The Most Premedical Universities

This forum made possible through the generous support of SDN members, donors, and sponsors. Thank you.
is this a thing? predmedical university lol
 
What is your hypothesis on big UC versus small UC in terms of making it to application status? Would opting to go to UC Irvine instead of UCLA or UCB be the smarter move? There has seemed to be a lot of back and forth on this...OBVIOUSLY holding hypothetically that GPA, MCAT, and major are constant variables?
 
grimmghost said:
What is your hypothesis on big UC versus small UC in terms of making it to application status? Would opting to go to UC Irvine instead of UCLA or UCB be the smarter move? There has seemed to be a lot of back and forth on this...OBVIOUSLY holding hypothetically that GPA, MCAT, and major are constant variables?
Click to expand...
I think it mostly has to do with student self-selection bias. The kind of student capable of the grades and scores to be a Californian medical applicant was likely very capable and hardworking back in high school, and got admitted to places like Cal, UCLA, UCSD, so you see many applicants from there. I don't think the schools themselves really push students towards or away from it.

I do think GPA is not a constant variable. Putting yourself up against the student body at Cal is going to make straight As more difficult than against the student body at Irvine.
 
efle said:
I think it mostly has to do with student self-selection bias. The kind of student capable of the grades and scores to be a Californian medical applicant was likely very capable and hardworking back in high school, and got admitted to places like Cal, UCLA, UCSD, so you see many applicants from there. I don't think the schools themselves really push students towards or away from it.

I do think GPA is not a constant variable. Putting yourself up against the student body at Cal is going to make straight As more difficult than against the student body at Irvine.
Click to expand...

I dont think grades are a zero sum game. If you look at the OCW content on MIT's website, their tests dont look at hard.
 
7331poas said:
I dont think grades are a zero sum game. If you look at the OCW content on MIT's website, their tests dont look at hard.
Click to expand...
Material never looks that daunting - the MCAT at a glance is a good example. It's beating 70%+ of the student body taking the test for a competitive grade that poses the challenge.
 
ZedsDed said:
I wasn't smiling at his typo lol, I just like his confidence
Click to expand...
Whoops my bad
image.jpg
 
efle said:
Material never looks that daunting - the MCAT at a glance is a good example. It's beating 70%+ of the student body taking the test for a competitive grade that poses the challenge.
Click to expand...

I suppose so. But is the class on a scale or do you get a letter grade based on your percent right?

Here where I am, if the whole class gets a 95 then the whole class gets an A (of course this would never happen). I dont find it likely that MIT is just on such another level that they are learning more and pushed harder than any state school.

All schools from MIT to the non-flagship state schools learn the same content in organic 1 and 2.
 
ZedsDed said:
I wasn't smiling at his typo lol, I just like his confidence
Click to expand...

You really don't think so? I kind of glance at their Organic 1 stuff and I probably would have gotten an A there as well. Even if it is harder, its no so much harder that is clearly separates a non flagship institution from an Ivy school.

Of course we are all susceptible to hindsight bias.
 
7331poas said:
I suppose so. But is the class on a scale or do you get a letter grade based on your percent right?

Here where I am, if the whole class gets a 95 then the whole class gets an A (of course this would never happen). I dont find it likely that MIT is just on such another level that they are learning more and pushed harder than any state school.

All schools from MIT to the non-flagship state schools learn the same content in organic 1 and 2.
Click to expand...
You're adorable! Some day you are going to have to learn that not all schools are created equal. The COMPETITION is what makes things difficult.
 
ZedsDed said:
You're adorable! Some day you are going to have to learn that not all schools are created equal. The COMPETITION is what makes things difficult.
Click to expand...

Perhaps this is true. I attend UNC which isnt a great school I admit, but there is nothing about what other students do which affects my grade. Whatever percentile you get determines your grade.

Lawper said:
This is news to me
Click to expand...

Could you maybe give an example of a topic covered at an MIT which isnt covered by a mid tier flagship state school?
 
7331poas said:
Perhaps this is true. I attend UNC which isnt a great school I admit, but there is nothing about what other students do which affects my grade. Whatever percentile you get determines your grade.



Could you maybe give an example of a topic covered at an MIT which isnt covered by a mid tier flagship state school?
Click to expand...
That's an excellent school. Do you mean percentage instead of percentile? Because with percentiles, by definition, stronger testing body makes the same number harder to achieve.

Is there anything on the MCAT which isn't covered by typical intro classes?
 
Eh, the material also varies from institution to institution. I'd guess that over 90% of the organic students nationwide don't deal with the type of exams that you see at Wash U.
 
I am a bit surprised my UG didn't make the list, though honestly I think it benefits me to apply relatively anonymously on that front.
 
