Cornell Financial Aid Help

@row566

Sigh.

No. Med school admissions really doesn’t work that way. GPA is only part of the overall picture. And once you meet the school’s GPA cutoff, it really doesn’t matter whole lot which undergrad you attended.

At most medical schools, the first round of applicant screening is done by a computer program. Your application has to get past that screen to even get looked at by a pair of human eyes. Med school adcomms aren’t going to automatically bump up your GPA just because you graduated from Cornell. Or downgrade your GPA because it’s from Stonybrook.

You may get a tiny bump (0.05) added to your GPA at a few med schools if the individual adcomm reader of your application has a first hand familiarity with Cornell’s grading policies. Obviously that’s something you can’t count on, and is, in fact, foolish to count on.

A 3.6 GPA (even if it is from Cornell) is going to disadvantage you in med school admissions since the current average GPA for admitted med students is 3.7.

Your undergrad doesn’t prepare you for the MCAT. You prepare yourself for the MCAT.

Even Harvard students complain that their undergrad doesn’t prepare them for MCAT–

[Premeds in Search of MCAT Prep Say Harvard Classes Provide Insufficient Instruction](Premeds in Search of MCAT Prep Say Harvard Classes Provide Insufficient Instruction | News | The Harvard Crimson)

If you have all the factors in place: top GPA, top MCAT score, outstanding LOEs, exceptional ECs, research w/publications, outstanding & unique leadership roles, strong interpersonal & communication skills, good “fit” for the specific school, etc–it’s certainly possible. But not a guarantee, since med school admission–to any med school–is extremely competitive for everyone.

(Last year only ~38-40% of med school applicants received an acceptance.)

And as a FYI, the name of the med school you attend is far, far less important than where you do your residency training. And where you match for residency training for far, far more dependent on your med school achievements (class rank, AOA, clinical grades, MSPE, USMLE scores, LOEs, research, “soft skills” and program “fit”) than what medical school you graduate from.

See what residency program directors look for in applicants–

[Results of the 2014 NRMP Program Director Survey](http://www.nrmp.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/PD-Survey-Report-2014.pdf)