I'm just curious....What percent is considered a 4.0 at your undergrad institution? I graduated from a state school where a 94% and above was considered a 4.0 for most classes. I'm now enrolled at a different school where the 4.0 cutoff is 98%. Most of my professors do not grade on a curve so there is essentially no margin for error. I think I may have made a huge mistake by enrolling at this institution for someone trying to repair a 3.0 gpa from ten years ago. Any thoughts?
What % is a 4.0 at your school?
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It sounds like a poor school to repair grades.
At my institution, anywhere from an 85%-95% was an A. Usually at the professors discretion. The average was probably 93 for an A, 90 for an A-. The harder sciences has built in curve because well... most people are dumb/don't try.
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I'm also in the long process of grade repair and at my school it's just a straight scale: lecture 90%+ is 4.0, labs are 93% = 4.0 It's rough though because if you're in the middle and have like an 88% it rounds all the way down to a 3.0 instead of a 3.7 or 3.5 etc and all of the schools around me are like that.
Wow...I'm feeling a little sick to my stomach. I got a 3.2 and 3.4 in general chemistry at an 88% and 91%. I spoke with my professor about it and he said medical schools will know that my institution is more difficult than others. That may be true but I'll be screwed either way if I can't get my science gpa above a 3.4. Also, to make an argument against his point....just because the grade distribution is lower does not necessarily mean academic rigor is higher. Really, it just means my school is screwing over their undergrads.
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This is where the mcat comes in.
My school is similar. Its a highly competitive environment where everyone is trying hard, and all the science departments curve on 2.6 to 2.8, so unless you're literally the best of the best (among many very hard working and gunner premeds), you will probably hit 2.8-3.2. Sad thing is that at my school at least (large state school), it has more to do with who you know, and having lots of friends who have taken the class before and have old exams, etc. Most med schools outside of your state school will have no idea what caliber of rigor your undergrad was..
The MCAT is the great equalizer. If you have a deflated gpa from a hard undergrad, you can show adcoms you really know your stuff by doing well on the mcat. Likewise, schools that inflate gpas with students who take the mcat and do poorly are showing their true colors as well.
My school is similar. Its a highly competitive environment where everyone is trying hard, and all the science departments curve on 2.6 to 2.8, so unless you're literally the best of the best (among many very hard working and gunner premeds), you will probably hit 2.8-3.2. Sad thing is that at my school at least (large state school), it has more to do with who you know, and having lots of friends who have taken the class before and have old exams, etc. Most med schools outside of your state school will have no idea what caliber of rigor your undergrad was..
The MCAT is the great equalizer. If you have a deflated gpa from a hard undergrad, you can show adcoms you really know your stuff by doing well on the mcat. Likewise, schools that inflate gpas with students who take the mcat and do poorly are showing their true colors as well.
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Mine is on the dreaded plus/minus system.
>97% is A+, which is 4.0
94-96% is A, which is 4.0
90-93% is A-, which is 3.7 (uuuggghhhhh)
>97% is A+, which is 4.0
94-96% is A, which is 4.0
90-93% is A-, which is 3.7 (uuuggghhhhh)
Very grateful my school doesn't do plus/minus. 90-100 is a 4.0. That said, it appears very few people get As here. My organic 1 professor emailed the As from our class asking if anyone could tutor. There were five of us. As far as I know, there were only two As from my physics 1 class. A plus/minus system might benefit the people who tend to miss cutoffs by a point or two.
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93%+ is probably the standard.
Not having +/- sounds like a sweet deal if you get a 90, unless you end up with an 89 that is suddenly only a 3.0
Not having +/- sounds like a sweet deal if you get a 90, unless you end up with an 89 that is suddenly only a 3.0
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Yeah at almost every school that was near me had a +/- system where you could get a 3.7 or 3.5 for something like an 88% or so. That's way more fair than finishing with an 88% and getting a 3.0
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It's all fun and games until you technically have an A but get a 3.7 though... 
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Let me guess, you are a fellow dawg?
And the last part isn't quite true. Adcoms get a ton of info, and one is average GPA's and other statistical info about all the schools, and thru the few people I know/have connections with, they have known about this.
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Are you asking about Wedgedawg? That individual's opinion is pretty much the opposite of Wedgedawg's.
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No I was implying he was a husky (UW), we are a 2.8 +- mandatory curve, mostly -.2 so 2.6, grading system, and I'm not aware of that many other schools offering GPA based grades with that grading scheme in science classes
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I've heard otherwise, but let's hope that's generalizable to most schools besides UWSOM then
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http://depts.washington.edu/grading/pdf/FROG_UWAverageGrades_UNDERGRAD_1213.pdf
I don't know why this info is always buried and hard to find, but always interesting to see the spread of grades across majors.
It's also weird for people on numerical grades, since AMCAS does numerical, to letter, back to numerical, so we get some crazy rounding
I don't know why this info is always buried and hard to find, but always interesting to see the spread of grades across majors.
It's also weird for people on numerical grades, since AMCAS does numerical, to letter, back to numerical, so we get some crazy rounding
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