<p>bluebayou, i disagree that the distinction has no difference. The attitude and the ethos of the class are wildly different. In one, collaboration and teamwork are at worst neutral because it doesn’t matter if in the process of learning the material I help other students to do the same. In a course with a capped number of As, I am doing a disservice to myself if I do anything that benefits my classmates. Whether or not the grades happen to distribute normally is very different from forcing them to.</p>
<p>I experienced all sorts of test averages based on the course and the professor for classes with more than one section but where we all took the same test. I had some courses where the average would be close to 90 and others where the average was in the 50s. I took classes with overwhelming numbers of As and some where only the truly brilliant got them.</p>
<p>Aren’t you a budding scientist? What does it story of the data indicate to you if the grades “happen to distribute normally” semester after semester, year after year? </p>
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<p>That is the theory, but yet Cal-Berkeley is still brutally competitive with its 90% = A grading structure.</p>
<p>Fortunately for you, Brown just skews the farthest right. :)</p>
<p>I’d have to agree with iwannabebrown on this one, and in fact have seen the theory of collaboration over competition play out numerous times. A “criterion-based grading scale” is actually what’s in place at my med school–you must get better than a certain score to pass, and if everyone passes, awesome. The collaborative atmosphere is great because I am happy to share my work with my friends and know that I can ask them for help without burdening them (ie, because them helping me doesn’t potentially hurt them). I personally enjoy a learning environment where asking questions to clarify topics is encouraged (few people ask clarifying questions in classes with capped grades because it’s detrimental to their grade if others have a solid understanding of the material) and students are expected to work together rather than work only to ensure their grade is as high as possible. I have a hunch your career as a physician will involve considerable collaboration, communication, and teamwork, so to me it seems reasonable to build those strategies early on, as an undergrad.</p>
<p>By far the most brutal competition for grades was in classes where the number of As was set at a certain percentage of the class (say, top 20%) and sometimes students did unsavory things to be a part of that top 20%. Regardless of how much I liked the course material, I found those courses to be much more stressful and much less enjoyable, which took away from the overall experience of learning the material.</p>
<p>The brutal competition at Cal sounds terrible! Why subject yourself to all that stress and anxiety? Glad I stayed in the midwest :)</p>
I think you have pointed out an important point here. As it is unlikely that you can find any “self-respecting” school where overwhelming numbers of As are given for prereqs, the next best things you as a premed can find is the school where you could possibly maximize the number of As by going to a school where the most challenging prereq classes happen to be your strength. If your strength happen to be on a subject that many premeds (including you) could get As without much efforts, it is not good for you as you can not rely on your strength to help you stand out. (This is what happens on SAT for most competitive high school students – These “good” students may as well spend more of their precious time on ECs to help them stand out there, after they have made sure that their SAT scores are good of course.)</p>
<p>Regarding how lenient the pass/fail policy at a school is (e.g., Brown vs some state schools?), I think it is only the “strategy” premed students should take may be different. This is because if this is easier or less-risky for you, it is also easier or less risky for your peers. So it is a wash, especially if you accept that it is not the GPA itself, rather, it is your rank in terms of GPA from the school you attend (just like in college admission), that matters.</p>
<p>One factor that is more important than the pass/fail policy may be that: If a top school has many students who are NOT interested in pursuing the medicine career (e.g., more interested in i-banking, etc.) it may be good, especially when these students still take science classes side-by-side with the premeds (which may be unlikely though.) The income level of the student’s family and how connected the family is may be a good indicator of this (my speculation here.) The school like Cal loses out on this front by having too few super-wealthy students. (The actress of Harry Potter’s movies will never attend Cal. LOL.)</p>
<p>I think DS has never seen a kid from a super-rich or super-powerful family who would take the premed route. Orgo labs just do not appeal to these students.</p>
DS said there are still some med students who are just as “intense” as in his UG premeds would be (if not more so), even though his med school is a pass/fail school (preclinical years). An unfortunate side-effect of having a class average of 37 on MCAT (his year, as I heard)?! I can not imagine what wustl would be like!</p>
