Accelerated med programs and class rank?

Applying to College
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<p>This thread actually relates a lot to the topics discussed in <a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/559068-gpa-ranking-system-fallacies.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/559068-gpa-ranking-system-fallacies.html&lt;/a>, but I want to hear from people who have experience with accelerated med programs and know about their standards in particular. </p>

<p>I have a friend who is very worried about his chances in applying to accelerated med programs (NU's HPME, Brown's PLME, Drexel's, GWU's, PSU's, BU's...) because most ask for class rank, and his is "only" 8 out of 333. He has an unweighted 4.0, but because he took Latin for three years (unweighted even though he took it up to the fourth year level) and the electives Art and Software Apps (an art credit and a tech credit are required for graduation anyways), his weighted GPA is lower than those of people who stocked up on weighted courses every year. </p>

<p>In the thread that I mentioned above, someone posted that about half of colleges recalculate GPAs anyways, and he knows this (he is also aware of the fact that colleges look at your UW GPA and course rigor as opposed to the W GPA), but he's not worried about the GPA itself, which is a respectable 4.69. He's worried that since he's ranked 8, schools will think that he slacked and didn't take a rigorous courseload compared to what is available at our school. Clearly, he did; Latin is just as "rigorous" as many of the weighted classes. Also, in case it matters, the number one student has a W GPA of 4.83; obviously, the differences are fractional. </p>

<p>Do you guys think that his schools (med programs in particular) will overlook his "low" rank, or could it possibly hurt him?</p>

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<p>ummmm just be glad he doesn't go to my school</p>

<p>4 years of an unweighted class + 2 more unweighted classes puts right at about 29/330</p>

<p>:'(! And such is my plight.</p>

<p>Wait but honestly. Admission to these med things is sooooooo competitive. The things that are going to be the difference between those accepted and those rejected are going to be much more significant than 2 or three spots in class rank. He should be stacking up on some hospital volunteer hours rather than worrying about his rank. Actually yeah! Everytime he begins to think about rank, he should drive himself to hoco general and volunteer for 2 hours. That way, everyone wins!</p>

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<p>Lmao a bunch of us were discussing this during Mentorship and all talked about how we'd hate to go to RH. :]</p>

<p>I'm sorry! ]: But I think colleges will be fine with it! They'll be like "oh Band is unweighted gotcha DANG THIS KID IS AMAZING."</p>

<p>AHAHAHA he has lotsa hours and research and stuff, don't worry. :) HoCo was like "oh sorry you volunteered too much, no more pl0x" so now he's at St. Agzzzz.</p>