Does university matter?

[Cyberdyne 101]

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As a UChicago grad, the only problem I have with the fact that there isn't much of a grade boost with admissions is that a lot of my 3.3 bio majors friends doing their PhDs ended up at schools like Yale, Stanford, UPenn, NYU, etc. They are on the path to become med school professors at top med schools if they so choose. I just find it a little weird that a 3.3 from a top school is more likely to allow you to teach medicine at a top school than it is to allow you to be the one learning it at any med school.

I agree. This is definitely one of those frustrating paradoxes.

 

[Lucca]

@Lucca nice try. By brilliant I mean highest performing on the metrics selected by college admissions. Whether those metrics are valid and allow wealth to substitute for abiliy is another argument entirely. For the discussion were having here we are already assuming that the metrics (MCAT and GPA) measure what they're supposed to - you'd just have the same for undergrad.

(On a side note I agree with you that its far from a pure meritocracy at the undergrad level, but I do believe the student bodies at Top 20s are still more academically gifted on average than at a typical uni. If you control for income Id wager the middle and lower class students, though fewer proportionally, still are more qualified at the top schools).

I agree that merit validity is an entirely different argument but I think it's the only one that matters in terms of medical admissions. I don't think it would be good for our education system if people had to start being pre-med in high school. I definitely don't think it would be good for our medical education or healthcare system either.

 

[resiroth]

This argument isn't really valid. States school in NY would run about 22k/year and it is much harder to get financial aid there. My parents couldn't afford to help me pay for school, so going to a top school where I was given 50k/year in financial aid grants was my best option.

As a UChicago grad, the only problem I have with the fact that there isn't much of a grade boost with admissions is that a lot of my 3.3 bio majors friends doing their PhDs ended up at schools like Yale, Stanford, UPenn, NYU, etc. They are on the path to become med school professors at top med schools if they so choose. I just find it a little weird that a 3.3 from a top school is more likely to allow you to teach medicine at a top school than it is to allow you to be the one learning it at any med school.

So it's not valid because it didn't apply to you? Interesting...a GPA of 3.3 isn't particularly great at uchicago, it's below average according to this site: http://www.gradeinflation.com/chicago.html (according to the trend the average should be 3.45 + now).

Honestly top phd programs are just a lot less competitive than top md programs. It's not that they had their 3.3 seen as a 4.0, it's that GPA in general is weighted less, research is weighted more and the overall standards are more forgiving of a weak point. Medical school admissions is kind of about being perfect. If you get Cs in English a bio phd program likely won't care that much, but a medical school with 10000 applications to process will just toss it because they have someone that aced it. Was it an easier professor? Maybe. But the admissions people can't be hassled to look up ratemyprofessor ratings for classes students took and account for that.

Tbh I know that generally they get a .1 GPA boost which may or may not make up for the increased rigor, but at uchicago it's easier to get involved with great research than at Chico state.

 

[lifetothefullest]

What about the cases in which people can't afford to go to rigorous undergrads? I'm not talking about poor people either necessarily but what if your family makes 120k combined income in Nyc la SF etc. and can't afford to help you out in college?

All Ivies and MIT offer lucrative financial aid packages that make it possible for you to attend. Your loans will be on par with or less than what you would have at a state university. Some Ivies even have no-loan policies where financial need is met completely. For those whose families make a moderate amount (120K in a big city), the aid package will still make the tuition comparable to that at a state university. You can get loans from those universities that are subsidized and accrue no interest until graduation. The point is, if you have the brains to earn admission to those top universities, they'll make it so that you can attend.

By most brilliant do you mean wealthiest because that's the best predictor for high school and college success. Unless by brilliance you mean high school ECs, legacy status, and SAT + GPA (All of which are determined by wealth).

These are determined by wealth only in part. To say they are completely determined by wealth is to ignore the elephant in the room. Kind of like saying your genes determine whether you'll get autism. Sure, they do to an extent but other controllable factors come into play. Libraries have SAT and AP study books. The rise of the internet age makes online self-education much easier (Khan Academy anyone). Even the poorest families are now getting access to the internet. If they are really poor, there is the library and internet cafes. If wealth were the sole predictor of college success, you would see only rich children getting 4.0s. In my experience, children from lower income families tend to work harder in college and have more success because they have that drive to lift themselves out of the conditions they were raised in.

 

[Fuglen92]

So it's not valid because it didn't apply to you? Interesting...a GPA of 3.3 isn't particularly great at uchicago, it's below average according to this site: http://www.gradeinflation.com/chicago.html (according to the trend the average should be 3.45 + now).

Honestly top phd programs are just a lot less competitive than top md programs. It's not that they had their 3.3 seen as a 4.0, it's that GPA in general is weighted less, research is weighted more and the overall standards are more forgiving of a weak point. Medical school admissions is kind of about being perfect. If you get Cs in English a bio phd program likely won't care that much, but a medical school with 10000 applications to process will just toss it because they have someone that aced it. Was it an easier professor? Maybe. But the admissions people can't be hassled to look up ratemyprofessor ratings for classes students took and account for that.

Tbh I know that generally they get a .1 GPA boost which may or may not make up for the increased rigor, but at uchicago it's easier to get involved with great research than at Chico state.

Let me rephrase it this way: I'm from NYC and my parents make over 100k and that was my financial reward. The students for whom a top school is significantly more expensive than a state school come from families who can afford to pay the tuition (yes, a student's parents may not be willing to help, but that is not the same as being unable to afford it). I'm not basing it on my case alone. I spent four years at a top school. I have four years of discussing finances and the state of the US education system with other students. The only middle class and lower students for whom my school wasn't the cheapest option were paying like 5k/year in stafford loans vs full scholarship at a state school.

