This year about 40% of the students accepted into <a href="http://209.209.34.25/webdocs/admissions/tucominfo.htm" target="_blank">Touro University's class of 2005</a> were from the University of California (UC) system. The class of '05 also had students who got their Bachelor's at Cornell, Stanford, and Brown University.
The UCs had 5 schools (UC Berkeley, UCLA, UC San Diego, UC Davis, and UC Irvine) <a href="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/natudoc/natudoc_pubs.htm" target="_blank">ranked in the top 10 of the nation's public schools</a> according to US News & World Report. UC Berkeley was ranked as the top public school in the nation. Including all the schools in the nation (public and private), <a href="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/college/rankings/natudoc/tier1/t1natudoc.htm" target="_blank">the UCs had six schools ranked in the top 50</a> (UC Berkeley, UC San Diego, UCLA, UC Irvine, UC Davis, and UC Santa Barbara). UC Berkeley, UC Davis, and UCLA were the schools with the most matriculating students into TUCOM.
At TUCOM, applicants who do not have both a 3.0 and a 24 on the MCAT are automatically rejected without a secondary. <a href="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/edu/grad/dir-med/admis_04147.htm" target="_blank">The average statistics of TUCOM students are: GPA: 3.5 and MCAT: 9.0 (V-8.3, P-9.4, B-9.3).</a> While the average statistics have remained the same, the caliber of the undergraduates has increased.
I am sure that there are people who have been accepted with low GPAs and MCATs, but then there must've been people with stellar GPAs and MCATs to balance them out for the average GPAs and MCATs that you see listed. I don't think that a few anecdotal examples say as much as averages do.
I have seen examples of people with very low scores who have been accepted. This is not exclusive to osteopathic schools. I feel that all medical schools should have a minimum for applicants. I think a 3.0 and a 24 sounds reasonable and perhaps they should even have a passing score for the MCAT like they do for the USMLE/COMLEX. It has been my experience that the people with crappy GPAs and MCATs that do get accepted into DO school usually have connections. I have found nepotism to be more prevalent in DO schools than MD schools, just as it is with MBA and some JD programs. There aren't many of these students, but they do in fact bring down the averages at DO schools. If your dad went to CCOM or teaches there, chances are that you will probably get in too.
There is no disputing the fact that allopathic schools do have higher average MCATs and GPAs than their osteopathic counterparts. However, if you take away the top 50 allopathic schools such as Harvard, UCSF, UCLA, Pritzker, Baylor, WashU, Yale, Stanford and so forth, with their stellar GPA and MCATs, you will find that the statistics of the remaining 75 allopathic medical schools are not dramatically different from many of the students at osteopathic medical schools.
Since I applied in 1997, I have found that the caliber of students at both Touro and Western has increased. I don't know what's going on with the individual DO schools outside of CA, but the statistics I've seen overall has shown a slight increase in both GPA and MCAT scores despite a decreasing number of applicants.
As with any graduate degree program, there will be ones that are easier to matriculate into than others. Touro is by no means the DO school with the highest GPA and MCAT scores. However, I think you should judge a school by its individual merits rather than make a blanket statement about the whole field. While Harvard, UCSF, South Carolina, and Howard all grant the MD degree, some would say that there is great variance amongst the quality of matriculants; The same holds true for the DO schools as well.