I would direct people to my signature where I detail my experiences at an Ivy competing with some very smart people.

The tests at my school were much harder than those at schools my friends went to in Virginia (maybe UVA was comparable - never saw any of their tests).

In addition to that, the average Yale student (not saying this is where I went) is more motivated than the average JMU student, which serves to increase the competition. For more info, see my sig - I don't want to type it all out again, sorry. Disclaimer: just my experience and my opinion. People such as @ZedsDed have found things they disagree with in it, so take it with a grain of salt in that n=1, but I feel like it might be a valuable thing to look at.

And at the person who was talking about percentiles, as @efle pointed out, percentiles are directly tied to the performance of your classmates, so yes, you do still have to outcompete your peers for a specific grade.
 
WedgeDawg said:
I would direct people to my signature where I detail my experiences at an Ivy competing with some very smart people.

The tests at my school were much harder than those at schools my friends went to in Virginia (maybe UVA was comparable - never saw any of their tests).

In addition to that, the average Yale student (not saying this is where I went) is more motivated than the average JMU student, which serves to increase the competition. For more info, see my sig - I don't want to type it all out again, sorry. Disclaimer: just my experience and my opinion. People such as @ZedsDed have found things they disagree with in it, so take it with a grain of salt in that n=1, but I feel like it might be a valuable thing to look at.

And at the person who was talking about percentiles, as @efle pointed out, percentiles are directly tied to the performance of your classmates, so yes, you do still have to outcompete your peers for a specific grade.
Click to expand...

I get this feeling that competitive grading scales are far more common at other institutions than they are here...I haven't had a competitively graded class since Differential Equations and Organic Chemistry as an underclassman. None of my courses now are competitively graded or curved at all for that matter. If the average is a 54 (as it was for the first exam in one of my classes this semester), then the average is a 54. If it is a 100, then it is a 100. It has been this way for a while.
 
Lucca said:
I get this feeling that competitive grading scales are far more common at other institutions than they are here...I haven't had a competitively graded class since Differential Equations and Organic Chemistry as an underclassman. None of my courses now are competitively graded or curved at all for that matter. If the average is a 54 (as it was for the first exam in one of my classes this semester), then the average is a 54. If it is a 100, then it is a 100. It has been this way for a while.
Click to expand...

Most of my non-highest level science classes were graded on a curve with a median grade set at the 50th percentile and then based on where you fell on the bell curve, you were given a particular grade. My highest level advanced science classes including my thesis were basically "you have this one big project to do and whatever you get on that is your grade for the class". My humanities classes were generally "here's what you need in terms of raw points for an A - you're not graded against your classmates".
 
WedgeDawg said:
Most of my non-highest level science classes were graded on a curve with a median grade set at the 50th percentile and then based on where you fell on the bell curve, you were given a particular grade. My highest level advanced science classes including my thesis were basically "you have this one big project to do and whatever you get on that is your grade for the class". My humanities classes were generally "here's what you need in terms of raw points for an A - you're not graded against your classmates".
Click to expand...

I see. Competitive grading is a silly, antiquated thing in my opinion. I feel like so many campus climates would improve if you just abolished it. Like JHU wouldnt get the rep for being cutthroat and neither would WashU...UChicago wouldn't be the place fun goes to die..etc, etc, etc.
 
Lucca said:
I see. Competitive grading is a silly, antiquated thing in my opinion. I feel like so many campus climates would improve if you just abolished it. Like JHU wouldnt get the rep for being cutthroat and neither would WashU...UChicago wouldn't be the place fun goes to die..etc, etc, etc.
Click to expand...

The nice thing for a few of my classes was that if you got a certain grade (say, 90% raw points), you automatically got an A. I generally did well enough that I found myself on the right side of the bell curve in the other classes.

Unfortunately, some classes didn't have this, so A- was set at like 96 or something ridiculous. Luckily I never had anything that bad, but I know friends who did who happened to take the wrong class at the wrong time.
 
Meh as it is there way more high GPA than high MCAT applicants every year. We all love the narrative of how "there is all kinds of grade grubbing, grade deflation, and fierce competition" amongst pre-meds and that is true and there are certainly schools that grade deflate. I have no doubt about how difficult it is to even get a B(nonetheless an A) in some upper level's at the UChicago's or MIT's of the world. But in reality if we're being honest there's still more grade inflation going on in the general country that any form of grade deflation.

40% of applicants who apply to medical school each year with a 3.8+ cant even break 30 on the MCAT. When 4/10 people who apply with 3.8+'s are getting beaten by at least 30% of the general testing population( and let's be blunt at least the bottom 30-40 percent of the testing population has some sort of serious flaw from not being a good student, to absolutely zero prep, to not voiding a test when they should be etc) it just highlights that at many many schools pre-meds go to, getting top grades isnt nearly the obstacle people might think.
 
