How extreme is the deflation at Hopkins Undergrad?

[ar707]

I was admitted ED into JHU, and I'm obviously premed, but I've been reading plenty of horror stories about JHU's undergrad and its notorious weeding out of aspiring premeds through grade deflation. How extreme is this deflation exactly? Also, what GPA does a Hopkins student need to be competitive at top institutions?

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[wanderingorion]

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[efle]

About 2/3 premeds drop off. Among survivors the admit rate to med schools is quite decent, but a huge chunk will be looking to go to a med school because of a middle or lower 3.x GPA, whereas they would've had a GPA good enough for anywhere at an average college.

Odds aren't the same for everyone going in obviously. If you went to a tiny crappy highschool with no APs and scored near the lower range of ACT/SAT scores for JHU, your risk is much greater than if you were top of the class at an expensive private highschool with perfect scores, etc.

 

[Lucca]

I could not find any hard info on JHU pre-med statistics, perhaps someone else can, but if JHU is anything like WashU, @efle has posted these elsewhere:

We also have this information from the WashU pre-health office:

At a glance, we can see that not only do students at WashU with lower GPAs score higher than their peers nationally on the MCAT, they tend to do better in medical school admissions overall.

Can we say the same for Hopkins? It is certainly another prestigious university, with ties to one of the best medical schools in the world known for deflation. While we can't be sure without more information, it is probably safe to say that a 3.3 from JHU with a strong MCAT is going to give you pretty good odds of being accepted, comparable to a 3.6/510 (31) using the AAMC tables.

The answers to this question on Quora might also be relevant to you.

 

[ar707]

I could not find any hard info on JHU pre-med statistics, perhaps someone else can, but if JHU is anything like WashU, @efle has posted these elsewhere:

We also have this information from the WashU pre-health office:

At a glance, we can see that not only do students at WashU with lower GPAs score higher than their peers nationally on the MCAT, they tend to do better in medical school admissions overall.

Can we say the same for Hopkins? It is certainly another prestigious university, with ties to one of the best medical schools in the world known for deflation. While we can't be sure without more information, it is probably safe to say that a 3.3 from JHU with a strong MCAT is going to give you pretty good odds of being accepted, comparable to a 3.6/510 (31) using the AAMC tables.

The answers to this question on Quora might also be relevant to you.

So would a 3.5 with all the other required components (MCAT, Research, ECs, etc) be enough for a top 30 Med School? It seems that universities with this level of rigor obviously do a good job at preparing students for the MCAt and admissions.

 

[Lucca]

So would a 3.5 with all the other required components (MCAT, Research, ECs, etc) be enough for a top 30 Med School? It seems that universities with this level of rigor obviously do a good job at preparing students for the MCAt and admissions.

I can't answer anything about Top X without a lot more information, especially about JHU specifically. These data only tell us that students with lower GPAs at deflationary schools with a highly selective admissions process and lots of resources tend to do better on the MCAT and in admission to *a* medical school, as @efle said above.

TBH tho distinctions about Top X medical schools are fairly contrived. It will matter to a very small number of potential medical students in all honesty where they attend medical school. It is more important to assess what you personally value and want out of an education first and then think of potential career goals that align with those values and choose undergraduate/medical/ other institutions based on that assessment, instead of focusing on something vapid and largely meaningless like USNWR.

 

[ar707]

I can't answer anything about Top X without a lot more information, especially about JHU specifically. These data only tell us that students with lower GPAs at deflationary schools with a highly selective admissions process and lots of resources tend to do better on the MCAT and in admission to *a* medical school, as @efle said above.

TBH tho distinctions about Top X medical schools are fairly contrived. It will matter to a very small number of potential medical students in all honesty where they attend medical school. It is more important to assess what you personally value and want out of an education first and then think of potential career goals that align with those values and choose undergraduate/medical/ other institutions based on that assessment, instead of focusing on something vapid and largely meaningless like USNWR.

