How hard is it to maintain a >3.5 SCIENCE GPA at columbia university?

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medguy24

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I'm thinking about going pre-med at Columbia university and i was wondering if maintaing a 3.5 science GPA is Do-able at Columbia? what are your thoughts?
Thanks in advance!
 
medguy24 said:
I'm thinking about going pre-med at Columbia university and i was wondering if maintaing a 3.5 science GPA is Do-able at Columbia? what are your thoughts?
Thanks in advance!
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It shouldn't be difficult. Columbia is a school that is more about learning and thinking than obsessively memorizing every small detail for grades. Most people do relatively well at Columbia and you'll better prepared for tests such as the mcat that emphasize more of your ability to think than memorize a bajillion random facts.
 
Yes, I assume that at some point in history someone from Columbia has achieved a 3.5 sGPA, so it is doable. It's obviously hard, but so is getting a >3.5 sGPA at almost every school. If you're smart enough to get accepted by an Ivy League school, you're smart enough to succeed there. But ultimately go where you will be happy. The last thing you want is to go to a school solely because it'll "make getting into med school easier" and then decide you like accounting more anyway.
 
basketcase0a0 said:
Yes, I assume that at some point in history someone from Columbia has achieved a 3.5 sGPA, so it is doable. It's obviously hard, but so is getting a >3.5 sGPA at almost every school. If you're smart enough to get accepted by an Ivy League school, you're smart enough to succeed there. But ultimately go where you will be happy. The last thing you want is to go to a school solely because it'll "make getting into med school easier" and then decide you like accounting more anyway.
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Thx for the advice! well i know ill be happier at columbia than at my state school. However, I know i can achieve the 3.5 necessary for medical school at my state school. Im just concerned about whether i can do the same at columbia.
 
medguy24 said:
Haha that was a typo! but seriously what are your thoughts?
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I got into a Seven Sisters college as a first generation college student and had no idea what I was doing. I paid no mind to my overall GPA and focused on learning the material. I ended up graduating magna cum laude. I went back and did a post-bac program for career changers and still managed a >3.5 GPA. If you're in college just for the grades, I imagine it will be very difficult because I find that's thin gruel for motivation. If you're in college to learn and prepare for your future career, then I think it's entirely doable.
 
Aerus said:
You're still in high school. Worry about getting into Columbia first.
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Im trying to decide whether i should apply early decision or not. I dont want to apply to columbia ED and get in and then realize the smarter way would be to go to my state school and that i made a mistake applying ED. see my problem?
 
medguy24 said:
Im trying to decide whether i should apply early decision or not. I dont want to apply to columbia ED and get in and then realize the smarter way would be to go to my state school and that i made a mistake applying ED. see my problem?
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Dude go to columbia. I got into columbia as a transfer and didn't even realize it until 2 years later. the opportunities an ivy provide you are unique and it's more about learning and exploring who you are without the pressure of the grade game. go for columbia. I wish i would have taken that opportunity.
 
88 views and only 4 people respond haha come on guys..
can i get any opinions from people who went to columbia (like mrh125) or at least to other ivy leagues?
help me out guys.
thx
 
More anecdotal accounts of Columbia aren't going to be anymore useful for you in gaining insight on the academic rigors of Columbia, more than what is given to you already. Everyone deals with academics differently and whether someone says Columbia is easy or not will not be very applicable to you, since everyone is different.

As I said in the previous thread, getting a good GPA at top institutions is not an easy feat to do, since the competition is fiercer. However, getting a good GPA at almost any decent University in this country is no easy feat. If you attend an Ivy League school, you will be forced to hold yourself to a higher standard in terms of schoolwork, time management, and extracurricular activities. That itself is a worthy reason to choose to apply.

What is the environment like at Columbia? While I don't personally go to Columbia, I know exactly how a competitive student body can affect rigor. Having taken honors level classes at my own university as well as coming from one of the most difficult high schools in my state, I can tell you that slacking off is very deadly and will be a shortcut to getting bad grades. This is not saying that you cannot have fun, but you must be on top of everything. The majority of the class is insanely bright and talented and many of them are equally driven. Yes, a large portion of the class gets an A, but to be in that tier of A's, you must be extremely efficient in studying as well as have good time management. Do that, and getting into that A range won't be too difficult.

What about going to a lower ranked state school? Likely, the state school will contain a less competitive student body and, on average, have lower caliber students. You may think that it's much easier to maintain top grades without trying. That is false and often a very deadly assumption to make. In public state schools, they give significantly less A's, as only the top x% will get A's. There are definitely enough insanely bright students at public state schools (the estimation will vary from institution to institution) who are of equal caliber to the students you encounter in the Ivy Leagues that you would still not be able to cruise through school without hard work. Yes, overall, it will be easier to maintain a higher GPA, but in the grand scheme of things, it will not be that much easier. I still estimate a 0.2 to 0.3 GPA difference, unless a significantly greater amount of effort and efficiency is put in at Columbia.