 

[Fuglen92]

And at my school, science (and Econ) classes for the most part are curved to a B (biochem is curved to B- and is required for all bio majors). Humanities and social science classes that are not based on a curve can artificially inflate a GPA, that doesn't mean that getting above Bs in science classes doesn't put you above average

 

[lifetothefullest]

And at my school, science (and Econ) classes for the most part are curved to a B (biochem is curved to B- and is required for all bio majors). Humanities and social science classes that are not based on a curve can artificially inflate a GPA, that doesn't mean that getting above Bs in science classes doesn't put you above average

Yeah, I think the complexity lies with defining "average" though. You said you went to a top school so you're being compared to other top students so if you're "above average" there, you're really above average. Then you must have had friends who went to unknown state uni who you knew were B or C students in HS but magically managed to pull straight As. Their classes probably curve to about a B as well and because of the weaker student body in general, it's easier to get an A, or to be "above average." You could be average height here but then move to China and be above average there. Similar concept.

 

[Fuglen92]

Yeah, I think the complexity lies with defining "average" though. You said you went to a top school so you're being compared to other top students so if you're "above average" there, you're really above average. Then you must have had friends who went to unknown state uni who you knew were B or C students in HS but magically managed to pull straight As. Their classes probably curve to about a B as well and because of the weaker student body in general, it's easier to get an A, or to be "above average." You could be average height here but then move to China and be above average there. Similar concept.

Yeah, I definitely agree with that to an extent. I was more just responding to the claim that a 3.3 isn't particularly great when it is, in fact, above average.

 

[justadream]

Yeah, I think the complexity lies with defining "average" though. You said you went to a top school so you're being compared to other top students so if you're "above average" there, you're really above average. Then you must have had friends who went to unknown state uni who you knew were B or C students in HS but magically managed to pull straight As. Their classes probably curve to about a B as well and because of the weaker student body in general, it's easier to get an A, or to be "above average." You could be average height here but then move to China and be above average there. Similar concept.

This is exactly why GPA comparisons (even among people at the same school) are have such limited statistical meaning for comparison purposes.

 

[lifetothefullest]

Yeah, I definitely agree with that to an extent. I was more just responding to the claim that a 3.3 isn't particularly great when it is, in fact, above average.

Do you know what the average GPA was at your school? It seems pretty grade-deflating if the average is B+, especially for a top school. My school average GPA is also 3.3 but it's reknowned for grade deflating.

This is exactly why GPA comparisons (even among people at the same school) are have such limited statistical meaning for comparison purposes.

Yeah, I would say quantitatively it'd be hard to compare but qualitatively, I believe that a 3.5 from MIT is worth more than a 3.5 from unknown state school. The 3.5 at MIT was much harder to achieve and maintain exactly for the reasons outlined above - you're being compared to above average students in the first place. People, including me, have said that the MCAT is the great equalizer but that obscures the opinion that maybe it shouldn't be. People vary in their ability to take standardized tests - maybe a student likes to think out problems to their logical conclusion when the MCAT tests only superficial knowledge. Maybe a student was sick on the day of the exam. Maybe that particular test was heavy on some topic that he/she was weaker at and so other students whose strong subjects were tested lucked out. A lot of factors go into a single performance. GPA is the result of years of hard work. Not to mention that going to a more rigorous school gives you much less time to study for the MCAT, which most people would agree is crucial for a good performance.

 

[Fuglen92]

Do you know what the average GPA was at your school? It seems pretty grade-deflating if the average is B+, especially for a top school. My school average GPA is also 3.3 but it's reknowned for grade deflating.



Yeah, I would say quantitatively it'd be hard to compare but qualitatively, I believe that a 3.5 from MIT is worth more than a 3.5 from unknown state school. The 3.5 at MIT was much harder to achieve and maintain exactly for the reasons outlined above - you're being compared to above average students in the first place. People, including me, have said that the MCAT is the great equalizer but that obscures the opinion that maybe it shouldn't be. People vary in their ability to take standardized tests - maybe a student likes to think out problems to their logical conclusion when the MCAT tests only superficial knowledge. Maybe a student was sick on the day of the exam. Maybe that particular test was heavy on some topic that he/she was weaker at and so other students whose strong subjects were tested lucked out. A lot of factors go into a single performance. GPA is the result of years of hard work.

I don't know the overall average gpa. I just know that at least for the intro science sequences, average gets you a B, one standard deviation above average gets an A-, and some point above the standard deviation it becomes an A

 

[efle]

@resiroth be careful using that site because it reflects all GPAs not premed GPAs. It says the average at WashU is a 3.4 but all prereq courses are curved to a B or B-

@Lucca couldnt agree more, the core problem here is that only one of two major metrics has any standardization to it. The ideal solution would be to create something like the AP system among prereqs in colleges where anybody anywhere can distinguish themselves against equally rigorous exams. But even I don't have pipe dreams that crazy...ill be content fantasizing about GPA adjustments made on readily available data.

 

[Lucca]

@resiroth be careful using that site because it reflects all GPAs not premed GPAs. It says the average at WashU is a 3.4 but all prereq courses are curved to a B or B-

@Lucca couldnt agree more, the core problem here is that only one of two major metrics has any standardization to it. The ideal solution would be to create something like the AP system among prereqs in colleges where anybody anywhere can distinguish themselves against equally rigorous exams. But even I don't have pipe dreams that crazy...ill be content fantasizing about GPA adjustments made on readily available data.

My beef is that I think universities serve a much broader and important purpose than pre-professional education and I wouldn't want inflation, deflation, or prestige bumps to end up being of importance to a 17 year old who's not even sure what they want to do after they graduate yet. That's all. I'd be fine with schools having access to information about average performance at an institution and GPA/MCAT distributions like you have provided and then doing what they will with it.

 

[resiroth]

All Ivies and MIT offer lucrative financial aid packages that make it possible for you to attend. Your loans will be on par with or less than what you would have at a state university. Some Ivies even have no-loan policies where financial need is met completely. For those whose families make a moderate amount (120K in a big city), the aid package will still make the tuition comparable to that at a state university. You can get loans from those universities that are subsidized and accrue no interest until graduation. The point is, if you have the brains to earn admission to those top universities, they'll make it so that you can attend.



