GPA and the importance of undergraduate school reputation?

[Ypo.]

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Hello all,
I've read a lot of conflicting opinions on the importance adcoms place on a schools reputation when considering a GPA. Some people think it weighs heavily in making acceptance decisions, and some think it weighs hardly at all. I searched for a thread dedicated to this topic (under school reputation and GPA) but had no luck-forgive me if I am repeating earlier discussion.

I'm curious to hear some more about this topic-lets get some real informative discussion here.

 

[CheerChickMD69]

Would a 3.06 from an Ivy get me into med school?

 

[Ypo.]

Would a 3.06 from an Ivy get me into med school?

If you score really high on the MCAT. Otherwise, I think most people on this forum would recommend that you take some more undergraduate science classes to bring up your GPA, and also apply to a masters program. Both of those things will increase your chances of acceptance, even if you don't score a 40r on the MCAT.
BTW, you will find a lot more info about this if you do a search-youll find it to be more informative.
Is that really your picture????

 

[CheerChickMD69]

If you score really high on the MCAT. Otherwise, I think most people on this forum would recommend that you take some more undergraduate science classes to bring up your GPA, and also apply to a masters program. Both of those things will increase your chances of acceptance, even if you don't score a 40r on the MCAT.
BTW, you will find a lot more info about this if you do a search-youll find it to be more informative.
Is that really your picture????

Well, I still have another 2 and maybe 3 years of college left so hopefully I'll pull up my gpa a little. Up until now though I've been struggling to maintain B's.

And yes it's my picture lol 😛

 

[stillpremed]

a 3.06 might get you into med school
but brush up on the pose, and your gpa could look better

 

[Chiku]

Yeah I am wondering about this too. I have a 3.5 science GPA from a top 5 liberal arts school and a friend has a 3.57 from a state school. He got a secondary from NYU and I got screened out...does this mean that it really doesn't matter what school you went to. Man if this is the case I should have gone to my state school. 🙄

 

[Chiku]

focus on the thread people...oh no my eyes are wandering...damn you and your picture...69? what?

 

[Ypo.]

focus on the thread people...oh no my eyes are wandering...damn you and your picture

LOL!
Yeah, shes a hotty.
In response to your previous post-are you a New York resident? Just wondering because last year I got rejected pre-secondary from Wayne State in MI and this year they did send me a secondary. The only thing that has changed with my app was that I switched my residency back to Michigan. I hope that is the case for you. I, too went to a really good liberal arts college.

 

[Chiku]

um no but neither is he and we both have the same MCAT...I think NYU is a private school so it shouldnt matter what state I am from I guess

 

[Ypo.]

You didn't even get a secondary?

 

[Ypo.]

Dang, that really sucks. Who knows, maybe someone will enlighten us.

 

[Chiku]

no doesn't that suck... I have a 3.5 and a 30 MCAT...at a top five liberal arts school...damn NYU...they said that I am not "screened out" yet...right

 

[Ypo.]

Confused now. So you are still waiting for a secondary and haven't recieved a rejection letter-is this correct?

 

[Haybrant]

Well, I still have another 2 and maybe 3 years of college left so hopefully I'll pull up my gpa a little. Up until now though I've been struggling to maintain B's.

And yes it's my picture lol 😛

If you want to know how to do well and get good grades message me; i have the formula for this kinda thing down...

 

[Chiku]

they said that I was not invited to complete the secondary at this time...so I called to get some feedback and they said that my app wasn't competitive enough...they said that I might receive one later.

 

[Ypo.]

they said that I was not invited to complete the secondary at this time...so I called to get some feedback and they said that my app wasn't competitive enough...they said that I might receive one later.

Thats obnoxious-you sound competetive enough to me.

 

[Pinkertinkle]

they said that I was not invited to complete the secondary at this time...so I called to get some feedback and they said that my app wasn't competitive enough...they said that I might receive one later.