Tl;dr: Pick the school that you will be able to thrive in that won't cripple you financially.
 
Oh come on. Do you really think Columbia is markedly different than other top schools? Work hard, you'll be fine.
 
Reckoner said:
Wat
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My thoughts exactly. Apparently my parents received the notice that I was accepted and never told me when I applied to transfer from california community colleges. They just randomly showed me the notice that I could receive financial a few months ago. I was speechless.
 
Hi. I'm at a different Ivy though I think our grading is comparable to Columbia's. In my experience, science classes tend to give out lots and lots of Bs and relatively few As. If I were to give a speculative average distribution of grades in the major intro/mid level science classes based on my own and other's final grades and percentiles on exams, I would say that about 10% get As, 10% get A-s, 15% get B+s, 35% get Bs, 10-15% get B-s, and the rest get somewhere in the C range. Obviously this is just what I've been able to surmise from taking classes and comparing scores/looking at histograms, but I think it's fairly accurate. What this means is you have a lot of people clustered in the B range and only the top receiving As. This means your science gpa is going to average somewhere around a 3.3 or 3.4 if you're an average student taking premed science courses. However, if have your ish together, you can probably pull a B+/A- average in your science courses without tooo much difficulty, as long as you figure out a way to study that works for you and you're disciplined. However, if you try and slide through, you're going to end up with a lot of Bs which will hurt your sGPA. Take it for what it's worth. IMO, it's easier to get a B at an Ivy/similar than at a state school, but harder to get an A because the competition at the top is very stiff. You're competing with some of the smartest and most motivated students in the country.

However, worry about getting into college first. Even if you are valedictorian with a 2400, you might not get into an Ivy or similar caliber school.
 
it depends on how smart you are.....
 
medguy24 said:
astronomy goes into your science GPA? i though only the four basic sciences and Calc/stat goes in..
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Any class on your transcripts thats in in the physic, chemistry, biology,and math(stats) department goes toward your science GPA
 
listener23 said:
Any class on your transcripts thats in in the physic, chemistry, biology,and math(stats) department goes toward your science GPA
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But when medical schools look at your application do they take those classes (astronomy) seriously and keep it in? or would they just laugh and remove it to see your "real" science GPA?
 
WedgeDawg said:
Hi. I'm at a different Ivy though I think our grading is comparable to Columbia's. In my experience, science classes tend to give out lots and lots of Bs and relatively few As. If I were to give a speculative average distribution of grades in the major intro/mid level science classes based on my own and other's final grades and percentiles on exams, I would say that about 10% get As, 10% get A-s, 15% get B+s, 35% get Bs, 10-15% get B-s, and the rest get somewhere in the C range. Obviously this is just what I've been able to surmise from taking classes and comparing scores/looking at histograms, but I think it's fairly accurate. What this means is you have a lot of people clustered in the B range and only the top receiving As. This means your science gpa is going to average somewhere around a 3.3 or 3.4 if you're an average student taking premed science courses. However, if have your ish together, you can probably pull a B+/A- average in your science courses without tooo much difficulty, as long as you figure out a way to study that works for you and you're disciplined. However, if you try and slide through, you're going to end up with a lot of Bs which will hurt your sGPA. Take it for what it's worth. IMO, it's easier to get a B at an Ivy/similar than at a state school, but harder to get an A because the competition at the top is very stiff. You're competing with some of the smartest and most motivated students in the country.

However, worry about getting into college first. Even if you are valedictorian with a 2400, you might not get into an Ivy or similar caliber school.
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What kind of Ivy League do you go to? 20% A's? Princeton has a 35% A/A- rule if I recall correctly and even that is considered deflating at the Ivies. My friends at Yale report 40-50% A's. I can't imagine any other Ivy that gives as few A's as you describe.
 
Aerus said:
What kind of Ivy League do you go to? 20% A's? Princeton has a 35% A/A- rule if I recall correctly and even that is considered deflating at the Ivies. My friends at Yale report 40-50% A's. I can't imagine any other Ivy that gives as few A's as you describe.
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Princeton is 35% As for every department, not for every class. That means that their lower level science classes are going to give very very few As and their upper level science classes are going to give more. This also means that "easy" departments like Theater, etc are capped at 35% A/A- whereas at schools like Yale etc, 90% of the class will get A/A- in theater.