Last edited:
GrapesofRath said:
Meh as it is there way more high GPA than high MCAT applicants every year. We all love the narrative of how "there is all kinds of grade grubbing, grade deflation, and fierce competition" amongst pre-meds and that is true and there are certainly schools that grade deflate. I have no doubt about how difficult it is to even get a B(nonetheless an A) in some upper level's at the UChicago's or MIT's of the world. But in reality if we're being honest there's still more grade inflation going on in the general country that any form of grade deflation.

40% of applicants who apply to medical school each year with a 3.8+ cant even break 30 on the MCAT. When 4/10 people who apply with 3.8+'s are getting beaten by at least 30% of the general testing population( and let's be blunt at least the bottom 30-40 percent of the testing population has some sort of serious flaw from not being a good student, to absolutely zero prep, to not voiding a test when they should be etc) it just highlights that at many many schools pre-meds go to, getting top grades isnt nearly the obstacle people might think.

I've always thought for the MCAT really you need to cut out half the testing population to really see how you compare to others and even then therell be plenty of struggling people taking it. If you do it like that, a 31 is top 40 percentile, 30 is top 52, 33 is top 22 etc. So by that you can see once you start getting up to 33+ yes it really does become difficult. But honestly, when I see so many people with 3.8+s failing to hit a 30 or a 31, it does reek of grade inflation happening more than people might imagine.
Click to expand...

Yah I feel that's the way it is as well. Grade deflation really means "comparatively less inflation". Lol.
 
Lucca said:
I see. Competitive grading is a silly, antiquated thing in my opinion. I feel like so many campus climates would improve if you just abolished it. Like JHU wouldnt get the rep for being cutthroat and neither would WashU...UChicago wouldn't be the place fun goes to die..etc, etc, etc.
Click to expand...

Totally agree. Ironically, it undermines the ideals of equality that a lot of these same universities seem to tout in many settings.
 
Sorry for bumping the thread. I want to clarify a few things here.

7331poas said:
I dont think grades are a zero sum game. If you look at the OCW content on MIT's website, their tests dont look at hard.
Click to expand...

The OCW material is about 10 years old (if not 15). We don't give the public access to our real tests we take today. In fact, our professors will sometimes take mechanisms/syntheses from the scientific literature for problem sets and whatnot.

7331poas said:
All schools from MIT to the non-flagship state schools learn the same content in organic 1 and 2.
Click to expand...

I looked at UNC's Organic II syllabus, and I saw a few things that caught my eye. For one, we finished the following in Organic I (which UNC covers in Organic II): all carbonyl reactions, organo-metallics, MO theory, and everything aromatic (EAS etc.).

Have you heard what a chiral auxiliary is? Yeah, we used those for syntheses in tests. Do you know the stereospecificity in de-protonating with LDA?


Again, sorry. I took an Organic I class at a state school (in high school), and I aced every test. I can say, with confidence, MIT treats things differently.
 
what schools do grade 'curving' instead of percentile grading? ie. curves on exams determine the letter grade, compared to if you get a 90% you get an A, etc, and the curve can only help your grade?
 
UNMedGa said:
Hahaha. I definitely know for a fact that I *used* to know this.
Click to expand...

I mean, that's besides the point. I don't mean to challenge you further, though I want to note that instead of just knowing "E vs. Z" (something I know my experiences at a state school taught me), our professors here at MIT would make us draw out the transition states (chair conformations etc.) on the test to prove our line of reasoning.
 
pioneer22 said:
what schools do grade 'curving' instead of percentile grading? ie. curves on exams determine the letter grade, compared to if you get a 90% you get an A, etc, and the curve can only help your grade?
Click to expand...
Curve = percentile. 90+ = A with any number allowed to score an A would be percent! Prereqs are the most commonly curved and they are on a curve at all the big feeder schools to my knowledge
 
SciClin said:
I mean, that's besides the point. I don't mean to challenge you further, though I want to note that instead of just knowing "E vs. Z" (something I know my experiences at a state school taught me), our professors here at MIT would make us draw out the transition states (chair conformations etc.) on the test to prove our line of reasoning.
Click to expand...
You know I never thought the content was all that important. It's the people you need to beat on a timed exam on the material that makes it hard
 
efle said:
Curve = percentile. 90+ = A with any number allowed to score an A would be percent! Prereqs are the most commonly curved and they are on a curve at all the big feeder schools to my knowledge
Click to expand...

like where?
 
efle said:
You know I never thought the content was all that important. It's the people you need to beat on a timed exam on the material that makes it hard
Click to expand...

Well, it depends on the professors. Some professors do not curve classes at all, though that usually ends up messing everyone's grades up anyway.
 