That ain't right at all, but it does attest to the fact that computer screens don't care too much about where you got your GPA, so as far as screens go, a 3.8 from state is better than a 3.5 from a top school, despite the fact that it may not be.

 

[Medikit]

Schools usually measure your GPA by using your mcat rather than analyzing the instution. Some schools will specifically say that they will examine the rigor of your institution when they look at your GPA.

 

[thewzdoc]

Like Medkit said?if your GPA is high but your MCAT is low then the red flags go up?..they don?t raise them if the see that you went to a community college for a few semesters?..

 

[Ypo.]

Thanks for the responses everyone-keep 'em comin'.

So some schools specifically consider the rep of your undergrad? Hmmm... interesting. How do they measure the reputation or rigor? I mean how would they keep up to date with that kind of thing? It can vary from teacher to teacher for cryin out loud! It did at my school.

 

[thewzdoc]

Thanks for the responses everyone-keep 'em comin'.

So some schools specifically consider the rep of your undergrad? Hmmm... interesting. How do they measure the reputation or rigor? I mean how would they keep up to date with that kind of thing? It can vary from teacher to teacher for cryin out loud! It did at my school.

The schools are nationally ranked?.some snob MED schools do look down their nose at some other schools. Don?t worry about it?if you didn?t go to the right schools to begin with they won?t even know you are alive?.application or no?.

Like I said, med schools in general just look at the whole person.... 👍

 

[Ypo.]

Thanks.
But I'm just DYING of curiousity over here-who is this mysterious Jebus???

 

[uclabruin2003]

yes it totally sucks to have gone to a more challenging school than others. but hey at least you got something out of it. i think that most schools do not care where you go to as long as your gpa is high. so a 3.6 from a nowhere school probably looks better than a 3.2 at an ivy. also remember that these numbers form the basis of US News rankings.....so you dont want to have too many low gpas in your class....cuz its not like you can asterik the gpa and tell the reader that 95% of them went to really hard schools...lol

 

[mdsh00]

I think preference for Ugrads do exist. I had asked the Stanford Dean (Garcia) this question a while back. He says that they look at their "experience" with students from a specific undergrad. So this doesn't mean there is a formula, but if the adcoms past experience with, say UCLA students, is good...then they would put that into consideration. I believe this because time and time again, you can see patterns from medical schools who accept a lot of undergrads from specific schools.

 

[Peterock]

The schools are nationally ranked?.some snob MED schools do look down their nose at some other schools. Don?t worry about it?if you didn?t go to the right schools to begin with they won?t even know you are alive?.application or no?.

Like I said, med schools in general just look at the whole person.... 👍

Snob med schools. Last time I checked, most medical schools were filled with snobs. The worst students in my snobby ugrad major were smarter and better in school than at least 80% of the people from my HS; and my HS sends roughly 95% of their students to some type of four year school.

You guys talk about gpa's and mcat scores and hate acknowledging that there are ugrads where the average premed gets a 30 and other places where people get a 20. As if getting an A at a school where the ave. premed is getting a higher MCAT score than the ave. med student. BTW - my major had 60% of its students going to medical school and another 30% going to graduate school (think oxford, duke, upenn etc).

The comment about medical school looking at the whole person is laughable. It's MCAT + GPA. You can spice up your app with research, community service and clinical exposure, but barring years of these other things, they really don't add up to more than 25% of your application.

Your middle class life story can't be that different from everyoen else's and you are not that special - that goes for everyone. Disadvantaged status for the most part is worthless. Looking at the whole applicant only implies skin tone.

 

[IndyZX]

Snob med schools. Last time I checked, most medical schools were filled with snobs. The worst students in my snobby ugrad major were smarter and better in school than at least 80% of the people from my HS; and my HS sends roughly 95% of their students to some type of four year school.

You guys talk about gpa's and mcat scores and hate acknowledging that there are ugrads where the average premed gets a 30 and other places where people get a 20. As if getting an A at a school where the ave. premed is getting a higher MCAT score than the ave. med student. BTW - my major had 60% of its students going to medical school and another 30% going to graduate school (think oxford, duke, upenn etc).