These are determined by wealth only in part. To say they are completely determined by wealth is to ignore the elephant in the room. Kind of like saying your genes determine whether you'll get autism. Sure, they do to an extent but other controllable factors come into play. Libraries have SAT and AP study books. The rise of the internet age makes online self-education much easier (Khan Academy anyone). Even the poorest families are now getting access to the internet. If they are really poor, there is the library and internet cafes. If wealth were the sole predictor of college success, you would see only rich children getting 4.0s. In my experience, children from lower income families tend to work harder in college and have more success because they have that drive to lift themselves out of the conditions they were raised in.

What if one parent is a cardiologist that divorced the mom and the mom had to raise the kids herself? You won't get financial aid on that salary. There is also a difference between say a top 20 and Harvard.

Finally if you're sooooooo smart compared to those state kids you'll crush them on the mcat. If you claim the mcat isn't reflective of your performance in college then why bother correlating GPA to mcat for ad coms?

In the end there's no perfect solution and you can complain about the SAT or the MCAT or step 1 or you can accept the reality of life and try your best.

Finally say you truly are amazing in class, but bomb the mcat. Who is to say you won't bomb the step 1? If anything for practical reasons an ad com would be more interested in the state student that does well under pressure and can ace standardized test so he doesn't have to worry about dealing with the 1 guy that failed the step making the school look bad.

Ad coms aren't stupid. They know who they are accepting and have their own reasons why they accept them a state kid with a 4.0 over someone with a 3.3 at Chicago.

Even if you could account for rigor on a school level accurately, what about on the professor level? At some point you just have to embrace that there is no objective/perfect way to compare applicants.

 

[efle]

My beef is that I think universities serve a much broader and important purpose than pre-professional education and I wouldn't want inflation, deflation, or prestige bumps to end up being of importance to a 17 year old who's not even sure what they want to do after they graduate yet. That's all. I'd be fine with schools having access to information about average performance at an institution and GPA/MCAT distributions like you have provided and then doing what they will with it.

17 year olds are already focused either on prestige or financial aspects in my experience, not finding the place they'll best grow as a student. But its a noble notion

And my beef is that even provided the data, they'd do nothing with it. Gyngyn has clearly been lurking the thread...would you do anything with data showing a 3.5 at Cal >> 3.7 at UCSC via MCAT comparison? Or would the latter still be preferred ceteris paribus?

Edit: C not B

 

[efle]

@resiroth "demonstrated need" is what all Top20s meet and it involves a lot more than just parent salary.

Top school student populations do crush the MCAT at far higher rates (see the second fig I uploaded). The discussion here is about how if student X goes to one extremely tough school he gets a 3.3/36 while at a typical school he gets 3.9/36. His demonstrated academic abilities are the same (see my first fig) but in the latter case he gets much better odds of interviewing at highly selective Med schools.

 

[Mad Jack]

I'm a Californian, flushed by the UCSD medical scholars program so stuck in nowhere in SLU for its medical scholars program. I have to wait for the interview which is just two weeks later and still don't know the hell how to answer why I would advance to SLU SOM. I'm looking forward to practice back in my city.

Is Saint Louis University SOM a really good school? I always doubt it when I hear Wash U guys come over and make fun of us calling "the school over there (Forest Park)" in a slightly negative tone. Would it worth when I try to settle in my business back there?

I do know that in order to get into a medical school I should be in a top tier in undergrad. Still I wonder whether this university, which is not even in the US top 100 ranking and QS World University report ranking, would give me a prestige.

Or should I shoot for transferring into UC so that I can apply for Cali med schools?

Helpful answers pls

A rigorous and prestigious undergraduate degree can hurt more than help, if you can't keep up with your classmates and end up with a lackluster GPA. Med schools are generally going to pick the guy with a 3.8/35 from No Name University over the guy with a 3.1/35 from Columbia.

High GPA Top University>High GPA Anywhere Else>Low GPA Top University>Low GPA Anywhere Else. The major point being, a high GPA is the most important factor, so go where you can be successful.

 

[efle]

@Mad Jack for some reason I thought you were part of the "disregard academic rigor go where you'll be happy" crowd with mimelim. +1 to go where youll be happy and youll be able to make the cut without needing a 40+ MCAT or a cure for cancer

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

My beef is that I think universities serve a much broader and important purpose than pre-professional education and I wouldn't want inflation, deflation, or prestige bumps to end up being of importance to a 17 year old who's not even sure what they want to do after they graduate yet. That's all. I'd be fine with schools having access to information about average performance at an institution and GPA/MCAT distributions like you have provided and then doing what they will with it.

I agree with this, but in reality, competitive high schoolers see college as a means to an end, rather than serving a broader purpose. And who can blame them for seeking out info about deflation and prestige points when these factors are actually relevant to med school admissions. If you were to poll high achieving high school juniors and seniors, many of them would express interest in medicine. And such interest is already demonstrated by their choices of electives, ECs, and AP courses.

It's somewhat analogous to choosing a professor. When I first took organic, I avoided the professor whose class usually had exam averages in the 30s (although, this wasn't the case with organic 2 ). I mean, I wanted to learn organic (it turned out to be my favorite class), but I also wanted to do well. I don't see anything wrong with taking a similar approach when choosing a college.

 

[lifetothefullest]

What if one parent is a cardiologist that divorced the mom and the mom had to raise the kids herself? You won't get financial aid on that salary. There is also a difference between say a top 20 and Harvard.

