<p>agree with @QuantMech. That is why the true HARDCORE pre-meds (those who are devout future doctors) will rarely choose to attend MIT or Caltech for Stanford or Harvard…the latter two schools having a reputation for being more generous in awarding higher GPAs needed by pre-meds…</p>
<p>Right gravitas2. And isn’t it sad that the admissions officers at med schools, business schools and law schools will pick the higher GPA over the more rigorous school. Wouldn’t we want our physicians, finance consultants and lawyers to be the ones that went to the most rigorous schools, took the most rigorous classes/major and had the best education? Why are we advising students to take easy majors in easy schools to get into professional training programs. We should be advising admissions officers to overcome their cognitive biases and make better admissions decisions.</p>
<p>For the most part, I agree with you, lostaccount. I think that med schools in particular may miss out on some of the most promising future researchers in medicine, because of an over-emphasis on GPA. Science and engineering grad schools put less emphasis on GPA, and more on undergrad research experience and strength of curriculum–although the top places still tend to admit students with very high GPA’s. It’s just that a 4.0 (or 5.0 in the MIT version) is not really important for science or engineering grad school, but quite a few pre-meds (in my experience) seem focused on GPA maximization, and make risk-aversive course choices for that reason. </p>