I understand how idealistic and naive this sounds, but I'm really drawn to the research oppurtunities available to graduates from these schools along with MD/MBA programs. I think that's what the top med schools will provide me and of course I would go to the mid tier ones but my goal still stands at the top. I'm just concerned if attending Hopkins (and possibly doing BME) is going to be detrimental to my chances and if I should pursue a transfer after freshman year.

 

[WedgeDawg]

I understand how idealistic and naive this sounds, but I'm really drawn to the research oppurtunities available to graduates from these schools along with MD/MBA programs. I think that's what the top med schools will provide me and of course I would go to the mid tier ones but my goal still stands at the top. I'm just concerned if attending Hopkins (and possibly doing BME) is going to be detrimental to my chances and if I should pursue a transfer after freshman year.

I go to a top med school and we interview many applicants from Hopkins. If you do well relative to other people at Hopkins, you'll do fine come the med admissions process. I will also caution against setting your sights on only a couple med schools because individual med schools have acceptance rates of like 2-8%, so that's more or less the same as saying you only want to go to Stanford, Yale, or MIT for college as an incoming freshman in high school. It's good to have goals, but remember to temper your expectations as needed.

I would also caution against doing BME if you're trying to get into medical school.

Additionally, you'll have strong research opportunities at most med schools. Yes, certain schools have specific advantages and it's nice to have those advantages, but MD schools have the luxury of being "good enough" across the board (from Harvard to Idaho State) that career options don't drastically drop off by going to a lower ranked school.

 

[Lucca]

I understand how idealistic and naive this sounds, but I'm really drawn to the research oppurtunities available to graduates from these schools along with MD/MBA programs. I think that's what the top med schools will provide me and of course I would go to the mid tier ones but my goal still stands at the top. I'm just concerned if attending Hopkins (and possibly doing BME) is going to be detrimental to my chances and if I should pursue a transfer after freshman year.

Interest in research, engineering, and MD/MBA programs tells me you are not very sure of what you want to do, which is absolutely fine and is to be expected -- we were all college freshman once and I am one of the most indecisive people I know when it comes to these things. I'm just saying that if your goal is to do medicine, think about that career first. Business, engineering and research are all separate careers. They can be combined with a medical career, but at the core of it will be medicine.

My advice to high school students is to go to the best school they are accepted to and can afford. BME is not advisable for pre-med because you are more likely to end up with a lower GPA and the coursework is highly technical and will be largely irrelevant to your future career unless you plan to work in engineering and research as a scientist or physician scientist. You are at a point in your life where you are not supposed to know what you want, going to the best school possible will open the most doors for you and you can begin to hone in on what matters to you and what you want to do with your life. The answer might not be medicine at all. Once you know what you want, and if it is medicine, and if it is research or academic medicine you want to do, and you have a good GPA and an MCAT in the top few percent, *then* and only *then* can you start thinking about Top Whatever medical school (although, like Wedge said no doors are closed at most medical schools in the US). Until then, do as well as you can in school and try to figure out what you want.

 

[Anthrax175]

I go to hopkins and was just admitted into a top 15 med school a few weeks ago. I won't lie, this definitely isn't an easy place to thrive. That being said, the stories you (and I) have heard are way overblown and I definitely would't call hopkins cutthroat. At worst, it is just an environment where a lot of people know they have a goal to strive for and so academics is prioritized and things are more intense compared to most schools. The deflation is real (most premed classes average a B-). From what I've heard from upperclassmen who are now in medical school, if you can cut it here, then you'll be fine in whatever school you go to. And yeah, 2/3 of people do end up dropping premed from freshman to senior year.

 

[efle]

Similar to Lucca's advice above -

Yes, going to JHU hurts your odds of ending up at a top med school where the median GPAs are ~3.8+ and yes, studying engineering exacerbates that effect. Going to JHU at all is a big risk and a mistake for hundreds of premeds that matriculate there every year, even aiming at any MD school. Many people who get weeded would've done extremely well if they'd gone down to U of Maryland instead. On the flip side, for the minority that make it through with great grades, their odds for top med schools are excellent.