On the FAFSA as well as the school-specific financial aid forms, there is a place to note that your parents are divorced. You can also list special circumstances like "single-mother raising child by herself." As a last resort, after financial aid packages have been awarded, you can request meetings with financial aid officers to discuss the specifics of your case. My friend did this and got upwards of 10 grand added on because his family is supporting not one but three children through college - otherwise he would not be where he is today. It depends on the college, but since I was only talking about the Ivies, I know for a fact that all of them have generous financial aid packages. For me to attend any of them, I would have had to pay less than attending my state school which I also applied to. The margin was huge - no more than $10,000 a year for the Ivies+MIT versus $30,000 for state school (tuition, room, board, books, etc. included in both). Like I said, circumstances differ and single parents raising their kid alone is definitely taken into account.

Finally if you're sooooooo smart compared to those state kids you'll crush them on the mcat. If you claim the mcat isn't reflective of your performance in college then why bother correlating GPA to mcat for ad coms?

I have never correlated GPA to MCAT for adcoms. I've only said that GPA should be weighed differently between schools. I also have never claimed that MCAT isn't reflective of college performance. I only claim that for some non-trivial subset of the population it is not reflective of performance. What I have said is that many other factors go into the MCAT besides wealth. For example, a student at a top school likely does not have as much time to study for the MCAT as a student at a less rigorous school. Easier competition, a less demanding courseload, etc. all make for more study time for the latter student. At my university, independent research projects take up a huge part of the junior and senior years. Summer research during the junior summer is essentially to doing well on the mandatory thesis. Study time is therefore severely cut into. Not only that, but during the school year, people are studying all day, every day. It's like like you can finish your homework and then study for four hours a day for the MCAT. I've been to friends' state university campuses. You'd think that their side-job was going to college and their main job was playing video games. The discrepancy is obvious.

Finally say you truly are amazing in class, but bomb the mcat. Who is to say you won't bomb the step 1? If anything for practical reasons an ad com would be more interested in the state student that does well under pressure and can ace standardized test so he doesn't have to worry about dealing with the 1 guy that failed the step making the school look bad.

Like I said before, I'm not saying that the student breaks under pressure. I'm saying that many factors go into doing well on the MCAT. In a minority of cases, perhaps the student was sick the day of the exam. That's a small group but medically, studying day and night weakens your immune system. A more pressing issue is the issue mentioned above - the differential study time of students at different universities. Less study time = worse relative performance. The one contradiction to this argument I must acknowledge is that the average MCAT scores of students at top universities are extremely high. That must mean that they can either A) do well without much studying or B) take time away from class work to study for the MCAT. The latter case would lead to sub-optimal performance on schoolwork.

Even if you could account for rigor on a school level accurately, what about on the professor level? At some point you just have to embrace that there is no objective/perfect way to compare applicants.

I do acknowledge that there is no perfect way to compare applicants. But that's not to say that I don't think there are better ways than what people currently do. This debate is purely academic. I agree that different professors grade differently. But accounting for school rigor is a big first step to equalizing the playing field. The effect of individual professor's grading styles have much less impact than school rigor. Especially since you're being compared against the top students at a top school whereas you're only being compared against average students at an average school. Since you're still you, that affects where you will fall on a ranked curve, no matter how tough the professor grades, given that it is on a curve as most science classes are.

 

[Lucca]

17 year olds are already focused either on prestige or financial aspects in my experience, not finding the place they'll best grow as a student. But its a noble notion

And my beef is that even provided the data, they'd do nothing with it. Gyngyn has clearly been lurking the thread...would you do anything with data showing a 3.5 at Cal >> 3.7 at UCSC via MCAT comparison? Or would the latter still be preferred ceteris paribus?

Edit: C not B

I know they are concerned with it already but it shouldn't be like "omg I didn't get into a top 20 guess I'm not gonna be a doctor". That's a bit extreme but that's the message you send if you take prestige or deflation too seriously. Considering how ridiculous college admissions is getting (research in HS? Srs?)

What do we want medicine to become? Finance? Yah **** that lol.

 

[resiroth]

I assume you mean latter.

And honestly the thing is that a 3.9/4.0 is hitting the ceiling. You don't know that the guy at the state is on the same level if he is getting 100%'s.

You show a figure that says that people taking the mcat with a 3.3 (a very small sample size) end up doing well. Most people wouldn't take the mcat with a 3.3 at a top school. So your sample consists of people that are extremely confident in their ability to do well.

All this information is public. If you didn't plan ahead and find yourself wishing you went to a state school that sucks. I ended up doing quite well at a "hard" school and while I would have had a better cycle at a big state university (more time/opportunities for EC) I enjoyed college for being intellectually enriching (that sounds corny but it's true).

@efle , listen...the adcoms have 10k apps to go through. They don't have time to analyze between 500+ undergrads and more importantly they don't have to. There are plenty of people with 3.6s at wustl. It's not like it's an impossible feat. What was the thought process maintaining a 3.3 GPA and still gunning for top schools? I, like most people, had a bit of a shock entering an intense academic environment. So I studied a ton more and pulled my grades up. So it's harder, sure. But it made me better prepared for the mcat too.

In the end a 3.3 could still be ok if you have a strong upward trend and a very strong mcat at non-top tiers. In the end you hopefully want to become a physician, not go to a top 10 for the sake of it.

 

[youououa]

Considering how difficult it is to get a faculty position, I don't believe your friends are more likely to become top-20 teachers than they would be to become physicians.

This argument isn't really valid. States school in NY would run about 22k/year and it is much harder to get financial aid there. My parents couldn't afford to help me pay for school, so going to a top school where I was given 50k/year in financial aid grants was my best option.

As a UChicago grad, the only problem I have with the fact that there isn't much of a grade boost with admissions is that a lot of my 3.3 bio majors friends doing their PhDs ended up at schools like Yale, Stanford, UPenn, NYU, etc. They are on the path to become med school professors at top med schools if they so choose. I just find it a little weird that a 3.3 from a top school is more likely to allow you to teach medicine at a top school than it is to allow you to be the one learning it at any med school.

