Extra points for a tough school?

[goatvet]

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Hi Guys
Just curious if anyone has heard of vet schools giving consideration to a lower gpa if it came from a "tougher" (whether or not that reputation was actually deserved) school?

 

[MSUspartan]

it depends on the school. i know some do consider 'course rigor' (i think tufts is one of them) but schools like Michigan State don't. in fact, an admissions counselor from MSU told me that a 2.0 from a community college would be the exact same to them as a 2.0 from a school like harvard. not necessarily fair, but that's the policy.

 

[BlacKAT33]

"tougher" like ivy league? well, i doubt it. Besides, ive heard so many things about grade inflation at ivy league schools. From what i can tell on SDN when we talk about avg grades for orgo or other comparable courses, schools all across the country have the same low avg, IMO i dont think an ivy league school would be harder (but what do i know? i went to a state school lol) But if you got into an ivy league school for undergrad your SATs should be extremely high which means your GREs should also be extremely high which would help you out. Maybe if you had the exact same stats and experiences as someone and it came down to the line they mayyyyyy take it into consideration, but i seriously doubt it would come down to that since most people's experiences and eLORs are very different

 

[jaytee09]

Yes, there are some schools that take into account the academic rigor associated with an undergraduate institution. Cornell and Penn are the two schools that first come to mind (I believe that Cornell actually assigns 5% of your application's strength to academic rigor, whereas with Penn there's no strict formula).

 

[goatvet]

Thanks guys--yeah I totally agree that it's unfair (because I'm sure the courses aren't harder)--I did my undergrad at a UC school and had a nice gpa and then went to this stupid post-bac at Penn (while there may be inflation in the undergrad programs, I sure haven't seen any of it in this post-bacc haha) and now my gpa is not quite as nice. I wasn't prepared at all for the toughness of the curve--no excuses it was my own fault but I was just wondering if I had a shot in hell of getting in this cycle.

 

[deleted266066]

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[goatvet]

Yay for you for getting A's--that's awesome no matter how much effort you put in! I have my heart set on any place that will turn me into a vet in 4 years 🙂 But thank you for the advice and perhaps if I had done my due diligence as you had I would not be in this silly predicament 😳

 

[deleted266066]

These schools are all so crazy different in what they a) look for in applicants and b) require you to have completed to be an eligible applicant in the first place. There is literally no pleasing *everyone* so ultimately you apply to places that most match your application and hope for the best 🙂

 

[moosenanny]

In Mizzou's formula, they specifically count "motivation points." These are based on school rigor and/or heaviness of course-load, according to what I've gleaned from Kathy Seay during Application Workshops.

From personal experience, I think having gone to a well-ranked, rigorous school definitely helped.

 

[gone2dogs]

Just for kicks, for the schools that do acknowledge the difficulty of an undergrad school, how do they know which ones were more rigorous? I mean I know I went to a relatively prestigious small college, but I honestly have no idea how hard the grading and rigor were. I do know that every undergrad level class I have taken since then has been much easier, but I sort of attributed that to me just being a better student now than I was 15 years ago.

Just curious, since of course I can't change the school I went to or my GPA now!

 

[BlacKAT33]

Just for kicks, for the schools that do acknowledge the difficulty of an undergrad school, how do they know which ones were more rigorous? I mean I know I went to a relatively prestigious small college, but I honestly have no idea how hard the grading and rigor were. I do know that every undergrad level class I have taken since then has been much easier, but I sort of attributed that to me just being a better student now than I was 15 years ago.

Just curious, since of course I can't change the school I went to or my GPA now!

Well, i guess they are familiar with most schools and their rankings.

I really think most schools though look at which courses you took for academic rigor, not just the school you went to. If you went to a state school and took all your pre-reqs and a ton of upper level sci courses i'm sure you'd score high in academic rigor section. If you went to an ivy league school and barely took any upper level sci courses you could still possibly score low.

My first post in this thread i was really talking about the school itself for academic rigor. I dont think just going to an ivy league can score you a ton of points when applying. I think taking upper level sci courses is looked at more than just the school attended

 

[Minnerbelle]

Just for kicks, for the schools that do acknowledge the difficulty of an undergrad school, how do they know which ones were more rigorous? I mean I know I went to a relatively prestigious small college, but I honestly have no idea how hard the grading and rigor were. I do know that every undergrad level class I have taken since then has been much easier, but I sort of attributed that to me just being a better student now than I was 15 years ago.

