PRINCETON GRADE DEFLATION NO MORE...and thoughts on what grading should mean

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Exactly. If you're at a top tier premed program, it SUCKS being graded on whether you beat all the people around you - much harder to come out top quartile against a bunch of 98-99th percentilers than to know enough to get a high percentage on any reasonable test. Hence the "lol MCAT Ochem is such a joke" attitude at places like Hopkins.
The general consensus I've seen among my premed friends regarding the MCAT is that the content is a joke, and everyone basically only studies for the application of knowledge part. Actually, plenty took it with just 3-4 weeks of intense FL practice (as I did), because our science exams have prepared us so well.

Edit: inadvertent top. HIGH FIVE (Borat-style)

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All that this tells me is that it's better to go to a grade inflation school.
Only to a certain extent. If the classes are just too easy and there's inflation, good luck on working your way through to a respectable MCAT score that'll make anyone care about your inflated scores. SDN is proof enough that that recipe is doomed to fail.

The best deals come from schools like Harvard and Yale, where the courses are still extremely rigorous but grades are handed out slightly leniently (possibly because instructors know of the rigor they're teaching), and thus you can end up with a pretty good GPA (3.7-3.8) without killing anyone, including yourself. The MCAT is taken care of, and you've exposed to enough rigor to transition to med school without burdensome difficulty.

Any Yalie (ew) or Harvardian (double ew) premed will tell you that it's not cake to make As, but even those who fall short are still rewarded immensely grade-wise and knowledge-wise. I can only speak to these two schools because of my familiarity with them, but I'm sure something of the same sort can be said for their counterparts (i.e., rigorous schools that do not ridiculous grading schemes).

Also – intentional buffer! woot
 
Only to a certain extent. If the classes are just too easy and there's inflation, good luck on working your way through to a respectable MCAT score that'll make anyone care about your inflated scores. SDN is proof enough that that recipe is doomed to fail.

The best deals come from schools like Harvard and Yale, where the courses are still extremely rigorous but grades are handed out slightly leniently (possibly because instructors know of the rigor they're teaching), and thus you can end up with a pretty good GPA (3.7-3.8) without killing anyone, including yourself. The MCAT is taken care of, and you've exposed to enough rigor to transition to med school without burdensome difficulty.

Any Yalie (ew) or Harvardian (double ew) premed will tell you that it's not cake to make As, but even those who fall short are still rewarded immensely grade-wise and knowledge-wise. I can only speak to these two schools because of my familiarity with them, but I'm sure something of the same sort can be said for their counterparts (i.e., rigorous schools that do not ridiculous grading schemes).

Also – intentional buffer! woot

I can't speak for anyone else, but I don't think that having challenging pre-reqs vs easy pre-reqs will influence an MCAT score that much and not everyone retains the information after the class is over. I found reading the MCAT review books much more helpful than whatever I learned from any pre-req class.
 
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Only two kids (myself included) got an A in my ochem class, and half the class ended up with C- our lower. Not having a curve can cut both ways.
Right, but then it's at least straight-up "you did not earn an A".

The best system is not the one where the most students get an A, it's the one where students who understand the material thoroughly get an A and those who do not, do not.
 
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The general consensus I've seen among my premed friends regarding the MCAT is that the content is a joke, and everyone basically only studies for the application of knowledge part. Actually, plenty took it with just 3-4 weeks of intense FL practice (as I did), because our science exams have prepared us so well.

Edit: inadvertent top. HIGH FIVE (Borat-style)

This is true at most undergrads and is not exclusive to the top level. If you studied well and paid attention, the vast majority of chem/ochem/bio/physics content is extremely simple.
 
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Sounds a lot like Wash U, doesn't it?

EDIT: I also want to say that being graded on a curve sucks. You are literally fighting for your grade on every exam because you have to "beat the curve." I fortunately managed to get above the mean enough to have a 3.7_ GPA from Wash U, but that required constant stress pretty much every week and so much studying that I wish I had used that time to do more EC's. I'm grateful that I have had some success this application cycle, but I still hated the "you have to beat the mean on every exam or you're toast" mentality I had to suffer thru.

Wash U also has quite a bit of grade deflation. It's enough to make a lot of students have depression and anxiety, as shown by the number of depressing stories on our "Wash U Confessions" page.

I wasn't a pre-med at Wash U, decided to apply to medical school ~sophmore/junior year. Just took my prereqs and went for it, but I would NEVER advise someone to go to Wash U for pre-med. Do not get me wrong, fantastic school, endless resources etc etc. But, the pre-med community is just plain terrible and it is heavily influenced by the classes and how they are setup.
 
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I like how the article states that the committee says that the old policy regarding grades is "...too often misinterpreted as quotas." Well, that would be because that's what it functionally was, if profs have been using that interpretation.
 
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I like how the article states that the committee says that the old policy regarding grades is "...too often misinterpreted as quotas." Well, that would be because that's what it functionally was, if profs have been using that interpretation.
lol yeah that was the mystery all along. Did the committee that voted through the policy in 2004 really really really think that professors were going to take the suggested allocation of 35% As in a department to mean anything BUT a quota? Really?
 
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