 

[efle]

@Cyberdyne 101 Imo the insanely low averages are better than high ones; I'd rather have a bunch of challenging questions and need a couple more insights than the average, than a bunch of softball questions where you need to nail them all (eg MCAT)

@Lucca it's insane how competitve high schoolers behave regarding college. I once heard two students essentially bullying a third for only getting into UCLA and not any ivies, and had a favorite teacher ask why I would go to a "no name" instead of Berkeley which really bothered me. i honestly think for many dumb smart kids the biggest influence in matriculation decision is reputation and/or US news rank.

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

@Cyberdyne 101 Imo the insanely low averages are better than high ones; I'd rather have a bunch of challenging questions and need a couple more insights than the average, than a bunch of softball questions where you need to nail them all (eg MCAT)

It shouldn't be softball, nor should it be like hitting a Randy Johnson slider. Plenty of major leaguers with excellent careers didn't stand a chance against him.

You're perfectly aware that it's possible to find a challenging middle ground. Plenty of professors pull it off.

 

[efle]

@resiroth a few rebuttals.

Were talking about the same students predicted performance at two schools not comparing between two students - if a 3.8-4.0 is hitting the ceiling then it tells you a 3.2-3.4 student at washu would likeky be near that ceiling.

Check my source there's a large number of applicants with a 3.3. They still apply because they get in at good rates not because they're highly confidence past their numbers. For them its about where they're decently competitive (not top schools)

There are already schools where the adcom adjust for undergrad and it would take minimal effort to provide adcoms with approximate adjusters for say the schools that send them the most applicants

 

[Lucca]

@Cyberdyne 101 Imo the insanely low averages are better than high ones; I'd rather have a bunch of challenging questions and need a couple more insights than the average, than a bunch of softball questions where you need to nail them all (eg MCAT)

@Lucca it's insane how competitve high schoolers behave regarding college. I once heard two students essentially bullying a third for only getting into UCLA and not any ivies, and had a favorite teacher ask why I would go to a "no name" instead of Berkeley which really bothered me. i honestly think for many dumb smart kids the biggest influence in matriculation decision is reputation and/or US news rank.

Lol I know them feels. I went to a public HS but it was pretty competitive and going to a public school was "basic". Lol @washu being no name. Did you ever visit Berkeley though? It's the most beautiful campus I've ever seen and the facilities are awesome but living there alone was like O_O in terms of cost. California is rather convincing....

HS is getting stupid though. You are either rich enough to opt out of the game by sending your child to a prestigious private HS or you are upper middle class enough to afford the resources for your child to have the ECs necessary to get into the top schools. If you are -a talented but not stellar middle class student or a non highly performing student from low SES then you might as well be playing the lottery.

 

[medic86]

Haha, this thread is so funny, particularly pertaining to high school students gunning for top-tier undergraduate schools.

Where I went to high school, no one I know had those aspirations (or even me). It's kind of weird to hear a lot of you discuss it like it's the norm.

 

[Mad Jack]

@Mad Jack for some reason I thought you were part of the "disregard academic rigor go where you'll be happy" crowd with mimelim. +1 to go where youll be happy and youll be able to make the cut without needing a 40+ MCAT or a cure for cancer

It doesn't matter to an extent, but strong performance at a top undergraduate university will be well-received as compared to the same GPA at a lesser university, particularly at more selective medical schools. The name on your degree is a small factor, but it is a factor, all other things being equal (which is almost never the case).

I am big on people going where they will be happy and successful, but if you think you will do well at either a low or high tier university, you should go high tier. The trouble is, most people overestimate their own abilities, and expect to go to Yale or Harvard and come out with a 4.0, but ultimately sorely underestimate the caliber of their competition and end up with battered GPAs.

 

[Lucca]

I agree with this, but in reality, competitive high schoolers see college as a means to an end, rather than serving a broader purpose. And who can blame them for seeking out info about deflation and prestige points when these factors are actually relevant to med school admissions. If you were to poll high achieving high school juniors and seniors, many of them would express interest in medicine. And such interest is already demonstrated by their choices of electives, ECs, and AP courses.

It's somewhat analogous to choosing a professor. When I first took organic, I avoided the professor who's class usually had exam averages in the 30s (although, this wasn't the case with organic 2 ). I mean, I wanted to learn organic (it turned out to be my favorite class), but I also wanted to do well. I don't see anything wrong with taking a similar approach when choosing a college.

This is definitely true. I think it's a shame and I was raised differently in terms of perspective on education and I'm glad that I was. At least I enjoy going to school 😛

 

[Lucca]

Haha, this thread is so funny, particularly pertaining to high school students gunning for top-tier undergraduate schools.

Where I went to high school, no one I know had those aspirations (or even me). It's kind of weird to hear a lot of you discuss it like it's the norm.

The gunning was worse at my HS than it is at my University. True story.at least visibly.

 

[caffeinemia]

Let me rephrase it this way: I'm from NYC and my parents make over 100k and that was my financial reward. The students for whom a top school is significantly more expensive than a state school come from families who can afford to pay the tuition (yes, a student's parents may not be willing to help, but that is not the same as being unable to afford it). I'm not basing it on my case alone. I spent four years at a top school. I have four years of discussing finances and the state of the US education system with other students. The only middle class and lower students for whom my school wasn't the cheapest option were paying like 5k/year in stafford loans vs full scholarship at a state school.

Agree that Ivies and Stanford a better deal than state school in many situations. Back in the day, Harvard was 20k a year for me. Cheaper than every single state school, except the one that offered a full ride based on merit. This was before all the Ivies and Stanford rolled out those huge aid packages too. These days, it would probably be 10k. My parents do the blue collar thing, no college education. After all that's said and done, I have absolutely no doubt that the 80k extra that it cost was worth it a thousand times over. To this day, it's still paying off. Doors open. I get to do more of what I want to do. My poor, ignorant parents wouldn't have been able to provide these opportunities had they invested the money in any other way. Obviously, now I gotta pay them back hugely.

