<p>I've heard a lot of stuff about how Cornell premed is rigorous....</p>
<p>My d plans to do premed@ CoE, if accepted...</p>
<p>Will it be hard for her to get into a decent med school due to the strict grading curve?</p>
<p>My friend's son went to a grade inflation school, and he has a very good GPA.</p>
<p>If she maintains a 3.4 GPA at Cornell, she statistically has an 86% chance of getting into med school (A med school, not necessarily an Ivy league one). </p>
<p>i wonder how many of those 86% get into an IVY med school...</p>
<p>also does the 86% include recent graduates or seniors only? </p>
<p>if your sole purpose is to get into med school and social environment does not matter than go to an easy-A college...</p>
<p>if you're interested in research and MD-phD and Cornell is the best school you get into then I would go with Cornell...</p>
<p>in the end med school is heavily based on MCAT and GPA...but you have to go above and beyond in order to get into ivy</p>
<p>Let's clear up some misconceptions:
1. You don't have a 86% chance of getting into med school if you have a 3.4 GPA. You have around a 50-60% chance (which is still pretty damn good for that GPA range). The 86% figure is an average for people with GPA's b/w 3.4-4.0.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The average GPA for engineering is not much lower than that for other science majors. And since 70-80% of the people applying to med school are science majors, don't expect to get much of a GPA break relative to other applicants.</p></li>
<li><p>Engineering premeds have got to stop whining about how they attend Cornell or how hard their major is. No one forced them to come to Cornell. No one forced them to major in engineering. I assume they majored in engineering because:
a) They enjoy the subject and are good at it.
b) They would've sucked in a humanities major.
c) They wanted a good backup plan in case med school doesn't work out.
Engineering pays much better than English or bio. But, it becomes a self-fulling prophecy in that you have a harder road to med school. That's the price you pay for your backup plan. In other words, you can't have your cake and eat it too. </p></li>
<li><p>The percentage of students getting into top med schools is very small. Top med schools have acceptance rates of 2-4% with median GPA/MCAT of 3.8/37. You do the math.</p></li>
<li><p>That said, all US med schools are "decent." Accreditation of US med schools is very strict. So, all schools have at least serviceable facilities, hospitals, and must teach the same things in the same way at the same time. You will notice very little difference in the educational quality of various med schools.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>^^Med school admissions is based on more than just the MCAT and GPA. Schools also look for research experience, clinical experience and a history of community service. I know of someone who had mediocre numbers and got into Stanford because the person had a long record of research experience and Stanford focuses on research. </p>
<p>When med schools look at the grades of a Cornell student...they do understand the grading system and will not penalize a student who has a few B's and C's. An administrator at my hospital used to sit on the admissions committee of a US med school and when I discussed my grades with her....she said my grades wouldn't be a huge hurdle b/c they're from Cornell and they know that Cornell students with 3.3 GPAs do very well in their medical school. </p>
<p>Some school even weight the GPA of students. This comes from a med school admissions seminar I attended so don't hold me to it: students from community colleges and lesser schools will have their GPA weighted at .9, most colleges will receive a weighting of 1.0 and top notch schools may receive a weighting of 1.1. So...college attended can also play a role in admissions.</p>
<p>^I've heard this but I really don't think this happens in real life. For one thing, no med school adcom has ever admitted to it. Secondly, AMCAS calculates your GPA so if the med school weights things differently, they'd have to recalculate everyone's GPA. I'm not so naive as to think someone reviewing files would think a 3.8 from Harvard is the same as a 3.8 from Podunk Uni. But, I think the weight given to the GPA's is very subjective. I've met some very old school interviewers who believe that only the top 15 or so universities are worth accepting from. I've met other adcom members who really don't care about what university you're from. </p>
<p>It's very clear that school plays a role (at my med school, 70% of the students come from a Top 20 school as defined by US News so this doesn't even include other good schools like Berkeley or G-town that lie outside the top 20). But, how much of that is the school and how much is due to the individual, it's hard to say.</p>
<p>
[quote]
You don't have a 86% chance of getting into med school if you have a 3.4 GPA. You have around a 50-60% chance (which is still pretty damn good for that GPA range). The 86% figure is an average for people with GPA's b/w 3.4-4.0.
[/quote]
Yes, that is what I meant. I should've made that clear.</p>
<p>College of Engineering or College of Human Ecology?</p>
<p>Thanks alot for the help.
I'm also encouraging her to follow this plan.
If anything, her work ethic will finally take a turn for the better...</p>