Med School Avg. GPA Variation

[samanthapeek]

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Hi all,

I was looking at 2013 med school stats for various colleges and noticed some strange discrepancies between GPA for accepted applicants.

For instance,

UNC Chapel Hill Med School - 3.65 average GPA
ECU Med School - 3.7 average GPA

As far as I know, UNC Chapel Hill's med school has a stronger applicant pool (32 MCAT v. 30) than ECU's. Why, then, does Chapel Hill have such a low average GPA compared to ECU and other medical schools?

 

[DrShephardWannabe]

Numbers aren't everything.
You can see here how the 3.4-3.59 range and a 27-29 shows an 86% 4 year success rate in medical school, when most of us think of those numbers as dreadful for medical school.
https://www.aamc.org/students/download/267622/data/mcatstudentselectionguide.pdf

 

[samanthapeek]

DrShepardWannabe,

That's an interesting table - thank you for sharing it. However, I would still greatly appreciate if anyone could explain the above discrepancy. Could it be because applicants to UNC Chapel Hill come from traditionally more challenging universities?

 

[einsteinm]

According to MSAR, UNC has a 3.8 median vs 3.7 for ECU. UNC also has a 33 MCAT median vs 30 for ECU. Looks like ECU likes higher GPAs but is ok with lower MCATs. I think once you're above a certain GPA (~3.6), MCAT is much more important.

 

[samanthapeek]

On UNC's Med's website, they claimed to have an average GPA of 3.65 and MCAT of ~32. This could be mean, as opposed to MSAR's posted 3.8 median, though it seems unlikely that the difference between median and mean would be so high.

 

[GallbLad]

Simply reaching a target MCAT and GPA range isn't enough for med schools. In reality, there is much more - and your numbers prove it. All the book worms are going to be in for a surprise 🤣

 

[Doug Underhill]

The average is 3.65. The median is 3.8. The big difference comes from things like legacy admissions.