WOWIE!!!!

 

[freaker]

Hmmm... interesting. How do they measure the reputation or rigor? I mean how would they keep up to date with that kind of thing? It can vary from teacher to teacher for cryin out loud! It did at my school.

Take the average GPA of a school's applicants and weigh it against the average MCAT. Low MCAT+high GPA = non-rigorous school.

A school with LOW GPA + HIGH MCAT will be considered more rigorous. Or simply look at the average GPA for an instituiton's matriculating class (schools keep records of this) and compare it to the average MCAT.

 

[Peterock]

All of this is hearsay. Do the math. Some schools look at school rep, some don't. And in some cases it can hurt you.

ECU takes 1/4 of it's class from it's ugrad even though it's ugrad is definitely a below ave. college. They take more people from Wake, UNC, ECU, and NC State than Duke, even though Duke pushes out more (or the same number) of premeds than any of the schools I've listed. So in this case, the prestige (cough cough richness) hurts.

Wake Forest on the other hand listed that it takes 40 people from NC. 34 of 40 being from Duke, Wake, UNC, and Davidson (2).... the other 6 people from NC were not accounted for meaning that those 6 people did not overlap.

Vanderbilt lists the ugrads and number of people accepted every year. Pretty much most top 20 schools discriminate like crazy based on ugrad b/c they can. Vandy definitely has tons of elite ugrad students attending a sprinkling of other places.

Outside of the top 20, I don't think the hardest major and school possible gets more than a +.2 boost, if they get anythign at all. It's hard to tell if elite ugrad students get an edge or just have much higher MCAT scores.

 

[Ypo.]

The comment about medical school looking at the whole person is laughable. It's MCAT + GPA. You can spice up your app with research, community service and clinical exposure, but barring years of these other things, they really don't add up to more than 25% of your application.

Your middle class life story can't be that different from everyoen else's and you are not that special - that goes for everyone. Disadvantaged status for the most part is worthless. Looking at the whole applicant only implies skin tone.[/QUOTE]

You know, I kinda feel sorry for you-you live a very harsh existence.

I really don't think that you'll get accepted into med school with a high MCAT and high GPA if you haven't had any clinical experience or exposure to the practice of medicine. If you can, then I'm really scared now.

I agree with the person who said-low GPA from a good school and high MCAT is more favorable than high GPA from unknown school and a low MCAT.
It probably (definitely) also depends on the medical school.

I just don't want anyone to get discouraged out there, adcoms (except the ones that Peterock is applying to, obviously) will look at the human part of you-once you pass the initial screening.

I don't know about others, but I wouldn't want to go to a medical school that only cares about my GPA and MCAT, nor would I want to be around medical students who only care about getting the best grade.

Those kinds of schools are not for me-good thing cause I know I don't have a chance anyway. 😛

 

[principessa]

Wow. Peterock = bitter.

Anyway, there are lots of ways that schools consider undergrad reputation. Some use a formula to adjust the applicant's GPA - lower for less competitive schools, higher for more competitive schools. This could be based on average MCAT scores from the undergrad, or ranking, or maybe some scale made up by the med school itself. Beyond adjusting the GPA, schools consider their previous experience with students from the same undergrad. They are more likely to accept students from a particular undergrad if they've had good experience with other students from the same undergrad. Then there is something that might make a difference in some cases - when you come to interview, some schools purposefully match you up with an interviewer with whom you have something in common. Often this will be someone who graduated from your college. You can imagine that such a person would tend to like people coming from their alma mater and would be more likely to recommend their admission.

Remember, this is only part of the package. This does not mean that graduates of top 20 schools are guaranteed admission or that graduates of lower tier schools are out in the cold. For the person who hasn't yet received the NYU secondary invite, keep in mind that there are other factors besides GPA, MCAT and undergrad rep. I don't know what NYU uses to screen applicants, but it's possible that your friend has something else in his application that they're considering.