But, how certain are you that you want to go to medical school? Because for the people that end up going after something else, coming out of a school like Hopkins can give them better jobs than your average state school. If there's a big chance you want to go into engineering, be a professor, start a business etc then do not use grade deflation to decide what college to attend.

 

[efle]

I go to hopkins and was just admitted into a top 15 med school a few weeks ago. I won't lie, this definitely isn't an easy place to thrive. That being said, the stories you (and I) have heard are way overblown and I definitely would't call hopkins cutthroat. At worst, it is just an environment where a lot of people know they have a goal to strive for and so academics is prioritized and things are more intense compared to most schools. The deflation is real (most premed classes average a B-). From what I've heard from upperclassmen who are now in medical school, if you can cut it here, then you'll be fine in whatever school you go to. And yeah, 2/3 of people do end up dropping premed from freshman to senior year.

I feel similarly about WashU for undergrad. It never felt cut throat in the sense that people tried to sabotage each other or anything like that. But there were hundreds of people who were hardworking students in the top few percent of the country that gave up because it was too tough to be above average semester after semester in a crowd of similar peers. The sense of competition is over hyped, but the weedout is not.

 

[moggat]

The JHU administration pretty aggressively denies grade deflation, but it's definitely an accepted part of going to Hopkins. The Newsletter did an article about deflation a few years ago (http://www.jhunewsletter.com/2010/11/11/low-average-gpa-at-hopkins-suggests-grade-deflation-89024/) that puts the average GPA at just under 3.3 (although IIRC science majors are typically lower). The JHU premed office doesn't have any nifty charts like @efle has for WashU, but I'd wager that they're about equivalent. For reference, I didn't know of a single person at JHU who got a 4.0--I knew one person with a 3.9x. However, I know plenty of people who worked really hard to get a 3.5-3.8, and that was competitive for even the top programs. Also Hopkins really does offer unparalleled research opportunities and there are a ton of people who get in 3-4 years of really solid research on the main campus or at the med school, which def bolsters an app to top places.

The weed-out rate is pretty high, 2/3 sounds about right, but I think it's less that the school weeds you out (although orgo definitely contributes to that) and more that pretty much every freshman at Hopkins's default choice is pre-med? Unlike at other schools where people who are undecided about their career might also pick law or business or basketweaving, etc., Hopkins is pretty much just "...uhh premed". When the vast majority of those people experience any hard science or medically related classes they realize they actually didn't care about medicine to begin with. That said, I also had friends who did want to do medicine and ended up going into pharma or consulting instead because they weren't competitive for top programs and realized that pharma will pay $100k/yr (DONT be an engineer if you want to go to med school)

As for competition/cutthroatness--Hopkins is competitive, yes, but not cutthroat. Its HARD, and every class is curved, so to some extent you're competing against your peers, but I always found that the difficulty of the coursework encouraged people to work together rather than against one another. There's a definite sense of community bred of the challenge--and definitely a sense of camaraderie through shared misery--and as long as you survive the first semester adjustment of "I was the smartest kid in highschool and that makes me average here" you'll find that there's a lot of support, community-wise and institutionally.

 

[efle]

The weed-out rate is pretty high, 2/3 sounds about right, but I think it's less that the school weeds you out (although orgo definitely contributes to that) and more that pretty much every freshman at Hopkins's default choice is pre-med?

Hopkins has long been famous as one of the handful of premed powerhouses (the king of them all in fact). It's not just that students at that type of school all default to premed, as you can see by many peer institutions being half or less as premed-dense. Places like Hopkins and WashU draw a lot of premed-oriented applicants and admit them at high rates. It's a part of the school cultures.

 

[ar707]

Similar to Lucca's advice above -

Yes, going to JHU hurts your odds of ending up at a top med school where the median GPAs are ~3.8+ and yes, studying engineering exacerbates that effect. Going to JHU at all is a big risk and a mistake for hundreds of premeds that matriculate there every year, even aiming at any MD school. Many people who get weeded would've done extremely well if they'd gone down to U of Maryland instead. On the flip side, for the minority that make it through with great grades, their odds for top med schools are excellent.

