<p>My son has met with a couple admission people from medical schools through his premed society. They keep telling the students that where you attend undergraduate doesn't matter--it just comes down to the numbers. He is at a very difficult school with significant grade deflation. Often one or no A's given in a class. His question is why am I here working my butt off when I could go somewhere else, have time for fun, and still end up with a higher GPA? Is the number thing true? or is that just the "correct" thing to say?</p>
<p>It is true for medical school and law school. Your state medical school will defer to its own. This is of course not to say that research MDs don't need/want academic prestige and connection but just to get into medical school........numbers.</p>
<p>often times, a more rigorous school will also prepare its students better for the MCATs.</p>
<p>you mean like a competitive high school prepares students for SAT???</p>
<p>In my opinion there is a correlation between a school's rigor and standardized test scores. For example, I am currently taking a course of chemistry at a community college while in high school at the same time and I must say that if I studied at the community college for 4 years instead of my high school I would have done a lot worse on my SATs simply because the quality of student-teacher interaction, coursework, and peer pressure (the positive academic kind) is far inferior to the quality of education I received from my high-school.</p>
<p>mkm56: Are you referring to Cornell?</p>
<p>No, not Cornell</p>
<p>I know this is a weird thought ... but ... because you believe it would be the most intellectually engaging and challenging place for you and your goal as an undergrade is to learn and explore</p>
<p>mkm56, it is true to an extent that the numbers matter but as a professor in my department (biomed engineering at an Ivy) was saying just a couple of days ago...med school ad coms arent stupid and they will take into consideration other factors (he was talking in reference to lower GPAs in the engineering major as opposed to others). as for the case with your son though...I think it depends on what school he goes to...if this "very difficult school with significant grade deflation" is some place like MIT, then I'm sure many ad coms have come across very smart people from that school and take it into account...but if you are talking about some little known university in the middle of nowhere that just happens to be difficult, then i dont think med schools will be aware of this academic rigor since the school isnt well known. It would be nice if u mentioned what school you are talking about as well, maybe it'll make the advice more pointed.</p>
<p>I wouldn't say that the med-school adcoms are 'stupid', but rather that they are incented wrong. For example, as I'm sure we all realize, med-schools are ranked by USNews and other publications, in part, on the GPA's of the people they bring in, without consideration for how difficult it was for those people to get that GPA. Hence, med-schools have a built-in disincentive to not admit people with poor GPA's even if they know the person is good, simply because it might cause the med-schools ranking to drop if they did admit this person. </p>
<p>Hence, it's not really a case that the med-schools 'don't know' about the different grading schemes used by different majors. I think they do know. It's more like they 'don't care'. The rankings game causes them to not care.</p>
<p>I agree with sakky 100%.</p>
<p>In the end, med-schools have 2 priorities for admissions: to bring in a bright class of people who will be good doctors and to ensure that they will be able to bring in a bright class of people next year. If a place started admitting people who did pretty well in difficult classes versus people who did excellently in stupid classes, that place would fall in the rankings. When you drop in the rankings, the number of applications drop, meaning you have to be less selective, you'll have a lower yield, and in the end, have a less talented class of medical students.</p>
<p>So if person X takes "Retard Science 0" and gets an A and person Y takes "Ridiculously Hyper-Advanced Quantum Biology to Make You Cry and Have Horrible Dreams that Leave You in Emotionally Scarred For Years Afterwards 9000X" and gets a C, the med-school is inclined to take person X, though we'd like to believe that in a perfect world, person X gets a 20 on the MCAT and person Y gets a 40, and person Y makes it in the end.</p>
<p>Good points from everyone. I've been telling my S. that surely the more difficult schools are preparing you better for the MCAT.</p>
<p>nikeswooshguy....noone said anything about getting Cs...thats an extreme but yes they do care about numbers and "person X" still need to fulfill his premed requirements by taking the same basic sciences as "person Y" the fact that the latter wants to take higher level science classes is his own fault. </p>
<p>mkm56....i'm at a more difficult school and i dont think they prepare you better for the mcat....possibly indirectly but in the end the mcat is as basic as the sience courses in community colleges and those ppl might actually be the ones at an advantage because the basics are emphasized more than anything. its true that the mcat is also a reasoning test and thats where the mentality of ppl at more difficult schools come in...but in the end i dont think the more difficult schools r a better preparation.</p>