 

[Fuglen92]

Considering how difficult it is to get a faculty position, I don't believe your friends are more likely to become top-20 teachers than they would be to become physicians.

There have been plenty of articles about how a small number of schools provide the majority of professors in colleges across the country http://www.slate.com/articles/life/..._your_ph_d_at_an_elite_university_good.2.html
and there are many articles about how top undergraduate schools overwhelmingly send students to top graduate programs and about how difficult it is to go from a state school to a top graduate program. Going from a PhD program to professor is very hard, but coming from a top PhD program significantly reduces the difficulty

 

[efle]

Lol I know them feels. I went to a public HS but it was pretty competitive and going to a public school was "basic". Lol @washu being no name. Did you ever visit Berkeley though? It's the most beautiful campus I've ever seen and the facilities are awesome but living there alone was like O_O in terms of cost. California is rather convincing....

HS is getting stupid though. You are either rich enough to opt out of the game by sending your child to a prestigious private HS or you are upper middle class enough to afford the resources for your child to have the ECs necessary to get into the top schools. If you are -a talented but not stellar middle class student or a non highly performing student from low SES then you might as well be playing the lottery.

My public high school had to stop publishing class ranks because it was causing bullying and depression among the top students. WashU is a no name outside this sphere of premeds and college students - the neurologist I shadowed during a summer home in Cali took "in St. Louis" to mean it was an online program. Gunner culture really can start at age 14 and always leaves some impression on you.

Disagree with this though - it takes no money to make A's, 99th percentile scores, or to access good ECs like volunteering, leadership in sports, writing, etc.

 

[alpinism]

You don't agree? Because the whole "half our class comes from HYPSM&co" phenomenon doesn't really happen outside the Top 20

Its not just HYPSM. Generally speaking students from top 50 undergrads (public and private) make up the majority of students at most medical schools. Its less pronounced at lower tier schools, but if you go to any mid or top tier med school you'll see this is the case.

Take UC Irvine (US News #46) for example. You can look at their entering class FB page for 2019 and excluding students who did undergrad at UCI, its basically people from UCLA, UCSD, UC Berkeley, Stanford, Harvard, and Yale with a few other schools mixed in here and there. Those are the 3 best schools in CA + HYS out of literally hundreds of colleges.

Don't forget, there's also a huge variation in public school quality and competitiveness as well as significant variation between majors at the same school. Its really not as simple as HYPSM/Ivy vs everything else.

 

[efle]

@alpinism I guess I haven't said it in a thread with you before: I use HYPSM&Co as a quick way to say really freaking good school with highly qualified students - and I think terms like selective and top refer to many more schools than the USNews top 10-20

What you say makes sense though, Im sure many people capable of a UC medical acceptance were high achievers in high school as reflected by their Alma maters

 

[Cyberdyne 101]

Disagree with this though - it takes no money to make A's, 99th percentile scores, or to access good ECs like volunteering, leadership in sports, writing, etc.

Eh, it's not that simple. Neighborhoods with higher median incomes usually have better public schools, which are more effective at preparing kids for college. On the flip side, in certain areas, some kids aren't even well fed and often fear for their safety. Moreover, it's less likely that they have parents who are invested in their future. $$ does play a role.

 

[efle]

Eh, it's not that simple. Neighborhoods with higher median incomes usually have better public schools, which are more effective at preparing kids for college. On the flip side, in certain areas, some kids aren't even well fed and often fear for their safety. Moreover, it's less likely that they have parents who are invested in their future. $$ does play a role.

My father grew up in these conditions (welfare, single mother, beaten because of skin color etc) and got the **** out to a top engineering school with smarts and hard work. Using a bike and a library card he managed the grades, test scores, and took advantage of part-time job offerings and free clubs (eg captained chess team). I recognize he is in the minority and that I've had a far easier time of it because of money, like getting a PoS but reliable car so i could commute the hour to the better public high, but I stand by what i said. There are those with absolutely humbling ability and work ethic who all on their own give a better showing in high school than any amount of money would give to most people. I think too often on SDN people feel merit is easily substituted with $ or connections which may be true for some EC's (especially the people who get lab time as high schoolers) but the grades/scores/demonstrated passion outside academics isn't something you can purchase for unmotivated and/or unintelligent students. I think I can speak from experience after my years at WashU - impressively sharp minds and strong work ethics are not so easily confused with wealth as some posters seem to think.

 

[WingedOx]

I'd rather see the stakes for college admissions increase than continue to have some of the nations most brilliant students punished in the premed game for surrounding themselves with other brilliant students. How it aught to be viewed/what a GPA demonstrates is what falls out from the numbers not what feels the most comfortable/fair for high schoolers or those financially restricted to State.

Yup, you and your peers are clearly punished and suffering for the privilege for attending one of the world's great educational institutions. How unfair this whole process is! And a special eye roll to the bolded part.

You REALLY need to take a step back and recognize what you sound like when you type this stuff because not only does it sound narcissistic, but it makes you look like you live in an academic bubble*

Hell, I work with a couple WashU grads**, and consider them my good friends. Ms. Ox went to UofChicago. In my own mid-size residency (and I just checked the program website to verify this), I've got people with undergrads from Stanford, Harvard, Yale, NW, 3 other schools in the UAA, one of the top 5 LACs, and 5 of the original 8 "public ivies", and yet I've also got a whole lot of "Second Tier States," "Directional States," "State School that Regularly gets made fun of on the Simpsons/Family Guy," and "College of Where the Hell is That?" The correlation to their intelligence is really f-cking poor. I've got friends who came out of top 10 schools with scholarships to MD schools yet scored on sub-200s on the boards. I've got some insanely intelligent co-workers who got their MDs at WashU and Pritzker (with 250+ on step 1) who both came from undergrads ranked in the triple digits of USNews. I've got friends who I swear I wonder how they even manage to wipe their own ass every morning coming from just about everywhere.

