Too challenging and therefore diminished prob of acceptance into med school

[NYBills987]

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Problem is GPA's vary so much by institutions and majors and even different classes in majors. Two identical students with identical work ethics could have vastly different (0.4+) GPA's if they went to different schools and took different majors. But because adcoms have to report the average GPA's there is no incentive for them to take lower GPA individuals.

Not to mention that better schools have a more intelligent and motivated student body (eg - My UG's 25th percentile SAT scores are equivalent to many schools' 75th percentile scores) which makes getting good grades tougher in the vast majority of courses as they are graded on a curve and A's only go to the top 1/4 to 1/3 students in the class.

It is still relevant in my opinion. The MCAT is a one day test-- GPA is a record of four years of school. The adcoms have average GPAs at all the schools, so for your GPA you will be compared within your own university. I think their philosophy is that you will do what it takes to get the grades. While that might not be fair, plenty of people think its unfair that schools discount their high GPA for the MCAT which a persons performance can really vary at depending on how they are suited to the passages and their state of mind. I would say the emphasis on MCAT is actually higher than that of the GPA.

I do think it will be tougher at some schools to get a high GPA as to others, but it seems to me that people are able to get high GPAs at all schools. It is still a four year record of what you were able to do against your class. Takng just MCAT or just GPA would be a really unfair way of doing things-- that is why they look at both and try to do their bet to sift through the thousands of applications they have. I'm done with the application process, but I personally feel that GPA is a stronger indicator of work ethic than the MCAT any day.

 

[asrikrishnan]

I have some questions to ask the OP:

1. You have said that your school (not university) recommends that you should take only up to 2 classes per semester. From the time you enter undergrad, how long does it take a typical student in this school to graduate with a degree?

2. Did you know that this school would be: A) this difficult and B) take this long when you first came to the university? If so, why did you end up choosing the option that would delay your entry into medical school with the almost certain outcome of having a subpar GPA compared to other applicants?


I ask these questions with full respect to the OP and with the expectation that he doesn't answer, as he said a few pages ago, but I am indeed curious about these particular choices.

 

[flatearth22]

It is still relevant in my opinion. The MCAT is a one day test-- GPA is a record of four years of school. The adcoms have average GPAs at all the schools, so for your GPA you will be compared within your own university. I think their philosophy is that you will do what it takes to get the grades. While that might not be fair, plenty of people think its unfair that schools discount their high GPA for the MCAT which a persons performance can really vary at depending on how they are suited to the passages and their state of mind. I would say the emphasis on MCAT is actually higher than that of the GPA.

I do think it will be tougher at some schools to get a high GPA as to others, but it seems to me that people are able to get high GPAs at all schools. It is still a four year record of what you were able to do against your class. Takng just MCAT or just GPA would be a really unfair way of doing things-- that is why they look at both and try to do their bet to sift through the thousands of applications they have. I'm done with the application process, but I personally feel that GPA is a stronger indicator of work ethic than the MCAT any day.

Even then if your GPA is 25th percentile in your highly ranked school does that mean that someone who went to a mid-tier state school and has a 75th percentile GPA is harder working than you? Remember - your school's 25th percentile SAT is equal to the other school's 75th percentile SAT! Comparing GPA's is always apples to oranges when you go across majors and across institutions.

That's why the MCAT is the great equalizer. Apples to apples. Even though it's a one day, 5 hour exam the time needed to prepare for it and the information it covers is extensive. It tests work ethic, memorization, knowing concepts, and raw reasoning skills. There's no doubt in my mind that if I had transferred to a CalState and was surrounded by bimbos and majored in sociology that I would pull off a 3.9+ (just by knowing friends who go there and seeing their exams and knowing their intelligence level). That wouldn't prove I'm a better student - but it would in the eyes of adcoms.

 

[physicsnerd42]

Even then if your GPA is 25th percentile in your highly ranked school does that mean that someone who went to a mid-tier state school and has a 75th percentile GPA is harder working than you? Remember - your school's 25th percentile SAT is equal to the other school's 75th percentile SAT! Comparing GPA's is always apples to oranges when you go across majors and across institutions.

I'm not terribly sympathetic to this argument. I went to a school you've probably never heard of and I'm now at a school you've definitely heard of. I TA classes as a grad student here and I frankly don't see too much of a difference in the students between my old school and new school. The top students at both are probably pretty similar and at each school there are smart/motivated students as well as stupid/lazy students. Perhaps the average intelligence/motivation is higher here and my old school probably had a longer stupid/lazy tail in the distribution, but they're not as different as you'd think. I'd say that my current school also has a fair bit grade inflation whereas at my last school the average GPA was lower than here.

I'd also point out that some of the med students I know who struggled the most here went to Ivy+ schools and some people who did very well went to schools you've never heard of. Going to "top 10" school and having a mediocre record does not mean you will do better in med school than people who have gone to lower-ranked schools and have done pretty well there.

 

[NYBills987]

Even then if your GPA is 25th percentile in your highly ranked school does that mean that someone who went to a mid-tier state school and has a 75th percentile GPA is harder working than you? Remember - your school's 25th percentile SAT is equal to the other school's 75th percentile SAT! Comparing GPA's is always apples to oranges when you go across majors and across institutions.

That's why the MCAT is the great equalizer. Apples to apples. Even though it's a one day, 5 hour exam the time needed to prepare for it and the information it covers is extensive. It tests work ethic, memorization, knowing concepts, and raw reasoning skills. There's no doubt in my mind that if I had transferred to a CalState and was surrounded by bimbos and majored in sociology that I would pull off a 3.9+ (just by knowing friends who go there and seeing their exams and knowing their intelligence level). That wouldn't prove I'm a better student - but it would in the eyes of adcoms.

Well, I would say that if your GPA is 25th percentile at one school and someone else has a GPA in the 75th percentile, I would imagine that they were working harder... it isn't an exact comparison, but you can get some useful info from it... there are some students that will just get 3.9s no matter what school they are at.
However, you only bolded part of my statement there.. The MCAT does undeniably have a lot of value as a 'great equalizer.' If you wanted that to be a true test, everyone would have the same passages and take the test once a year like they do in some foreign countries. There is a decent amount of variation between tests. But I believe that adcoms DO understand that the MCAT is the standardized test to compare applicants and give it appropriate weight. The MCAT is weighed much more heavily in the admissions process than GPA.
While every bit helps, once you hit a 3.6+, I think the value of GPA really decreases and MCAT increases. This is just what I personally feel after talking to a number of applicants at interviews and perusing MDapps. A school in its difficulty might be to blame for a few tenths of a point in GPA, but students everywhere are fairly similar, and you should be able to make up that difference in my opinion.