The numbers I gave are only for our intro/intermediate science classes (in other words, the core premed class and biochemistry). For classes in departments like Theater, Women and Gender Studies, foreign languages, English, etc, most if not all people get As. There was a study published in our school newspaper a while ago showing the discrepancies between average GPA by department. At one end you have biology, chemistry, physics, and economics hovering around a 3.2-3.3 average (across the department, not per class) which means an average somewhere between a B and a B+, and at the other end you have theater with a 3.9 average which means almost entirely As.

Thus, science classes at Princeton will be similar in grade distribution to my school (and presumably most other similar caliber schools) while their social science and humanities classes will not be nearly as inflated as ours or whoever else's. Thats where the distinction lies.
 
medguy24 said:
But when medical schools look at your application do they take those classes (astronomy) seriously and keep it in? or would they just laugh and remove it to see your "real" science GPA?
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Medical schools don't make your science GPA the AAMC does
 
medguy24 said:
But when medical schools look at your application do they take those classes (astronomy) seriously and keep it in? or would they just laugh and remove it to see your "real" science GPA?
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Is this a real question? Of course they keep it in, but they can see if your classes are made up of "fluff" classes (I don't think upper level astronomy/astrophysics courses are fluff though...) vs someone who's doing a lot of physical chemistry, quantitative biochemistry, and plasma physics, then the person with the harder classes is going to be looked upon more favorably. However, that's not to say you shouldn't take classes you're interested in even if they're considered "easier". If you really like astronomy, then study astronomy. I really like cell bio so I'm studying cell bio even if chemistry is technically more difficult.
 
Aerus said:
What kind of Ivy League do you go to? 20% A's? Princeton has a 35% A/A- rule if I recall correctly and even that is considered deflating at the Ivies. My friends at Yale report 40-50% A's. I can't imagine any other Ivy that gives as few A's as you describe.
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What percent A/A- do you think is normal then to give to an ivy
Aerus said:
What kind of Ivy League do you go to? 20% A's? Princeton has a 35% A/A- rule if I recall correctly and even that is considered deflating at the Ivies. My friends at Yale report 40-50% A's. I can't imagine any other Ivy that gives as few A's as you describe.
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What percent A/A- do you think is normal then to give to an ivy league school? specifically in the sciences?
 
medguy24 said:
What percent A/A- do you think is normal then to give to an ivy

What percent A/A- do you think is normal then to give to an ivy league school? specifically in the sciences?
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It varies by department and school. Some schools give a lot of As. Some schools give very few. In the sciences, they're all going to cluster towards the "few". You can't generalize across the Ivies - they're all very very different.
 
WedgeDawg said:
It varies by department and school. Some schools give a lot of As. Some schools give very few. In the sciences, they're all going to cluster towards the "few". You can't generalize across the Ivies - they're all very very different.
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If they give out very few As then how are students supposed to have a >3.5 GPA to apply to medical school?
 
For reference, I took orgo at an Ivy and the top 25% got A- or higher. That's a pretty good amount imo.

medguy24 said:
Haha but if only a few kids gets the As what do the other 60%< do?
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Get lower than As. What can you do? You don't need As in every single class.
 
Lamel said:
For reference, I took orgo at an Ivy and the top 25% got A- or higher. That's a pretty good amount imo.



Get lower than As. What can you do? You don't need As in every single class.
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The problem is that usually the students that "take" the As in one class are the ones that "take" the As in the other class... its competition.. if the top 20% get As (ex. students 1-20 out of 100 students get As) usually the same (1-20) students are going to get the As in the other class... so the other 80 people are going to be stuck with the Bs in both the classes.
Does that make sense? or is my logic wrong?
 
medguy24 said:
The problem is that usually the students that "take" the As in one class are the ones that "take" the As in the other class... its competition.. if the top 20% get As (ex. students 1-20 out of 100 students get As) usually the same (1-20) students are going to get the As in the other class... so the other 80 people are going to be stuck with the Bs in both the classes.
Does that make sense? or is my logic wrong?
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I get what you're trying to say, and yeah that probably ends up happening honestly. It is also very class dependent, some professors won't have a problem giving the entire class As if they perform up to a certain standard, while some will only give As to a certain amount.

You simply have to compete and play the game well.
 