But, how certain are you that you want to go to medical school? Because for the people that end up going after something else, coming out of a school like Hopkins can give them better jobs than your average state school. If there's a big chance you want to go into engineering, be a professor, start a business etc then do not use grade deflation to decide what college to attend.

I would honestly prefer medicine over anything else, with a research focus. I planned on BME as the fallback option but clearly that doesn't seem like a good idea. Do you think pursuing a transfer would make sense?

 

[moggat]

I would honestly prefer medicine over anything else, with a research focus. I planned on BME as the fallback option but clearly that doesn't seem like a good idea. Do you think pursuing a transfer would make sense?

Transferring is probably unnecessary. If you liked Hopkins enough to apply ED (which I'm assuming you did?), and you know that your end goal is MD just be smart about it. Do a humanities major, get your 3.95 GPA from there, and take Orgo at your home state school during the summer or something. Don't fall into the pre-med trap of trying to one-up your peers by taking the hardest classes possible, and use Hopkins for its connections to the other billion things you need to actually get into a good med school. (There are like, 7 hospitals in Baltimore alone)

You shouldn't use BME (or ChemBE) as a fall-back though, sorry. Unless your backup plan is to get a 2.9 (their average GPA) :/

 

[efle]

I would honestly prefer medicine over anything else, with a research focus.

Have you shadowed physicians and spent time in research labs? If you have a good basis to feel certain about being an MD/PhD or academic MD, Hopkins can be a great choice - they send oodles to the tip top places every year.

And besides isn't all of this a moot point? If you applied via a binding early decision, you're locked into attending there this fall right? So just wait and see how you're doing after the first couple semesters. As moggat said the BME route is going to make it hell to get a strong GPA though.

 

[ar707]

Have you shadowed physicians and spent time in research labs? If you have a good basis to feel certain about being an MD/PhD or academic MD, Hopkins can be a great choice - they send oodles to the tip top places every year.

And besides isn't all of this a moot point? If you applied via a binding early decision, you're locked into attending there this fall right? So just wait and see how you're doing after the first couple semesters. As moggat said the BME route is going to make it hell to get a strong GPA though.

Yes, I have a lot (for highschool) of research hours and a family friend who is a doctor with whom I have shadowed significantly. I wanted to go to Hopkins for the research they are known for, and I'm bound to attend for a year. I'd like to major in science though because that's what I'm interested in, although I'm strongly considering dropping BME. My rationale has been that I may stick with BME freshman year (the intro BME courses are not hard at all and the othef classes are things like intro chem and calc 1 which I would take for premed anyway), and then either transfer majors, OR use the (hopefully) high GPA I have after freshman year to transfer somewhere else (which I think I could do because having a high GPA at such a prestigous program will probably look good).

 

[Lucca]

I'm going to tell you what I tell our Honors freshmen at orientation because you are probably of a similar or higher caliber as a student:

If you are already this good at school, don't do engineering as a fallback. If you are absolutely sure that you want to do medicine, do not do engineering as a fallback. Engineering is a career and enrolling in the engineering school is its own challenge. Many successful engineers graduate and go to medical school, to be sure, but if you are 100% committed to medicine then forget about it, major in the humanities and do your pre-reqs, check the boxes and get into medical school.

The only reason to major in something is because you enjoy it and find the work intellectually stimulating. If that's physics or BME then go for it but do so at your own peril and with full knowledge you will be working twice as hard to fulfill your primary goal.