<p>Shraf, are u sorry you chose the more difficult path? or do u feel that you are better off for the challenge? Also, do you know if a transfer of schools is a red flag to adcoms?</p>
<p>Hello,</p>
<p>This will, of course, vary among medical schools. However, visit various schools and look at their pre-medical department homepages - some threads around this board have links for you. You'll notice that for a given medical school and two given undergraduate institutions, the average GPAs and MCAT scores for an admitted candidate vary widely - some of your more prestigious, private institutions can get candidates admitted despite lower GPAs and MCAT scores. If you add in the fact that a more rigorous school will actually enhance your MCAT score, you end up with a sizeable advantage in terms of GPA.</p>
<p>The "numbers" philosophy has just been disproven by - ironically enough - the numbers.</p>
<p>There are several reasons for this.</p>
<p>The first thing you have to remember is that medical school classes are small - usually 100-120 students. Unlike the undergraduate process, medical schools can afford to pay a great deal of attention to their students. They can investigate every college, where colleges can't investigate every high school.</p>
<p>Second, let's deal with the rankings idea. While it makes sense, you're failing to consider that how well a student actually performs in medical school - i.e. what kind of residencies he places into, what other medical schools think of their students, etc. - play a much larger role than entering MCAT scores and GPA in any set of rankings.</p>
<p>Third, medical schools place a great deal of emphasis on extracurriculars and recommendations. I can't prove the second, but if you flip through a listing of medical schools, you'll see that the vast majority of candidates have experience in research, community service, and - what seems to me to be the most important - clinical settings. This may be of no comfort to mkm56's son (for whom schoolwork might have been taking away EC time), but it does reinforce the idea that medical schools pay attention to much more than your semi-mythical "index".</p>
<p>good question mkm56....i dont know the answer to that....sometimes i feel really dumb for taking a tough route and sometimes (when i do well) it makes me proud and i'm sure it'll help me. I think my bigger challange is the engineering major i chose rather than the college i went to (though it is an Ivy). There are alot of ppl here who major in something less hard and still maintain very high GPAs etc. For me, when i was chosing colleges, i didnt know about any of this maximizing GPA for med school nor was i sure i wanted to go to med school in the first place...so thats one reason i came here....the other is prestige....if anyone tells you that they would turn down an Ivy league admission and go somewhere less prestigous because its easier they'r lying to you.....just like with med school....i will aim as high as i can go...and in college, i feel that if a certain school accepts you then you are on par with the rest of the class and will be able to compete at the required level.</p>
<p>Also, bluedevilmike's point is very good...that it is more than just GPA and MCAT scores....experience is VERY important and good experience is even better.</p>
<p>Shraf and Bluedevil, thanks so much for your responses, I have sent them on to my son.</p>
<p>Can we follow up on mkm56 comments? What about Cornell? Does Cornell hve grade deflation? do adcoms take that into account?how?</p>
<p>Shraf: A lot of really smart and talented students actually turn down an offer from a more prestious school. They don't do it because it's easier. Sometimes they do it because of the money factor, sometimes because they need to be close to home, and sometimes for other personal reasons. i know lots of ppl who did this. </p>
<p>As far as med school preparation goes, i don't think ivy league schools help u get better mcat scores. but these schools do have better resources and more opportunities available to the students. i think this is where the difference is.</p>
<p>i said:</p>
<p>
[quote]
if anyone tells you that they would turn down an Ivy league admission and go somewhere less prestigous because its easier they'r lying to you
[/quote]
</p>
<p>...so your point is just useless....i didnt say people never turn down offers from such schools, i said it being easier at another school is never the reason...so we agree...i know people who have turned down offers for other reasons too....i dont see what your arguing here exactly</p>
<p>I will, however, add this:</p>
<p>My friends at larger public schools tend to celebrate MCAT scores that would have us commiserating (sp?) with each other. That is, a score that would have Duke students saying, "Aww, were you sick? Did you get in a car crash?" will have students envious or throwing you parties at some larger schools. This is anecdotal evidence, not statistical - so take it with a grain of salt - but I do, in fact, think that better schools have higher MCAT scores. Is this because they teach us better? Probably. Are we more selective in the first place? Also probably.</p>