Once you finally step out of your bubble (probably at graduation), you're going to see the reason why your peers aren't given the benefit of the doubt. Chances are you're intelligent if you're at WashU/UofC/wherever, but you sure as hell aren't special for it. You really need to quit acting like you've earned anything just for being at the school you're at. A person's undergrad (mainly) comes from two things: Their HS performance, and their financial means. Neither of which mean a damn thing to medical schools.

...quit while you're ahead.

*particularly when people aren't as anonymous as they think on this site.
**and seriously none of them talk like you do about their educations

 

[WingedOx]

Eh, it's not that simple. Neighborhoods with higher median incomes usually have better public schools, which are more effective at preparing kids for college. On the flip side, in certain areas, some kids aren't even well fed and often fear for their safety. Moreover, it's less likely that they have parents who are invested in their future. $$ does play a role.

Plus, even beyond that, because of a scholarship program at my school, I went to school with a lot of valedictorian kids from rural backgrounds. They weren't poor, but they weren't exactly well-connected either. I remember a double-take at orientation when I had a conversation with a guy that went like this:

him: where you from?
me: [moderately large suburban metro area]
him: Oh, I've been there. It's so weird how you can be driving along in one city and suddenly be in another city without any farmland in between.

...pretty sure he went to dental school when all was said and done.

 

[efle]

Yup, you and your peers are clearly punished and suffering for the privilege for attending one of the world's great educational institutions. How unfair this whole process is! And a special eye roll to the bolded part.

You REALLY need to take a step back and recognize what you sound like when you type this stuff because not only does it sound narcissistic, but it makes you look like you live in an academic bubble*

Hell, I work with a couple WashU grads**, and consider them my good friends. Ms. Ox went to UofChicago. In my own mid-size residency (and I just checked the program website to verify this), I've got people with undergrads from Stanford, Harvard, Yale, NW, 3 other schools in the UAA, one of the top 5 LACs, and 5 of the original 8 "public ivies", and yet I've also got a whole lot of "Second Tier States," "Directional States," "State School that Regularly gets made fun of on the Simpsons/Family Guy," and "College of Where the Hell is That?" The correlation to their intelligence is really f-cking poor. I've got friends who came out of top 10 schools with scholarships to MD schools yet scored on sub-200s on the boards. I've got some insanely intelligent co-workers who got their MDs at WashU and Pritzker (with 250+ on step 1) who both came from undergrads ranked in the triple digits of USNews. I've got friends who I swear I wonder how they even manage to wipe their own ass every morning coming from just about everywhere.

Once you finally step out of your bubble (probably at graduation), you're going to see the reason why your peers aren't given the benefit of the doubt. Chances are you're intelligent if you're at WashU/UofC/wherever, but you sure as hell aren't special for it. You really need to quit acting like you've earned anything just for being at the school you're at. A person's undergrad (mainly) comes from two things: Their HS performance, and their financial means. Neither of which mean a damn thing to medical schools.

...quit while you're ahead.

*particularly when people aren't as anonymous as they think on this site.
**and seriously none of them talk like you do about their educations.

I apologize if I've rustled your jimmies.

As I've said before, none of this applies to me. When I talk about it being unfair or causing some very bright people to drop pursuit of medicine I have a few good friends in mind, that's why I'm such a bitter **** about it, not to repair a narcissistic, sheltered ego after making B's 😉

If there really is no correlation between undergrad and typical student ability, and average at MIT is no different than average at triple digit uni, what do you think is causing the big disparities I've posted the data for? Anything in your anecdotal library to shed light on the differences in populations? Could it be the handfuls of people you know aren't representative of their schools on average? Edit: Especially regarding the bold...if these guys can nail top couple percent on SAT/ACT/MCAT and then score bottom decile on steps, they sound a lot more like outliers than good evidence that the Ivys aren't full of smart kids after all.

I don't think I've ever argued anyone should be entitled to anything for going to some school or another. I've only asked why people don't react/adjust to the differences I've given some evidence do exist.

 

[lifetothefullest]

Yup, you and your peers are clearly punished and suffering for the privilege for attending one of the world's great educational institutions. How unfair this whole process is! And a special eye roll to the bolded part.

I don't think even you would argue that a straight A student at unknown state university could without a doubt pull straight As at MIT. I'm sure you'd have an easier time believing that a straight A student at MIT could pull straight As at unknown state university. But then again, going to a top school gives you access to many more resources and connections - not just in the medical world but also in other fields. So it's not as clearcut as people would like.

In the real world, it's all about reputation. Your employers ask, do I trust this person enough to work in my company or hospital? And where does that trust come from? Maybe it comes from the high marks this person earned in undergrad or med school. Maybe it comes from personal connections this person has with other people who can vouch for them. Maybe it comes from outstanding LORs that speak for the person. When people recommend you or pull strings for you, that's a sign of trust they have in you. Because you could do something immensely stupid and screw them over. In the end, it could be any of these things that matter and so it's a lot more nuanced than "we are punished" or "we aren't." In the end, I think we all start putting too much emphasis on the numbers and not enough on whether upon reading our applicant profiles, a prospective employer or admissions officer would place their trust and reputation on us.

 

[caffeinemia]

This must be what it was like when a bunch of Harvard economists got together to try to assign RVUs to all the procedures in the country. Look what happened... All the sudden, my 7hr free flap is worth as much as a 1 hr percutaneous IVC filter placement or something...ughhh...

********
STOP READING HERE IF YOU CANT DEAL W IVY DOUCHERY. You've been warned.
********

On some level, I agree with at @efle. Even if it's douchey and not-PC, I have to admit it would have been easy to crush the UCs and other state schools. I remember auditing some courses at Cal during the summer before college and it was "lol." And I was crushing UC bound peers back in high school days, so I don't know what would've changed if I went to a UC... I was smarter and worked about 100x harder in college... I wonder if they would have?