<p>One “intense” MD/PhD student in DS’s class tends to ask many questions in classes and one fellow student once complained to DS that why she raised so many questions (kind of hinted that she wasted the precious time of other students – BTW, in some intense premed classes at DS’s college, many premeds were careful about not asking too many questions!) However, DS thinks he does not mind of this at all because he thinks, by listening to her questions and professor’s answer, he could possibly learn a thing or two as well. (A “light” side note here: the girl complaining to DS once asked whether DS has some relation with that student she complained about out of the class room. Go figure!)</p>
<p>I also heard DS prefers to hold off taking the test of an important subject (physio? donno what others) so that he could take the opportunity to study more on it before taking the test, even though he knew he could have passed the test quite some time ago. Overall, I think he is happier as a med student than as a premed, at least for now.</p>
<p>These super intense students study a lot, as I heard! (gun for ortho or ROAD?!)</p>
<p>There are definitely some intense ones. Some of them are OK though! The kids I know headed there for c/o '16 are super intense. Maybe I’m a weakling, but that super intense stuff just stresses me out and makes me anxious. Definitely counting my lucky stars that my class is, by and large, students like me who I enjoy being friends with! Nice to know that there are a variety of med school environments and that it’s totally possible to find the school that works for you.</p>
<p>if you want to bring science into this, show me the data. At a large school with large pre-req classes, a change of even a few points from semester to semester could be statistically significant, so for all we know, the average is significantly different from class to class. Also, I would argue that while maybe now the prof does that, a brand new prof wouldn’t be able to achieve such consistency. A curved class (by my definition) is a curved class regardless of who writes the test. </p>
<p>That’s not really my point though. If a prof wants to be a hardass and make it incredibly difficult to get As, that’s his prerogative, and very different from pitting students against each other to earn top grades. Do not conflate competitive and difficult. I’m not trying to say that no curve automatically equals easy and without effort, I’m just trying to say that there’s no reason to let anything other than the prof’s standards and your intelligence determine your grade. Why should your performance affect my grade? Learning isn’t a zero sum game where one of us has to do better than the other.</p>
<p>The reason I went to Brown is not because it’s far to the right. I went because these conversations don’t happen, because my friends spent more time learning and being involved in things than charting every move with regard to medical school. In some respects I feel like I got horrible advising at Brown because no one talked to me this way, but in retrospect it was probably for the better. To come out of undergrad already so jaded to the process is sad. Take classes you enjoy and learn for the sake of learning. Medicine is too hard and too long without that mentality.</p>
<p>Many schools have non-majors’ versions of science courses, so that pre-meds won’t be in the same classes or curves as humanities, business, etc. majors.</p>
<p>^ Yea…what you said is true. This is the reason why I wrote “which may be unlikely though” toward the end. The non-science majors tend to take “rock for jocks” and the alike, unless they are premeds.</p>
<p>Maybe the next good thing is to have a lot of science majors who only want to be science teachers in the secondary school? They are science majors who may not be so annal about getting the best grades as compared to the neurotic premeds. Heck, even the “true” science majors who are destined to enter the graduate school tend to have a much more healthy attitude toward the learning. I remember DS once said he would rather hang out with those “true” science majors who have no inclination to be a premed (I heard one of them headed to Cal for graduate school) than those grade-centric premeds who claimed “I always want to be a doctor, since elementary school.”</p>
<p>Note, however, that physics and chemistry majors may not share many courses with pre-meds. At many schools, pre-meds can take physics and chemistry for biology majors, which is different from (and less rigorous than) physics and chemistry for physics and chemistry majors. Of course, biology majors (of whom there are many more than physics and chemistry majors) will be sharing a lot of courses with pre-meds.</p>
<p>And right there is your loophole. Sure, perhaps after freshmen year, grades are not deflated. But what about that freshman year? Since when do med-school adcoms not count freshman grades? </p>
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<p>And this logic, if true, is deeply flawed because I would argue that the two factors - engineering grades vs. lack of EC’s/social-skills are endogenous. Engineering students may indeed lack EC’s or social skills because they simply don’t have time to obtain them. They’re far too busy just trying to survive their engineering coursework. But placed under normal academic circumstances, those skills would improve. This is essentially the same argument why colleges tend to provide admissions ‘boosts’ to poorer high school students coming from chaotic neighborhoods, and are perfectly justified in doing so. My high school grades and SAT scores would surely be lower if I had to worry about navigating gangland territory every day. </p>