As an aside, I recommend the Humanities because I think they have a lot to offer a young undergraduate student. 4 years of studies in the humanities and social sciences is a good complement to a lifetime in biology and science, but that's just me. If you want to be scientist, major in the science you think you want to work in, but in any case I strongly recommend taking substantial coursework in the Humanities

 

[ar707]

I'm going to tell you what I tell our Honors freshmen at orientation because you are probably of a similar or higher caliber as a student:

If you are already this good at school, don't do engineering as a fallback. If you are absolutely sure that you want to do medicine, do not do engineering as a fallback. Engineering is a career and enrolling in the engineering school is its own challenge. Many successful engineers graduate and go to medical school, to be sure, but if you are 100% committed to medicine then forget about it, major in the humanities and do your pre-reqs, check the boxes and get into medical school.

The only reason to major in something is because you enjoy it and find the work intellectually stimulating. If that's physics or BME then go for it but do so at your own peril and with full knowledge you will be working twice as hard to fulfill your primary goal.

As an aside, I recommend the Humanities because I think they have a lot to offer a young undergraduate student. 4 years of studies in the humanities and social sciences is a good complement to a lifetime in biology and science, but that's just me. If you want to be scientist, major in the science you think you want to work in, but in any case I strongly recommend taking substantial coursework in the Humanities

Do you think it would make doing the med school app any harder if I were to do a humanities major? I really enjoy biological research and I feel as though I would be missing out on that (both because I am passionate about it and because I feel like it would look good to med schools) if I were to take the humanities route.

 

[moggat]

Do you think it would make doing the med school app any harder if I were to do a humanities major? I really enjoy biological research and I feel as though I would be missing out on that (both because I am passionate about it and because I feel like it would look good to med schools) if I were to take the humanities route.

You can do research with any major, and there are plenty of pre-med humanities majors doing biomed research (I knew an egyptology major doing cancer bio research--its not that unusual). Since you have to take the med school pre-reqs, you'll still be taking all the basic science classes--they just wont be part of your major. The only people who had a hard time doing biomed research with their major were....engineers.

But also ...There are non-engineering science majors? If you don't want to do a Humanities major you can do Neuro, Behavioral Bio, or Biology instead--and all those majors have the pre-med prereqs built in to their majors (although I'm inclined to agree with @Lucca that Humanities classes will make you a much better doctor and scientist, and you should take some regardless of your major). It's not like your only two choices are BME or philosophy. Hell, you can do a BA in Biology at Hopkins if you're really worried about it.

 

[Lucca]

Do you think it would make doing the med school app any harder if I were to do a humanities major? I really enjoy biological research and I feel as though I would be missing out on that (both because I am passionate about it and because I feel like it would look good to med schools) if I were to take the humanities route.

You wouldn't necessarily. You still have to take the pre req coursework and you can still find research opportunities as a humanities major. Of course don't do it if you don't want to or aren't that excited by the degree plan. I'm just saying definitely check out the humanities because I think they have a lot to offer.

I'm a double major in the humanities and the sciences with close to 4 years of research experience in basic experimental and computational science. Reading some Plato and learning about art theory has not held me back I dont think.

The only thing that will make your med app "harder" is a low GPA and McAT score.

 

[efle]

Yes, I have a lot (for highschool) of research hours and a family friend who is a doctor with whom I have shadowed significantly. I wanted to go to Hopkins for the research they are known for, and I'm bound to attend for a year. I'd like to major in science though because that's what I'm interested in, although I'm strongly considering dropping BME. My rationale has been that I may stick with BME freshman year (the intro BME courses are not hard at all and the othef classes are things like intro chem and calc 1 which I would take for premed anyway), and then either transfer majors, OR use the (hopefully) high GPA I have after freshman year to transfer somewhere else (which I think I could do because having a high GPA at such a prestigous program will probably look good).

You sure the intro BME classes aren't hard? The weedout is primarily in the first few semesters for most engineering programs.

I wouldn't try to plan on a transfer. Most of the top schools accept transfers at even lower rates than initial admission and according to the few transfers I knew, it really sucks being a sort of displaced freshman again. Moving to a new place, having to meet new friends again, and now many people have already sort of found their circle instead of being all in the same boat. It might be a lot easier to make a stronger science GPA at Brown but it's really not worth it for most people. Oh and to top it all off, financial aid for transfers is often worse.

