School tuffness

[birdboybird]

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Hi!

" I used to go to this giant public school and I excelled (( All A's )). I switched schools my sophomore year to a tiny liberal arts college. The college is much more time consuming, and the grading is harder. As a result, I have not been doing as well as I would of liked.

Do medical schools see the difference between school difficultly? If so, how much does it affect their decisions. If not, would anyone recommend transferring back to the public school??

 

[muddyduck7]

Depending on who you ask, you will get answers from "slightly" to "not at all." I went to an SLAC known for its toughness, and I would like to think that excelling there (>3.9) helped distinguish me a little. Nevertheless, its an unfortunate reality that the difficulty of coursework is not standardized between undergraduate schools and that medical schools / law schools / whatever do not have a fair way to account for those differences. Whatever credit you are given is unlikely to outweigh the hit to your GPA (if you only maintain and not increase your work ethic). A not insignificant amount of people at my school became disillusioned by that.

 

[wiloghby]

This is probably the fourth way this question has been asked in the last week. It's going to take some real creativity to come up with a fifth or sixth way to ask it...but I believe in the creative minds of our young people today.

Here is a very simple answer to your question. Your MCAT score will demonstrate to admissions committees what your GPA means. If you did the equivalent of a master's thesis just to finish your undergrad in biophysics with a 3.4 from OMGHardU, your MCAT score of 39+ will demonstrate that. If you went to SeemsLikeHighSchoolU and got a 4.0 as a double major in physics and chemistry even though you teleconferenced in because you were too hung over, then your MCAT score of 14 will demonstrate that.

Of course some people need more or less test prep for that true MCAT score to come through, and that is the unfortunate nature of standardized testing. But that's how it works.

Stop worrying at all about how your GPA at OMGHardU will be perceived because no one is going to spend more than 5 seconds considering it. Far more time will be spent looking at the MCAT score that goes with the GPA and seeing what kind of story it tells.

 

[911 Turbo]

Only a handful of schools are supposedly recognized for being tuffer than others (grade deflation)

 

[NickNaylor]

Do people not even bother to use Google anymore? This exact question was answered in a different thread YESTERDAY!

 

[RoyalMule]

Tuffness? Really?

 

[Espadaleader]

Tuffness!