SciClin said:
Well, it depends on the professors. Some professors do not curve classes at all, though that usually ends up messing everyone's grades up anyway.
Click to expand...
I had some prereqs where they set cutoffs based on the prior year's distribution, so that someone's performance didn't directly impact their peers and there would be no reason for competitiveness. I think it worked, competing against the students of yesteryear is a lot less intense than the classes that were legit curved amongst ourselves.

I don't think I had any with the high school style 80s are Bs, 90s are As raw percent conversions though
 
efle said:
I had some prereqs where they set cutoffs based on the prior year's distribution, so that someone's performance didn't directly impact their peers and there would be no reason for competitiveness. I think it worked, competing against the students of yesteryear is a lot less intense than the classes that were legit curved amongst ourselves.

I don't think I had any with the high school style 80s are Bs, 90s are As raw percent conversions though
Click to expand...

I think that's usually the case. For Organic II in particular, the professor keeps an "A" at a solid 76%.
 
SciClin said:
I think that's usually the case. For Organic II in particular, the professor keeps an "A" at a solid 76%.
Click to expand...
My organic was a nightmare class with medians in the 30s and true curving among the class, but genchem was setup like that where ~75+ was an A and year after year a very consistent portion was able to clear it. It's a good system.

Oh fun fact this is also how the MCAT is scored
 
efle said:
My organic was a nightmare class with medians in the 30s and true curving among the class, but genchem was setup like that where ~75+ was an A and year after year a very consistent portion was able to clear it. It's a good system.

Oh fun fact this is also how the MCAT is scored
Click to expand...

I heard that, with the MCAT, they take into consideration not only old test-takers' performances but also how well everyone does on that particular test? I'm just wondering; you're much more of an expert than I am.
 
SciClin said:
I heard that, with the MCAT, they take into consideration not only old test-takers' performances but also how well everyone does on that particular test? I'm just wondering; you're much more of an expert than I am.
Click to expand...
They had to do this for the first few rounds of the new exam, I believe. For the old test (and what I assume is resuming for the new test) it was entirely based on the performance of past test-takers that had seen your exact same questions/passages. How you did on test day would never affect the score of anyone else in the room with you.
 
efle said:
They had to do this for the first few rounds of the new exam, I believe. For the old test (and what I assume is resuming for the new test) it was entirely based on the performance of past test-takers that had seen your exact same questions/passages. How you did on test day would never affect the score of anyone else in the room with you.
Click to expand...

Ah, makes sense. Cool!
 
This information is actually good to have. Whenever I interviewed I always felt that I went to a much less prestigious undergrad than everybody else who was interviewing. It always seemed like everyone else was an Ivy Leaguer or Big name-dropping college background. My undergrad is good, but not quite the name all the other interviewees had for their undergrad. Seeing this chart makes me realize I was not a fish-out-of-water. The chart would have been a confidence builder for me.
 
Last edited:
OathTaker said:
This information is actually good to have. Whenever I interviewed I always felt that I went to a much less prestigious undergrad than everybody else who was interviewing. It always seemed like everyone else was an Ivy Leaguer or Big name-dropping college background. My undergrad is good, but not quite the name all the other interviewees. Seeing this chart makes me realize I was not a fish-out-of-water. The chart would have been a confidence builder for me.
Click to expand...
Glad you liked it! Yeah I did the math here about representation of certain schools. The fact that ~20 schools contribute 5500 apps is insane, but it still means the vast majority are coming from elsewhere.

There's also an updated set of schools for 2016-2017 here
 
SciClin said:
I mean, that's besides the point. I don't mean to challenge you further, though I want to note that instead of just knowing "E vs. Z" (something I know my experiences at a state school taught me), our professors here at MIT would make us draw out the transition states (chair conformations etc.) on the test to prove our line of reasoning.
Click to expand...

We did transition states at my school too.
 
UNMedGa said:
We did transition states at my school too.
Click to expand...

...transition states with LDA...

I'm starting to stray away from the point here, and I don't want to disagree with you. I just personally think that there is a clear-cut difference between what technical schools expect from their students, especially given my experience in both worlds.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

X0001234
Which medical schools produce the most academic physicians?
Replies
2
Views
1K
LizzyM
LizzyM
S
Most Meaningful Experiences
Replies
2
Views
663
Mr.Smile12
Mr.Smile12
pinkbowbunny
Are most secondaries good?
Replies
20
Views
3K
Pallas
Pallas
Mr.Smile12
[ANNOUNCEMENT] AMSA Premedical Research Project Survey
Replies
0
Views
484
Mr.Smile12
Mr.Smile12
F
  • Question Question
Changing Research to Most-Meaningful?!
Replies
1
Views
478
cooper_m
C
Top