If you aren't particularly attached to BME then yeah, just enter as a general admit, take your initial prereqs and gen eds and then tackle a reasonable, interesting major like Psych or humanities. You'll be able to do research for credits regardless of major. Most people that start up in labs during the first couple years aren't really full fledged BCPM majors yet anyways because all they've taken is intro level stuff like the prereqs.

 

[ar707]

You sure the intro BME classes aren't hard? The weedout is primarily in the first few semesters for most engineering programs.

I wouldn't try to plan on a transfer. Most of the top schools accept transfers at even lower rates than initial admission and according to the few transfers I knew, it really sucks being a sort of displaced freshman again. Moving to a new place, having to meet new friends again, and now many people have already sort of found their circle instead of being all in the same boat. It might be a lot easier to make a stronger science GPA at Brown but it's really not worth it for most people. Oh and to top it all off, financial aid for transfers is often worse.

If you aren't particularly attached to BME then yeah, just enter as a general admit, take your initial prereqs and gen eds and then tackle a reasonable, interesting major like Psych or humanities. You'll be able to do research for credits regardless of major. Most people that start up in labs during the first couple years aren't really full fledged BCPM majors yet anyways because all they've taken is intro level stuff like the prereqs.

I've talked to a bunch of BME majors and even the ones that ended with 2.9s all agreed the first 2 classes are very easy. The first one (BME Modeling and Design) is all group based, no exams, and graded on reports and projects you complete with your design team. The second one (BME in the Real World) is lecture based and graded on attendance.

 

[StressfulMD]

So if BME isn't recommended, what other plan B might someone take on if med school doesn't end up working out? There aren't really that many jobs as a hard science major, and majoring in something like finance will land you a job, where you'll probably get laid off within a few years.

 

[eteshoe]

So if BME isn't recommended, what other plan B might someone take on if med school doesn't end up working out? There aren't really that many jobs as a hard science major, and majoring in something like finance will land you a job, where you'll probably get laid off within a few years.

I wouldn't say engineering is a bad option - just go in with your eyes open and a plan (i.e. you know it'll be tough so prepare accordingly). With hard science majors, grad school, industry or other professional schools (e.g. law school) are options. Fact of the matter is you can be laid off in any career - you just have to play the game smart and keep building your professional network so that you have options when/if the time comes.

Overall major in something you like and has some marketability. Also I say all this as someone who was an engineering major and worked as one before going back to school.

 

[WedgeDawg]

So if BME isn't recommended, what other plan B might someone take on if med school doesn't end up working out? There aren't really that many jobs as a hard science major, and majoring in something like finance will land you a job, where you'll probably get laid off within a few years.

I think the best thing to do would be to go in with a major like Biology or Neuroscience or something and focus on doing your best to go to medical school. If you start doing poorly GPA wise early on or you decide you don't want to go to med school, you can switch majors to BME/other engineering and be good to go (maybe having to take an extra semester, but it's a small price to pay). The biggest downsides here are 1) I don't know if transferring into BME at Hopkins is difficult; at my undergrad you could switch majors without any issue from any department to any other department but I might have heard somewhere that Hopkins (and maybe Duke as well) protect entry into BME and 2) if you make it to the end because you want to go to med school but you have a borderline Hopkins GPA (3.2 or something) and your MCAT isn't great, you're not going to be in great shape for MD school (though you should still be able to make DO even without grade replacement provided your MCAT is acceptable, and someone going to Hopkins likely will be a good enough test taker to get a 505+ on the MCAT).

 

[ar707]

Yeah Hopkins BME is nigh impossible to transfer into, but very flexible to transfer out of.