Just curious, since of course I can't change the school I went to or my GPA now!

I went to a small liberal arts college which specifically has a set grade-deflation policy. My school sends out a notice with our transcripts explaining it, and at least with Tufts, Cornell, and Penn it's a well known fact (at least from what I've been told). A part of it might also be because the pre-health advisor stays in regular touch with the adcoms for these schools. A majority of the pre-vet students send in committee letters through the pre-health advisory board for the above schools as well, and I'm pretty sure that the cover letter really emphasizes that a 3.4 in the sciences in my school is REALLY good. In a given course, there may be 1 or 2 people with A's. Part of that is because of the grade deflation policy (average grade for a course can't exceed B+) though most of it is that almost every science course has a brutal mandatory lab. I've had courses where lab instructors would spend 30 min - 1 hr grading each and every lab report, which meant they took off points for every. single. mistake. I was at least told that this type of thing would be explained in the committee letter if it wasn't addressed in my LORs. So I guess I owe a lot of thanks to the people who advertised my good but not excellent GPA on my behalf.

 

[Minnerbelle]

Hi Guys
Just curious if anyone has heard of vet schools giving consideration to a lower gpa if it came from a "tougher" (whether or not that reputation was actually deserved) school?

I think it really depends on how low the gpa was. A 3.0 from the "toughest" university (whatever that means) is not likely to impress anyone, whereas a 4.0 from the "easiest" university will still impress adcoms anywhere.

I think it only really helps if you're kind of borderline to be honest, and if it's just down to deciding between you and another student with similar stats.

If you had a really bad downward trend with your post-bac, then that might raise red flags. But if it's like you had a 3.8 at your UC school and 3.5 at Penn or something, I wouldn't worry about it at all.

 

[StartingoverVet]

For kicks you can take a look at the accepted applicants to UCDavis this year. They listed the applicants and acceptances for all schools in California. There is a HUGE bias to the UC system schools (higher quality) vs the Cal State schools (medium/low quality). They may not say they take the school you come from into account but they certainly do.

 

[quantized]

For kicks you can take a look at the accepted applicants to UCDavis this year. They listed the applicants and acceptances for all schools in California. There is a HUGE bias to the UC system schools (higher quality) vs the Cal State schools (medium/low quality). They may not say they take the school you come from into account but they certainly do.

To be fair though, that was only main undergrad institution. I went to one of those state ones for most of my prereqs but they listed me under my original undergrad degree institution. I felt kinda bad about the school's zero acceptances on that list as it's really not that bad of a school - they just have no money and lots of *****s who go there for 13 years without graduating.

Going to top ranked and rigorous schools has opened a lot of doors for me, but I can't really say there's much of a difference between the educations of all the schools I went to other than funding and the amount of students and faculty who care. I've had difficult and well taught courses at a poorly ranked state school and horrible classes where I learned nothing at top tier schools. School is what you make of it and I think that comes through pretty well to adcoms when they look at the big picture of your whole application and the trends of your grades and activities. If a school is known for being rigorous, it's not like it's a secret and having your gpa a couple tenths lower wont make anyone look twice as long as the rest of your application is reasonable.

 

[Minnerbelle]

For kicks you can take a look at the accepted applicants to UCDavis this year. They listed the applicants and acceptances for all schools in California. There is a HUGE bias to the UC system schools (higher quality) vs the Cal State schools (medium/low quality). They may not say they take the school you come from into account but they certainly do.

yeah I was pretty shocked at those statistics as well. note to CA residents: i guess the "go where it's the cheapest for undergrad cause it don't matter" thing doesn't apply to Davis.

 

[nyanko]

I like how you guys are looking at raw numbers and assuming that it means that the school name was a factor.

SOV you're going to a vet school that all but openly admits to being biased towards more "rigorous" schools. Go where it's cheapest definitely doesn't apply for Penn. 😉

 

[BlacKAT33]

This is actually a FAQ on Penns site

"10) Do you admit students from some schools more readily than others?
An entering class represents from 75 to 85 different colleges and universities. A cluster of students always comes from Pennsylvania State University and from the University of Pennsylvania. While several schools have three or four students admitted, most have only one or two representatives. Choose a competitive school and, most importantly, do well."


