theyll look at your undergrad and grad gpa separately, with less weight on grad gpa, cuz all grad programs inflate.
Not all grad programs inflate. Some grad programs are integrated with professional schools such as med schools, and vet schools. I'm not talking about SMPs either. Just curious if you have taken any core graduate courses to come up with the notion that all grad programs inflate?
The reason for the differentiation between grad and undergrad mainly resides with a few factors: (1) grad students are expected to maintain a 3.0 or better GPA. Anything below that can result in being booted out of the program, or losing financial aid, (2) grad school courses and programs cannot be compared to undergrad courses/programs. You are comparing apples and oranges. Our pharmacology program here is equal or harder than the med schools pharm course. Its taught by the same faculty. Is there an undergrad equivilent? Of course not. Therefore the student population are different, and the academic program are different. Looking at this from a statistical point of view, these are not homogenous populations and thus cannot be compared.
For whatever its worth though, there has been a trend towards rewarding those with high graduate GPA. UC Davis and other schools have given an "extra point" for maintaining a grad GPA of 3.8 or higher. This is analogous to the previous method of giving the "extra admission point" to those with undergrad GPAs of 3.7 or higher. The reasons being, they acknowledge the diversity of such applicants, and the fact that there is a need for physicians with a solid research background. JAMA published a paper on the need for more physician-scientists, and the drive towards "integrating medicine into biological sciences" (IMBS). Therefore you are seeing more programs focused on IMBS funded by say the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
How successful are people who have MS/MA and PhD degrees? Off the top of my head, I suggest looking at the Stanford website (
http://med.stanford.edu/md/admissions/class_profiles.html):
Total = 86
Age = 24 (range 21-37)
Women = 41 (47%)
New Americans (born outside U.S.) = 24 (28%)
Underrepresented in Medicine = 19 (22%)
Advanced degrees = 15 (17%)
7 Ph.D. (3 pending)
8 Masters of Science (1 pending)
My response to the OP is if you just want to expand your horizons, and you don't have any undergrad GPA issues, then go for it. Graduate school can be a fun and rewarding experience. It will always be viewed in a positive way by med schools as well. In terms of paying for grad school, most programs pay for PhD students, however if you pick a good PI, then they may be willing to pay for you as well. I however agree with Dr.Z, undergrad grades are still the most important. Mainly because of the reasons I stated. If you are doing grad school just to make yourself more competative, than I would recommend reconsidering that notion. But if you are doing it to enhance your knowledge, then go for it.