 

[eteshoe]

I think the best thing to do would be to go in with a major like Biology or Neuroscience or something and focus on doing your best to go to medical school. If you start doing poorly GPA wise early on or you decide you don't want to go to med school, you can switch majors to BME/other engineering and be good to go (maybe having to take an extra semester, but it's a small price to pay). The biggest downsides here are 1) I don't know if transferring into BME at Hopkins is difficult; at my undergrad you could switch majors without any issue from any department to any other department but I might have heard somewhere that Hopkins (and maybe Duke as well) protect entry into BME and 2) if you make it to the end because you want to go to med school but you have a borderline Hopkins GPA (3.2 or something) and your MCAT isn't great, you're not going to be in great shape for MD school (though you should still be able to make DO even without grade replacement provided your MCAT is acceptable, and someone going to Hopkins likely will be a good enough test taker to get a 505+ on the MCAT).

I just wanted to quickly interject that in most top engineering programs, switching from a science to an engineering major tends to be a bit trickier than the other direction due to all the engineering pre-reqs and early sequence courses one would have missed.

 

[efle]

It sounds like the plan is pretty clear! Go do your first year as BME since the engi classes aren't horrible. Then you'll have a sense of how difficult the school is and whether you can handle things getting even harder or if you're better off switching out of BME

 

[StressfulMD]

even without grade replacement

Just wanted to clarify (in case others may not realize this), but AACOMAS unfortunately nullified the grade replacement process for DO applicants, effective May 1st of this year.

Also, speaking as a Biochem major (I don't go to JHU), what kind of jobs would I be able to garner that necessarily isn't lab related? I can't see myself anywhere outside the realm of medicine quite frankly, but the grim reality is, so, so many premeds drop out and that statistic alone terrifies me. And I don't want to work in a lab for the rest of my life.

 

[ar707]

It sounds like the plan is pretty clear! Go do your first year as BME since the engi classes aren't horrible. Then you'll have a sense of how difficult the school is and whether you can handle things getting even harder or if you're better off switching out of BME

Yeah, I think this is a good idea. I'll use Freshman+Soph to get premed reqs done and at that point I can choose my major for my Junior and Senior year classes.

 

[eteshoe]

Just wanted to clarify (in case others may not realize this), but AACOMAS unfortunately nullified the grade replacement process for DO applicants, effective May 1st of this year.

Also, speaking as a Biochem major (I don't go to JHU), what kind of jobs would I be able to garner that necessarily isn't lab related? I can't see myself anywhere outside the realm of medicine quite frankly, but the grim reality is, so, so many premeds drop out and that statistic alone terrifies me. And I don't want to work in a lab for the rest of my life.

Medical/science writing, regulatory affairs, biotech, etc. - if you're willing to look there are other options out there

 

[BKNbkn]

Having done an undergrad in JHU (n=1)...
1) The competition is real
2) The weed-out is real
3) The standard curve is real
4) The GPA deflation is all too real
...but the same could be said of any competitive school.

 

[efle]

...but the same could be said of any competitive school.

To very different degrees though! Brown for example has been at a 3.7 median undergraduate GPA for a few years now, similar with Harvard. The weeding there is going to be less than say, Cornell or MIT. JHU in particular falls into the handful where caution is the most warranted.

 

[Dr.Sticks]

To very different degrees though! Brown for example has been at a 3.7 median undergraduate GPA for a few years now, similar with Harvard. The weeding there is going to be less than say, Cornell or MIT. JHU in particular falls into the handful where caution is the most warranted.

Doesn't brown also have the admission thing where you get a guarantee accept into Brown Med, GPA and MCAT being okay that is?
Brown would be a good place to be a pre-med
OP: I read that nobody in the history of Hopkins graduated with a 4.0
Apparently this guy broke the GPA record
https://www.channelstv.com/2012/06/...s-academic-record-at-john-hopkins-university/

Anyways I don't know how accurate, but wow if a 3.98 breaks a record Hopkins is one tough school lol.

 

[efle]

Brown does have a BS/MD track that populates a significant portion of their medical class every year, yeah. Northwestern, WashU and Rice/Baylor as well. You have to have a very impressive medically oriented application as a high schooler to shoot for those programs though.