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<p>Actually, I want to give the adcoms credit, for I suspect that they may not actually be the true source of the problem. The problem may actually be the med-school rankings systems, especially with regards to the less well-branded med-schools. HMS and Johns Hopkins Med probably don’t care, because the strength of their brands transcends any ranking system. But let’s be brutally honest, one main reason why Washington University in St Louis does so well in the rankings - I believe they even beat Johns Hopkins in certain years - is because they choose to admit students with conspicuously high MCAT and GPA scores. {For those who object, be honest, how many people would have ever heard of Washington U Med if not for the rankings?} </p>
<p>I suspect the pressures to boost rankings are even stronger in the lower depths of the rankings. Deans of medical schools, like deans of any university program, would like to improve their ranking. Sadly, ranking systems only incorporate GPA and MCAT when determining the admissions ‘weighting’ of a particular med-school. I think it is therefore highly plausible that adcoms might well want to admit more students who attended more difficult schools/programs and consequently have lower GPA’s, but know that if they do, their ranking will suffer. </p>
<p>That’s why I actually propose that the admissions process - or at least the rankings - should refrain from using GPA entirely, instead placing that weight upon the MCAT. If the problem is that the MCAT does not sufficiently measure certain traits, then the answer is to design a more comprehensive MCAT. The key advantage of the MCAT is that it’s fair. Different sittings of the MCAT are statistically calibrated against each other. You then never have to worry about the distortions of different grading scales amongst different schools, different majors within the same school, or heck, even different professors teaching different sections of the same class.</p>
<p>Actually, I think the evidence is quite clear. And indeed, you’ve already conceded the evidence yourself. You yourself stated that all students - surely including ORMs - would be better off taking courses at easier programs, and you even listed a number of examples (e.g. choose Brown University over Berkeley). It sure seems to me that you aren’t arguing that only URM’s should prefer Brown, but rather that everybody should prefer Brown.</p>
<p>Hmmmm - are you talking about the same premed advisors who probably won’t give you a strong rec if you perform terribly in your regular coursework? On the other hand, they might actually give you a decent rec if you do well in summer coursework. </p>
<p>But I do agree with your advice that premeds should do the math. But the type of math that they should do is that which will help them to maximize their chances of med-school admission. A premed who calculates that he is unlikely to obtain a strong grade in his school’s regular premed coursework is well-advised to calculate a more optimal pathway for himself. </p>
<p>Indeed, I continue to be surprised that you continue to dispute this point. On the one hand, you say that many premeds should simply give up their dreams rather than consider easier summer coursework, but on the other hand, you recommend that they go to Brown or Dartmouth to exploit their higher GPA scales. How is that any different? Either way, you’re gaming the system.</p>
<p>Actually, I’m just using engineering as an example. My thesis extends to all GPA-deflated majors and even entire universities. For example, I could invoke the example of Caltech - even regarding those students who aren’t engineers (and most Caltech students are not engineers). I think that nobody disputes that Caltech is one of the most difficult schools in the country - arguably more difficult than MIT. </p>
<p>But to your point, sure, med-school adcoms are getting the students that “they want” by simple definition - whoever they admit is, by definition, who “they want”. The question then is, who do they actually want? The answer apparently seems to be those students who tend to choose easier coursework and hence have higher grades. Heck, bluebayou here - apparently one of my detractors (although I’m still not sure why) - has argued with equal passion as I that premeds should prefer to attend Brown or Dartmouth for the higher grades. Not because Brown or Dartmouth necessarily provide better education or a better environment for EC’s or clinical volunteering experience - but just for the grading environment. And note, bluebayou and I are in complete agreement on that point. </p>
<p>The real problem seems to be what med-school adcoms say that they want vs. what they actually want. If they explicitly stated that they don’t really want students to take difficult coursework at difficult schools, that all that they really care about regarding your coursework is your grades - or, even better, if they came right out and said that we are looking to admit a class of students with the statistics necessary to boost our own rankings - then I agree that there would be no problem. The system would then be fully transparent; everybody would know what everybody else wants. But that’s obviously not the system that we have. Every year, people are admitted/rejected for entirely mysterious reasons. </p>