WedgeDawg said:
Hi. I'm at a different Ivy though I think our grading is comparable to Columbia's. In my experience, science classes tend to give out lots and lots of Bs and relatively few As. If I were to give a speculative average distribution of grades in the major intro/mid level science classes based on my own and other's final grades and percentiles on exams, I would say that about 10% get As, 10% get A-s, 15% get B+s, 35% get Bs, 10-15% get B-s, and the rest get somewhere in the C range. Obviously this is just what I've been able to surmise from taking classes and comparing scores/looking at histograms, but I think it's fairly accurate. What this means is you have a lot of people clustered in the B range and only the top receiving As. This means your science gpa is going to average somewhere around a 3.3 or 3.4 if you're an average student taking premed science courses. However, if have your ish together, you can probably pull a B+/A- average in your science courses without tooo much difficulty, as long as you figure out a way to study that works for you and you're disciplined. However, if you try and slide through, you're going to end up with a lot of Bs which will hurt your sGPA. Take it for what it's worth. IMO, it's easier to get a B at an Ivy/similar than at a state school, but harder to get an A because the competition at the top is very stiff. You're competing with some of the smartest and most motivated students in the country.

However, worry about getting into college first. Even if you are valedictorian with a 2400, you might not get into an Ivy or similar caliber school.
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This. I don't go to an IVY, but my school is considered top tier. I managed the B+/A- thing, but through pure discipline, and it cost me less A's in non-science classes. I still wonder why I couldn't get some of those A's 🤔
 
Lamel said:
For reference, I took orgo at an Ivy and the top 25% got A- or higher. That's a pretty good amount imo.



Get lower than As. What can you do? You don't need As in every single class.
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This. The world doesn't end if you get Bs, Cs, or even a D or F. I've failed a class, got 3 Cs, and a few Bs and my GPA is still med school competitive. Agonizing over As is a one way ticket to misery.
 
mrh125 said:
This. The world doesn't end if you get Bs, Cs, or even a D or F. I've failed a class, got 3 Cs, and a few Bs and my GPA is still med school competitive. Agonizing over As is a one way ticket to misery.
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You wouldn't even have a 3.0 science GPA.. how is that competitive for medical school?
 
medguy24 said:
You wouldn't even have a 3.0 science GPA.. how is that competitive for medical school?
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I had a 3.64 cGPA and 3.73 scigpa. A few bad grades won't kill you dude,relax. Misconceptions can do a lot worse.
 
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when I took biochem, cell biol or immunology, only 5% of the class gets an A. My school is not even an IVY 🙁
 
I go to CC and I have a 3.9+ with all of my pre reqs done. I have friends who still have a 4.0. It's definitely challenging but if you have the drive and foresight to ease into your ECs you should be able to pull a 3.8+. We don't have the grade inflation that Harvard and Yale do but I can't say that we're deflated either. Good luck in the app process!
 
mrh125 said:
I had a 3.64 cGPA and 3.73 scigpa. A few bad grades won't kill you dude,relax. Misconceptions can do a lot worse.
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If you dont mind me asking what classes did you take and what grades did you get in them?
 
Purplownz said:
I go to CC and I have a 3.9+ with all of my pre reqs done. I have friends who still have a 4.0. It's definitely challenging but if you have the drive and foresight to ease into your ECs you should be able to pull a 3.8+. We don't have the grade inflation that Harvard and Yale do but I can't say that we're deflated either. Good luck in the app process!
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snarky?
 
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solitarius said:
snarky?
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Not really. The thread specifically asked about grading at Columbia so I identified myself as a student here. I'm not proud of not having grade inflation, I implied that to be a negative. If we had it, I would gladly take it since I don't see it as a bad thing.
 
WillburCobb said:
mrh didn't go to Columbia. He went to a number of CCs and UC Davis, so what classes he took is pretty irrelevant.
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Im asking because mrh said that "I've failed a class, got 3 Cs, and a few Bs" and that he has a 3.73 science GPA so im curious how he was able to get a 3.73 even though he failed a class and got 3 Cs and a few Bs? even if you take a bunch of classes after and get As your GPA wont go all the way up to a 3.73. will it? just curious how he can do it?
 
medguy24 said:
Im asking because mrh said that "I've failed a class, got 3 Cs, and a few Bs" and that he has a 3.73 science GPA so im curious how he was able to get a 3.73 even though he failed a class and got 3 Cs and a few Bs? even if you take a bunch of classes after and get As your GPA wont go all the way up to a 3.73. will it? just curious how he can do it?
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Those may not have been science classes, and if you keeping taking enough classes you can bring-up your GPA - there's just the issue of diminishing returns as you do so. And it would take years to really hit this point. As someone with 250+ credits, trust me.
 
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The average sGPA of accepted medical students who went to Columbia undergrad was 3.51. The average sGPA of non-accepted medical school applicants who went to Columbia undergrad was 3.16.

How hard is it? Nobody is going to give you a straight answer. Students always think their schools are more difficult than other schools. At the end of the day, Columbia is a fairly prestigious school and so it will have relatively more difficult competition.
 
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