Honestly, it's not the course work at these elite schools that makes a huge difference in my mind. It's the common culture that says you need to be self directed, self motivated, and autonomous, and not sweat the small disappointments. We hunt the big game.

The level of competitors at the Ivies and Stanford, MIT, etc, is just unrivaled in this sense. I didn't meet any of the sleep 4-hrs, still be chipper as ****, get straight A's, do a bajillion activities, score a banking job for the summer, until I got to Harvard. Sure, there are people like this at every school - but at these places, everyone is like this, so it becomees your baseline. So yeah, that 3.2 ivy kid is still pretty effing reliable, motivated, and decently intelligent if you ask me. He mostly slipped trying to do too much or take a course that was too advanced. That type of rat race made med school, residency, life way easy. I mean -- keeping an 8 to 10 hour/day MTWThF study schedule in pre clinical years was "lol" compared to college. Really? You had 6-8 weeks to study for usmle and had no other distractions and it's "the hardest test" you've ever taken? I took my calculus test after staying up write a paper on this d-bag named Kant and then went and organized a couple of lab experiments and a trip to Asia for 30 students for 10 days. Why? Cuz if I didn't, there were three other jerkwads applying for the position. (FYI, That's also why AMCAS applications and any other application is a joke. I've been "applying" myself to things since pre-frosh social committee).

 

[efle]

it would have been easy to crush the UCs and other state schools. I remember auditing some courses at Cal during the summer before college and it was "lol." And I was crushing UC bound peers back in high school days, so I don't know what would've changed if I went to a UC... I was smarter and worked about 100x harder in college... I wonder if they would have?

Strongly disagree with this - things must have changed since you were in high school. Places like Cal and UCLA have student bodies nearly as qualified as Ivies now and deflate quite a bit more. I do NOT think you'd see a big jump in grades earned per MCAT performance if you compared from HYSM etc vs Berkeley.

Plus this rant as a whole is like a throwback to that thread on Top 30 vs rando state school...just a bunch of anecdotal narcissism that contributes no more than WingedOx's did

 

[caffeinemia]

Strongly disagree with this - things must have changed since you were in high school. Places like Cal and UCLA have student bodies nearly as qualified as Ivies now and deflate quite a bit more. I do NOT think you'd see a big jump in grades earned per MCAT performance if you compared from HYSM etc vs Berkeley.

Plus this rant as a whole is like a throwback to that thread on Top 30 vs rando state school...just a bunch of anecdotal narcissism that contributes no more than WingedOx's did

Anectdotal wouldn't explain why my classmates consistently make up the top level mgmt in government, finance, business, medicine. I guess unless everyone has the same anecdote. At which point it becomes common knowledge. You can keep bemoaning the privilege I've lived. It's just too bad you're in trouble when most of us have the intelligence to back up the privilege. You can work hard as you want to get where you are, and good for you too. I applaud it. If you wanna whine that you have to work harder to get where I am, then too bad. I played the game harder and better than you then.

 

[caffeinemia]

Places like Cal and UCLA have student bodies nearly as qualified as Ivies now.

also lol, at your naivete. sell that to the parents and students who vy for these ivies over these places. sell it to the corporations picking the ivies grads over other places. Court of public opinion ... Say 50000 "anectdotes" x 10 schools per year beats your whine.

 

[efle]

@caffeinemia The graduates of Cal also do very well in life, and they grab many people who also hold Ivy acceptances. The rest of your posts I just don't follow at all.

 

[lifetothefullest]

The level of competitors at the Ivies and Stanford, MIT, etc, is just unrivaled in this sense.

I really agree with your argument in principle. However, like the guy above, I don't agree with the specific example you used because Berkeley is obviously very competitive. As is U of Michigan, U of Illinois in certain fields, etc. Those "state" schools have competition that, if not at the same level as the Ivies, is pretty damn close. But in principle, the argument that Ivies are much more competitive than other state schools I agree with.

Anectdotal wouldn't explain why my classmates consistently make up the top level mgmt in government, finance, business, medicine.

Well, the reason your classmates consistently go into those top positions has a lot more to do with the connections afforded to them at the Ivies than one would get at a state school, even Berkeley. The level of networking is just unreal - taking classes taught by Nobel Laureates, former high-level government officials, etc. Not to mention that the political elite tend to send their children to top Ivies anyway, so your student body is already biased towards having good political connections.

I have just one question for you (it's one that I've been wondering about for some time now): how does Harvard curve its science classes? To an A- or B+?

 

[justadream]

I really agree with your argument in principle. However, like the guy above, I don't agree with the specific example you used because Berkeley is obviously very competitive. As is U of Michigan, U of Illinois in certain fields, etc. Those "state" schools have competition that, if not at the same level as the Ivies, is pretty damn close. But in principle, the argument that Ivies are much more competitive than other state schools I agree with.



Well, the reason your classmates consistently go into those top positions has a lot more to do with the connections afforded to them at the Ivies than one would get at a state school, even Berkeley. The level of networking is just unreal - taking classes taught by Nobel Laureates, former high-level government officials, etc. Not to mention that the political elite tend to send their children to top Ivies anyway, so your student body is already biased towards having good political connections.

I have just one question for you (it's one that I've been wondering about for some time now): how does Harvard curve its science classes? To an A- or B+?

This is not Harvard but someone I know at Stanford says that most BCPM are curved to B (and B+ at best).

 

[efle]

I have just one question for you (it's one that I've been wondering about for some time now): how does Harvard curve its science classes? To an A- or B+?

1) that may have changed slightly in the 6-10 years since he was taking prereqs there. What we know for sure is that in 2013 the all-school most common grade was an A, median A-
2) I'd love a thread where people posted their school and the typical grading used in prereqs, be pretty interesting to see how big or little the differences are, I've heard some pretty nightmarish ones about 100 people class and the highest grade given was B- etc