 

[Chiku]

I think that my application is a lot stronger than his as a whole. Truthfully, I think that NYU is just relying on the computer to spit out a bunch of names for the credentionals they are looking for...nothing else.

 

[willthatsall]

I think that my application is a lot stronger than his as a whole. Truthfully, I think that NYU is just relying on the computer to spit out a bunch of names for the credentionals they are looking for...nothing else.

Do you have the same breakdown on your 30's?

 

[Peterock]

Wow. Peterock = bitter.

No ****.

 

[jlee9531]

oh peter.... haha
ill get back to this thread later. i gotta go to work.
but it is true, there are some schools that look at you as a whole, but a lot others that focus mostly in on the members. its a sad fact, but at least there are signs that it is changing slowly.

a lot of med schools do take your ugrad's reputation into account, both positively and negatively. peter mentioned a negative one of course with the relationship between ecu and duke, but if you come from a program that is consistently recognized as being rigorous as a whole, your lower gpa will be somewhat compensated. it only helps to score well on the mcat to show that your gpa is a result of your school's competitiveness and difficulty and not a lack of knowledge. for example...applicants from berkeley have a lower avg gpa than other colleges, but our MCAT scores are among the highest. this exists at other colleges as well and med schools do make a mental note of it. it came up during interviews all the time with me. but anyways...i am late for work.

 

[aparecida]

I remember reading somewhere that some medical schools who get a lot of applicants from a particular ugrad institution may even account for particular professors who grade harder than other professors. As far as the larger debate going on in this thread ... most premed applicants look, quite frankly, a lot alike on paper. The number of applicants each school must get with a biology major, ~3.4-3.8GPA, ~30-38 MCAT, volunteer experience in a hospital and a bit of research or lab work? Astronomical.

The question is how schools distinguish between them. It seems that NYU is basically going for highest GPA first ... many schools claim they distinguish between candidates by looking at the essay, LORs, etc., but frankly it seems to me like it's all too often a roll of the dice. I think we also end up with somewhat skewed opinions here because all we can really compare with each other here is our GPA and MCAT scores; we're not comparing our essays, so we don't have any way of knowing to what extent schools are actually using them in the process. Essays may be more important than we think. Or less.

 

[principessa]

but it is true, there are some schools that look at you as a whole, but a lot others that focus mostly in on the members.

They focus on the members? 😱

 

[Maybeknot]

I remember reading somewhere that some medical schools who get a lot of applicants from a particular ugrad institution may even account for particular professors who grade harder than other professors.

That sounds implausible to me. There's nowhere on the AMCAS (or my academic transcript) that lists which professor taught the course. I don't think adcoms are really going to go out of their way to try to find this information.

 

[Medikit]

Your middle class life story can't be that different from everyoen else's and you are not that special - that goes for everyone. Disadvantaged status for the most part is worthless. Looking at the whole applicant only implies skin tone.

🙁

 

[NubianPrincess]

There weren't enough loans in the world to make a school with a better reputation affordable to me. Ok maybe there were, but I wasn't approved for them

 

[MEG@COOL]

Hello all,
I've read a lot of conflicting opinions on the importance adcoms place on a schools reputation when considering a GPA. Some people think it weighs heavily in making acceptance decisions, and some think it weighs hardly at all. I searched for a thread dedicated to this topic (under school reputation and GPA) but had no luck-forgive me if I am repeating earlier discussion.

I'm curious to hear some more about this topic-lets get some real informative discussion here.

My premed advisor said that your chances of getting into medschool are about 0. He didnt say this directly about you, but just a general statement about people like you.

 

[Caribou]

People like who, Meg@cool?

 

[Long Dong]

They focus on the members? 😱

Does it help if you have a gold member?

 

[Ypo.]

