Jalby said:
Dude, you have some serious conspiracy theory issues. Even if concocted out of thin air, the original post is non-inflammatory, and pretty much everyone can agree that some sort of grade-weighting goes on , which is the main point. You are thinking this through too much 🙂 Particularly since you concur with the tenet of the post.
Adressing one of your prior points:
JALBY said:
Big deal... professionals tend to have children later in life. Particularly men, who are usually fertile well beyond the age of 38. Why are you assuming the OP is a "she", when no such reference is made to gender? Even working on that assumption, nothing would preclude women from bearing children after 38. Yes, this happened even before the advert of fertility drugs. Heck, my own grandmother gave birth to my mom at age 44 back in the 50s.
Alright, that was totally a tangent, sorry, but I thought this was a silly reason to classify a poster as a troll.
- Joined
- Dec 30, 2002
- Messages
- 2,538
- Reaction score
- 825
Jalby-
I'm with you...something's just not right.
dc
I'm with you...something's just not right.
dc
- Joined
- Jul 10, 2003
- Messages
- 186
- Reaction score
- 0
I also agree with Jalby, but I do have to say that you should be studying for the boards rather than playing detective on sdn. Is this what you do to relax?
Go get some fresh air.
Go get some fresh air.
- Joined
- Apr 22, 2004
- Messages
- 166
- Reaction score
- 0
fun8stuff said:
My candidates for motivation:
Fun to watch.
Delight in the collective misery over the fact that there are some crap shoot aspects.
See how long it takes for this to turn into a URM and/or affirmative action discussion.
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2001
- Messages
- 5,527
- Reaction score
- 1,683
fun8stuff said:
This guy was one of my former students, and was bitter that he gotthe grade he deserved. He's been attacking me on this board for quite some time, which is quite funny. I think he made the resident1 profile just to pick on one of the things that I have said many times, once you leave California it's very hard to come back. His kittybreath caracter was posting on the USC waitlist thread "Why would anybody ever choose this school over a UC???" I just think he is trying to influence people.
But like I said, I totally agree with the point that the "OP" was trying to make. Schools would weight undergrads differently. Like... duh.
Alright, back to studying.
PS I'm on here because I'm a pretty bad ADD. I can't study for more than 20 minutes max without needing to do something.
- Joined
- Jun 1, 2004
- Messages
- 64
- Reaction score
- 0
I wonder what that would mean for me?...I go to a very VERY small private liberal arts college where very VERY few people take the mcat each year-like 2 or 3. But all the people who took them last year had 3.9's-4.0 but did really bad. Im talking low to mid 20's! I think that they relied on how well they had done in undergrad and didnt study as much as they should of. But I think that there is some corrupt favortism at my school too. These students are so sweet and non-threatening and they suck up. But anyways I am still waiting for my mcat scores but even if I did well does that mean that they will think my gpa is worthless because of the people before me who had stellar gpa's and sucked out on the mcat? Sorry Im rambling and stressed out right now! 😕 😱
- Joined
- May 5, 2003
- Messages
- 928
- Reaction score
- 0
lissa1217 said:
lissa, don't worry, you'll do fine on the mcat, and your gpa/application won't suffer for going to a small liberal arts college...if anything wouldn't that make you sort of a diversity candidate? as opposed to people from the big pre-med machines like ucla etc.....
- Joined
- May 5, 2003
- Messages
- 928
- Reaction score
- 0
Jalby said:
why would anyone choose a screenname of rat?
is this person being clever by saying he's ratting out secrets about uc adcoms.....
anyway, i wonder if rat knows anything about that scholarship thing....rat? a response? will your daughter go for free because you worked there?
- Joined
- Apr 4, 2004
- Messages
- 13,464
- Reaction score
- 294
camstah said:
hey I was wondering about the same thing as lissa...how do you figure out your particular school's ranking I guess is what I am asking. I also go to a really small liberal arts school and we don't have many people go on to med school. I was wondering how schools view that/how that would figure in with the grade point scaling? 😕
F
ForensicPath
I always wanted to know what the reputation of my undergrad was with the Adcoms.
Sorry I didn't respond this am...I was ROTFLMAO!!! So was my very old husband. I actually wasn't going to post anymore, but not for the reasons you suggest. I chose the username "rat" because I do rat research and have pictures of rats on the walls of my office. I was going to choose 'id', but SDN wouldn't accept it. I am a psychiatrist and, yes, very weird. Why else would I have lurked this forum for the past couple months?? Four kids, by the way....and, yes, later in life.
Good luck to all of you.
P.S. I think GPAs from many smaller schools are not weighted in either direction.
Good luck to all of you.
P.S. I think GPAs from many smaller schools are not weighted in either direction.
- Joined
- May 5, 2003
- Messages
- 928
- Reaction score
- 0
rat said:
hey, no, if you've got info to share with people, post!!!
and i think your name still fits...most of us on here think adcoms are like some secret society...and what goes on behind closed doors is so secretive......so, you are "ratting" out the adcoms....
but anyway, do you know about the scholarships for children of faculty?
- Joined
- May 26, 2004
- Messages
- 262
- Reaction score
- 1
I spent the better part of 20 minutes searching for this (at work, ha ha). The LA Times published this "secret" chart several years ago revealing Boalt Hall's (UC Berkeley Law School) system for comparing GPAs from various schools. This is significant b/c Boalt is notoriously very, very GPA-heavy in their admissions process, weighting the LSAT far less than other top schools.
Anyway, here it is:
http://www.architrave.net/college/gradeadj.htm
Swarthmore is #1, which was a source of much delight for my two Swatti coworkers at the time. I think the numbers are somewhat bogus, in that many of the elite schools with high #s on here have ridiculously high grade inflation, which offsets the high calibre of the student body in terms of the difficulty of achieving high grades. And it also fails to take into consideration the differences between certain majors at schools (i.e. liberal arts at Purdue vs. enginering) But does give insight into committee preferences.
Another interesting site discussing grade inflation in general:
http://www.gradeinflation.com/
Anyway, here it is:
http://www.architrave.net/college/gradeadj.htm
Swarthmore is #1, which was a source of much delight for my two Swatti coworkers at the time. I think the numbers are somewhat bogus, in that many of the elite schools with high #s on here have ridiculously high grade inflation, which offsets the high calibre of the student body in terms of the difficulty of achieving high grades. And it also fails to take into consideration the differences between certain majors at schools (i.e. liberal arts at Purdue vs. enginering) But does give insight into committee preferences.
Another interesting site discussing grade inflation in general:
http://www.gradeinflation.com/
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2004
- Messages
- 69
- Reaction score
- 0
It seems wieghing the MCAT a little heavier than the GPA would be the best way to compare applicants. This would also account for difficulty of classes, majors, etc. Isn't this the whole point of standardized tests. I would bet this is the method used by the majority of the schools. Does anyone know?
