<p>well lower gpa=harder to get into med school so are you still saying that the op should go to cornell over brown?</p>
<p>Cornell over Brown is not the question as I thought it was. OF course, Brown is the answer if you wanna get into a better Med school (at least that is what people are saying) but If you want to actually LEARN MORE and be somewhat ahead for med school, Cornell is the answer. I have also heard that Cornell PRe-MED makes MED school look like a joke!</p>
<p>I think you raise an interesting point Sexy -</p>
<p>What do you as a student want? Hypothetical: a better education to prepare you for medical school or a better shot at getting into a top medical school? I would choose the latter as I believe students at Brown and Cornell are of comparable intelligence and will do fine in med school regardless of their preparation in undergrad.</p>
<p>Lol it just doesn't seem worth it to go to a pre-med pressure cooker. Curve busters, people overly competing for professor's attention (like asking meaningless questions to get noticed), lower medians, etc just don't seem worth it. Brown grads are absolutely prepared. Go with Brown.</p>
<p>One question (because yes even a "troll" like me does not always act like he knows everything), is it very hard to get a good gpa at penn? I always felt that Penn CAS and Brown (as well as most of the other ivies' CAS) scaled their grades to a sometimes gracious extent.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Brown grads are absolutely prepared.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I agree 100%. My point was given the disclaimer "hypothetical" because I don't even think it's true that Cornell pre-meds, though subject to a more strenuous environment, are any better prepared than Brown pre-meds. And in the end, it's all about the MCATs. If Cornell students were better prepared than those of Brown, they should be scoring better on the MCAT and placing into top med schools at an equal or better rate, but they're not.</p>
<p>Well they factor in gpa as well. The question is, how much do they factor in grade deflation? I feel like it doesn't hurt Swat grads as much as students from Cornell. But this is pure speculation. Cornell is also a much larger school, so med schools might only be willing to take a certain number of students from one school hurting Cornell's overall percentages.</p>
<p>Also, Brown states on its website that it is one of the top five colleges for med school acceptances but is there any other data to back this up? And I believe the site states acceptance at top three "choices", and aren't ones top choices determined by MCAT scores? Therefore a Brown student with a low score could list an average med school as his top choice and then be accepted, point being that top choices don't necessarily correlate with top schools. Is this correct?</p>
<p>Hey guys,</p>
<p>Thanks so much for all your responses! I haven't decided yet, because I'm waiting on a proper transfer credit evaluation; and it seems that Penn will be giving me more credit than Brown. Although this shouldn't be the make-or-break point, I would rather not stay an extra semester or year given that it's not monetarily wise. But if I can graduate by 2010 from both schools, I'm leaning towards Brown.</p>
<p>My other question concerns Penn CAS. I'll be a Psych or CogSci major and I was wondering the level of grade deflation relative to a neurosci major at Brown.</p>
<p>Addy that is correct. Top choice is very subjective; there are some students who, when rejected from their actual dream schools, list the schools that accepted them as "top choice."</p>
<p>It is ultimately not going to matter much quantum. Grade inflation is not a great reason to choose one school over another and asking for differences in specific majors is not going to yield any definite answers. I think just asking the question goes against the spirit of an education.</p>
<p>I'm not too familiar with med school; with law, YLS has been reported to give a tenth of a point to more rigorous schools such as Swat, Chicago, etc. Sadly, that is seldom enough to make up for the discrepancy.</p>
<p>Hmm that's interesting about YLS. Where did you hear this? And is Cornell on that list?</p>
<p>"Cornell grade deflation" may have been true in the past, but now is a marginal difference, perhaps explained by the slightly lower average academic credentials of entering students:</p>
<p>
[quote]
Median Grades on the Rise
Univ. sees steady increase in undergraduate GPA
By Willimina Bromer
Sun Staff Writer
May 1 2007
Deckhead: Univ. sees steady increase in undergraduate GPA</p>
<p>...</p>
<p>According to Sun archives, 17.5 percent of grades distributed to students in 1965 were As; by 2000, that number had risen to 40 percent.</p>
<p>Furthermore, 17 courses last semester had a median of an A+, while only 13 had a median of a B-, according to the Fall 2006 Median Grade Report. No classes had a median below a B-.
[/quote]
</p>
<p><a href="http://cornellsun.com/node/23297%5B/url%5D">http://cornellsun.com/node/23297</a></p>
<p>Penn, the subject of the original question, is at least as inflated in CAS as the other Ivies:</p>
<p>
[quote]
At the University of Pennsylvania, 51 percent of grades given in the School of Arts and Sciences are within the A-range, Director of Academic Affairs Kent Peterman said.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>"There is no way that half of the students at a university [Harvard] can be excellent."
-Professor Mansfield</p>
<p>hee. I thought all students at Harvard were way past excellent and into godlike territory.</p>
<p>lol. well thats what they think of themselves anyway.</p>