My premed advisor said that your chances of getting into medschool are about 0. He didnt say this directly about you, but just a general statement about people like you.

Well, thanks for the comment-I'll be sure to file that away. 🙄 But actually-if you'd paid attention to the topic of this thread-you'd realize its not about my chances of getting accepted-its a question about -well-you go back and do your homework for yourself.

I can't help but responding here - Its a funny thing but I've talked with the assistant deans (not just premedical advisors) from several of the medical schools that I applied to this year-and they told me my chances of acceptance are very good. So when I am accepted, I'll be sure to post the good news on SDN, as well as sending an encouragement to "people like me" letting them know that they can do it, too. 😛

I really feel concern for the future of America's doctors when people like you open their mouths.

 

[tgerwuds]

OK, so I would like to get back onto the real topic of this thread.

I go to the University of Texas at Austin (which is might the most difficult school (minus Rice of course) to get into in Texas.

I know that most Texas students, both at UT and at other TX institutions, go to Texas medical schools.

By yall's logic, does this hurt those from TX schools applying to, let's say top ten schools???

 

[Medikit]

By yall's logic, does this hurt those from TX schools applying to, let's say top ten schools???

Only if you say "yall" during an interview.

 

[rgporter]

I agree with the person who said-low GPA from a good school and high MCAT is more favorable than high GPA from unknown school and a low MCAT.
It probably (definitely) also depends on the medical school.

Well of course it is because the MCAT trumps the GPA. A better comparison would be high MCAT for both parties and a high GPA from the state school and a low GPA from an Ivy. It just so happens that I have experience with this.
One of the people I used to hang out with in my home state had a 3.2 or so from Cornell, I have a 3.85 from the University of Utah. We both scored exactly the same on the MCAT (pretty high, but not unbelievable). I recieved multiple acceptances the first time I applied, he gave up after applying for 3 years with no sucess. It holds little statistical value, being only a single incidence, but in my personal experience GPA is worth more than quality of institution.

I just don't want anyone to get discouraged out there, adcoms (except the ones that Peterock is applying to, obviously) will look at the human part of you-once you pass the initial screening.

I agree, once you hit the interview everything but the numbers gain importance, especially how you come off in your interview.

I don't know about others, but I wouldn't want to go to a medical school that only cares about my GPA and MCAT, nor would I want to be around medical students who only care about getting the best grade.

You have just described a set that includes only the caribean and foreign medical schools.
JK, kind of. MCAT and GPA will be the single most important thing for you to get in at any US MD or DO school. Although there are always the stories about the URM with horrible stats who gets into school somewhere. I've never personally known one but URM's are scarce in Utah. 😀

 

[Dr Dean]

blah blah blah

 

[rgporter]

blah blah blah

ROOAAAAAARRRRRRRR. 😉

 

[principessa]

OK, so I would like to get back onto the real topic of this thread.

I go to the University of Texas at Austin (which is might the most difficult school (minus Rice of course) to get into in Texas.

I know that most Texas students, both at UT and at other TX institutions, go to Texas medical schools.

By yall's logic, does this hurt those from TX schools applying to, let's say top ten schools???

Your MCAT is borderline for someone applying to top 10's from a state school (besides Berkely, etc.), so I'd say your best chances would be at top 20 but not top 10 schools, and of course your state schools. That doesn't mean that top 10's are out, though. They just might not be all over you.

As for most people in Texas going to Texas schools, I don't think this will hurt you. Outside of California, most people from in-state will end up at their state school, but top med schools still take people from all over the place.

 

[tgerwuds]

Your MCAT is borderline for someone applying to top 10's from a state school (besides Berkely, etc.), so I'd say your best chances would be at top 20 but not top 10 schools, and of course your state schools. That doesn't mean that top 10's are out, though. They just might not be all over you.

As for most people in Texas going to Texas schools, I don't think this will hurt you. Outside of California, most people from in-state will end up at their state school, but top med schools still take people from all over the place.

a chance is all I need

Thanks!