<p>Adcom officers are therefore playing with people’s careers. But this is not a game.</p>
<p>I think you actually just answered your own question. I agree that the single-mom, non-traditional student, heavy researcher, athlete, non-profit founder, dedicated volunteer, and the other categories you mentioned should probably receive a boost. </p>
<p>But then by that very same logic, why shouldn’t those students in difficult majors/schools also receive a boost? We could debate how much of a boost they should receive. I would recommend a statistical calibration process that matched students at the same school with the same SAT score types (i.e. all students with 700/700/700) and calculated the difference in GPA (hence, the ‘between-estimator’) amongst the different majors (i.e. engineering vs. film studies). Remember, the students are matched by SAT score (including scores on specific SAT sections), such that one could infer (with some error band) what GPA an engineering student would have had if he had instead majored in film studies. But I think it’s entirely reasonable that they should receive some boost. </p>
<p>The upshot is that if a numerical metric such as GPA is to take on such importance in the admissions process, then at least it should be properly statistically calibrated/scaled to compensate for differing grading standards. After all, different versions of the MCAT are scaled, and while the scaling is imperfect, at least an attempt is being made. With GPA, nobody even bothers to try. </p>
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<p>I’m afraid that I still can’t accept that as a proper comparison. Let’s face it - the top universities are not really THAT different from each other. Boyfriends/girlfriends aren’t really THAT different, for the final result will still be a husband/wife who you love. {Sorry to break the hearts of the romantics out there, but your potential soulmate doesn’t consist of just one single person in the entire world. He/she may be within a small subset of people, but it’s still going to be a plurality.} </p>
<p>But medicine truly is different. No other profession is comparable. {Think about it: is there really any other profession that allows you to slice somebody open and then stitch them back together while they’re still alive?} But you can never practice medicine if you’re never admitted to med-school in the first place.</p>
<p>Nah, you’re talking about first-semester MIT grades that are shrouded from outsiders. But second-semester (non-failing) MIT grades are open to everybody. If you got straight C’s in your 2nd semester, you’re basically toast for med-school admissions purposes. </p>
<p>{It should also be noted that MIT freshmen still receive grades. It’s just that those during the first semester are converted to P/NR on the external transcript that you present to most outsiders. But more perniciously, certain med-schools such as Johns Hopkins will demand that you sign a waiver allowing them to view your internal MIT transcript, which includes all of your grades. If you don’t sign this waiver, then they don’t consider your application, which sadly vitiates the whole point of the internal transcript in the first place. Frankly, I think that MIT should stand its ground and explicitly state as a matter of policy that outsiders such as JHU will never be presented with the external transcript under any circumstances, even if a student signs a waiver.}</p>
In some situation (not necessarily in medicine), the adcoms really do not care. An example is, in one year, the business school at one college used a combination of GPA/SAT and a lottery system to select their admitted students. They intentionally lower the objective measures like GPA or SAT cutoff, so that the pool of qualified students will be quite large. Then, they randomly select a subset of students from this larger pool of qualified students. Whoever are lucky get in.</p>
<p>Their reason is that they really do not want that their class consists of students who are among the top achievers in academics. By lower the academic standard, they think they could get a more diversified students, e.g., they may not want to admit too many students from those families that are “too good.” They do not care very much about how fair the system is.</p>
<p>Because of the demand-vs-supply ratio of medical school admission, sometimes I think med school adcoms really do not care that much about the academic merit THAT MUCH. No matter what they do, they have no problem in selecting a class whose academic capability is good enough. Other of their goals may be harder to achieve. Thus, they really do not care that much about GPAs because there are well too many students whose GPAs are good enough for them. By ignoring the majors, they spread their net wider, it could help them achieve more of their goals more easily. (e.g., students from some difficult majors are too homogeneous. To put it bluntly, too many ORMs from these tough majors while they can easily get enough of ORMs. Heck, they may even prefer some outliers ORMs who choose not to be in these few majors which could more easily lead to a job after getting a BA/BS degree only.)
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