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<p>I will. </p>
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<p>There. You said it – Princeton does not have grade deflation.</p>
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<p>I’m sorry that I am unable to enter the minds of the MIT/Caltech Deans in an attempt to answer this question accurately; please forgive me.</p>
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<p>No, again, what I said is that Princeton is inflated, which it is: it is practically impossible to fail at Princeton. </p>
<p>Now, what you are saying is that Princeton may be relatively more deflated than it was in the past. But that’s not what I’m talking about. Whatever the changes in Princeton’s grading scheme may have been, I’m quite sure that plenty of Caltech students would love to be able to trade their grading schemes for Princeton’s any day of the week. I highly doubt that anybody at Princeton would care to make that trade.</p>
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<p>So you agree that the top schools do not necessarily award top grades to all of their students.</p>
<p>How come Brown with a median GPA of undergrads over 3.6 not enter into this discussion of grade inflation? Or did I skip a page?</p>
<p>To be clear: I never said that grade inflation was bad for the students. In contrast, I think it’s highly desirable for the students (although perhaps undesirable for society at large). As a student, you want to go to a school where you are essentially assured that you won’t flunk out, for nowadays, to obtain a decent job, you basically need a degree. Granted, there are a few realms such as entrepreneurship or entertainment where a degree is unnecessary, but apart from those minor exceptions, you basically need a degree. Employers are going to want to see that you have a degree, and if you don’t, they won’t care why. All they will see is that you don’t have one.</p>
<p>That’s what makes Princeton (and Brown and other such schools) such desirable places to study. Perhaps you may not get A’s at Princeton. But hey, at least you’re practically assured of graduating. You’re not going to flunk out. You’re going to get that degree. Ultimately, in terms of career prospects, that’s what matters to employers.</p>
<p>“When you say you went to Yale, some people would ask in return: did you make it at Harvard? or, why didn’t you chose Harvard instead?”</p>
<p>I’ve never seen that happen. Have you?</p>
<p>^When people say they went to Harvard, I usually ask in return: what, didn’t make it to Columbia?</p>
<p>LOL that is ridiculous.</p>
<p>Everyone knows there is Harvard and everyone else. This is due, in great part, by the Harvard hype machine that permeates the press, media, etc. Whenever there is a story or article about someone who happens to be an alum, there seems to be a mandate that requires this fact be known to the reader. You can’t beat that kinda press…</p>
<p>“Everyone” being the lay person. Employers and graduate schools that are hiring out of these places tend not to think of it as “Harvard and everyone else”.</p>
<p>The vast majority of people you interact with in your life—including most employers—will be lay people who instantly are impressed by Harvard and nothing else.</p>
<p>That’s not true in pretty much any area where your employer cares about where your degree came from and not just that you have one…</p>
<p>There are pretty few fields where the place you studied would matter much.</p>
<p>“The vast majority of people you interact with in your life—including most employers—will be lay people who instantly are impressed by Harvard and nothing else.”</p>
<p>It’s true that the majority of employers will be impressed by Harvard and nothing else. However, undergrads from Ivies, Stanford, MIT, etc. won’t be trying to impress most employers. These students consider most employers to be unworthy of their degrees forged in high Ivy citadels of learning. These students will be trying to impress the most elite of employers (Goldman, Morgan Stanley, etc.), and 3.8 from Harvard won’t gain any advantage over 3.8 from Yale or Dartmouth or Columbia from just the GPA in the eyes of these elite firms.</p>
<p>That’s true. But lets be realistic here: most students <em>aren’t</em> going to end up working for Goldman, even most Ivy league students. In any contingency plan of lower-level employers, Harvard is going to be infinitely more impressive. This includes everything from alternate industries (very few outside Northeast finance are knowledgeable about Ivies) to smaller states and later life changes.</p>
<p>Here’s a good rule of thumb: if your employer has a degree from an Ivy, it probably doesn’t matter which one you went to; if your employer doesn’t, they’re going to be impressed by Harvard and nothing else.</p>
<p>^Still not true. </p>
<p>If you are applying from Wharton with a 4.0 versus a Harvard grad with a 3.8 then the former will have far more credential than the latter. Similarly, a film degree would be more impressive from NYU or USC versus Harvard.</p>
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<p>Lower level employers? Are Ivy League grads likely to apply to starting jobs paying 30k when the average salary for an Ivy grad is double that amount?</p>
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Sure, that applies for certain professions—but, in general, nothing gets more prestige than a Harvard degree.</p>
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I never said 30k/year. There are plenty of high salary jobs not directly tied the Ivy league. My point is simply this: whatever industry you end up in, wherever in the world, people will be impressed by a Harvard degree. Sure, in some specific cases a different one might be better—but a Harvard degree gives you maximum “flexible” prestige.</p>
<p>To answer the OP’s question, here is an analysis of the MD admission GPA listed on [MDapplicants.com</a> - Home](<a href=“http://mdapplicants.com/]MDapplicants.com”>http://mdapplicants.com/) for a few selected schools:</p>
<p>Applicant’s Undergraduate School: Average GPA for admitted MD students from that School</p>
<p>Princeton: 3.532
Dartmouth: 3.542
MIT: 3.547
Johns Hopkins: 3.584
Duke: 3.598
Harvard: 3.601
Stanford: 3.605
UC Irvine: 3.621
WUSTL: 3.624
UCLA: 3.635
UC Berkeley: 3.636
U of Florida: 3.688</p>
<p>On average, you can get into a medical school with 3.542 GPA from Dartmouth while you’ll need a 3.601 from Harvard. Only a GPA from Princeton and MIT is more valuable than Darmouth’s.</p>
<p>Again, the people who really count, know what’s going on.</p>
<p>As an employer, I am equally impressed by all applicants whose undergraduate years were spent at any elite institution, whether Harvard, Williams, Penn, Dartmouth, Swarthmore, Columbia, Stanford, etc. Harvard graduates were often “rejected” by other elite institutions, and Pomona graduates were often “rejected” by other elite institutions. All that matters to me is that I can be assured that all were extremely bright high-achievers for the first 18 years of their lives. Once college begins, other factors become relevant.</p>
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<p>You have a major flaw in this analysis, Prof.</p>
<p>(a) You are assuming the number of applicants from each school is the same;
(b) Applicants from Harvard with gpas less than 3.601 even applied;
(c) You are assuming that the MD school only looks at grades and not other factors, incuding MCAT scores and recommendations, etc.</p>
<p>So, let’s assume only one person from Princeton with 3.542 applied and only one person from Harvard with 3.601 average applied, and each was admitted. Does that mean anything? I don’t believe you can make this argument based on the limited data presented. That would be academically reckless and lazy…</p>
<p>H > YPSM > other ivies > other colleges</p>
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Depends on what you’re going for. Certainly for graduate admissions the difference would be completely nonexistent. </p>
<p>Most professors do not stand in deep awe of a Harvard diploma. It’s about as good a degree as one can get, of course, but many equally well or better qualified applicants come from other institutions.</p>