Now, goatvet, i dont think you have anything to worry about unless you completely bombed your post-bac. Also, you'd be applying to Penn IS right? better chances. as long as you got 3.5 or above in your post bac i dont think you should worry too much. But of course it always depends on which classes you took, how many, if you were doin research during it...so many factors. I should also say that Penn really looks hard at your transcript and trends. I managed to get in with multiple Cs and a W, oh jeez lol it's a miracle! haha

 

[goatvet]

Sadly I did sort of bomb my postbac. I am embarrassed to post my stats because of all the insanely intelligent science-geniuses on here (just kidding--I know you all worked your butts off!). I have about a 3.2 (maybe a 3.25 if I do well in biochem this summer) at Penn--so while my cumulative GPA (at least in undergrad it was a 3.6 although after I factor in the postbac it'll go down) is probably high enough to be kind of competitive, my science gpa is not--and I know how bad that looks. I had A's or A-'s in all the bios and bio electives but straight B's in the chem and physics. I will be instate at Penn but I honestly don't have a preference for any vet school so I'd be happy to go anywhere. BlacKat--good for you for getting in! That's awesome and maybe just maybe I can get in sooooomewhere .

 

[StartingoverVet]

I like how you guys are looking at raw numbers and assuming that it means that the school name was a factor.

SOV you're going to a vet school that all but openly admits to being biased towards more "rigorous" schools. Go where it's cheapest definitely doesn't apply for Penn. 😉

You make those sound like bad things!

* Better to use raw data to make a conclusion than to make a conclusion without any data, dontcha think?

* Some of us like a bias towards rigorous schools. Gotta get something out of attending a competitive undergrad school.

* And Davis is hardly better these days for cost. I/S 30k vs 32k O/S 42k vs 44k. I betcha Davis is higher than Penn by the time we graduate!

 

[bruinvetman]

better not to make a conclusion. Perhaps the applicants from CSU schools had lower gpa's than UCs and perhaps there were just more applicants in general from UCs (which there were). And just from looking at those stats, UC santa cruz seems more prestigious than berkeley.

 

[david594]

Always remember that there is also the human interpretation component of your application. Just because they don't have a formal 2% being based on school rigor doesn't mean it won't be in your reviewers mind "Wow, they wen't to a really impressive undergrad."

I didn't think anything of my undergrad, which is somewhat of a niche school on the other side of the country, during my interview until the interviewer pointed out they had a college age family member was really hoping to get in there.

 

[StartingoverVet]

better not to make a conclusion. Perhaps the applicants from CSU schools had lower gpa's than UCs and perhaps there were just more applicants in general from UCs (which there were). And just from looking at those stats, UC santa cruz seems more prestigious than berkeley.

Yeah, better to ignore what you don't like than to draw a reasonable conclusion....

Has nothing to do with the # of applicants but the ratio of applicants to acceptances. You can try to explain it however you want, but the fact is there is an overwhelming bias to the numbers of UC system vs CSU system (as it probably should be). The simplest and most logical assumption is that there is a preference. Believe what you want.

For those who want to view for themselves:
http://www.vetmed.ucdavis.edu/studentprograms/class_2014/pdfs/app_stats_2014.pdf

 

[bruinvetman]

so whatever you do, don't go to uc irvine cause davis has it out for them.

 

[nyanko]

You can try to explain it however you want, but the fact is there is an overwhelming bias to the numbers of UC system vs CSU system (as it probably should be). The simplest and most logical assumption is that there is a preference.

This is erroneous because we don't have enough information to interpret the variance between the numbers. To be able to attach a portion of this variance to the school name, you need to be able to compare such things as IS/OOS status (UCDavis's biggest consideration - are there likely to be more OOSers at CSU schools or UC schools?), GPA/GRE scores (UC schools have higher average high school GPA/SAT scores, so does it follow that their ugrad GPA or GRE is higher?), exposure to relevant research or rec letter writers (probably more of this at doctoral granting institutions - ie UC schools), and so many other factors. If all of those things end up being statistically equal and an imbalance still exists, you could maybe quantify a subjective bias. Otherwise you're just spouting conjecture.

 

[BlacKAT33]

lol, i am so lost in this argument!! i read about 1 post every 4 hrs and i forget the details each time. too lazy to go back.