<p>When people transfer to another college or apply to grad school, don't the admission officers know about Cal's infamous grade deflation, especially in pre-med? Doesn't this counter the negative effects a low GPA would give you in a pool of applicants?</p>
<p>Professional schools don’t give a ****.</p>
<p>Being in Berkeley will look good for graduate schools, especially if you can get LOR from famous professor (and Berkeley has quite a few of them). A LOR can sometimes counter a low gpa, if your professor says you are brilliant or something, but that doesn’t mean you can have an abysmal GPA either.</p>
<p>Berkeley does not have grade deflation; it has [grade</a> inflation](<a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com/Ucberkeley.html]grade”>UC-Berkeley), though probably not as much as at many other schools (private schools generally seem to have more grade inflation than public schools).</p>
<p>The usual talk in the pre-med forums is that medical schools look at GPA without looking at (a) whether your school has more or less grade inflation, (b) whether your school has more or less competitive students, and (c) whether you took a “harder” major and course schedule versus the minimum pre-med courses and the easiest major and other courses. Law schools have a similar reputation.</p>
<p>Graduate departments in academic fields are more likely to consider these things.</p>
<p>ucbalumnus I see you post a lot about Berkeley’s grade inflation with your data on GPA increase with respect to time. I’m curious if there are actual colleges who exhibit the opposite behavior of decreased GPA with respect to time. Just because Berkeley’s GPA increases, which I am pretty sure almost every college on average is doing, it doesn’t mean it is experiencing grade inflation in comparison to the national trend.</p>
<p>The [California</a> community colleges](<a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com/Californiacc.html]California”>California Community Colleges) as a system have had slight grade deflation over the years. [UC</a> Riverside](<a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com/UCriverside.html]UC”>http://www.gradeinflation.com/UCriverside.html) deflated a quarter grade point from 1992 to 2000 (though no more recent data is listed). [MIT[/url</a>] inflated until the 1970s, then had slight deflation to 1999 (no more recent data).</p>
<p>The [url=<a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com%5Dvarious”>http://www.gradeinflation.com]various</a> CSUs (at the bottom of the page)](<a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com/MIT.html]MIT[/url”>MIT) and [UC</a> Irvine](<a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com/Ucirvine.html]UC”>UC Irvine) have had relatively little grade inflation compared to other schools.</p>
<p>Of course, a high school student looking at pre-law or pre-med and does not care about anything other than a good GPA for that purpose could look in the data to see if there are any schools with relatively high average grades with relatively low student competitiveness.</p>
<p>Well in transfers, colleges consider the prestige of a university in deciding if they will give transfer credit. And I know for a fact that AOs consider the rigor of a high school during freshman admissions, so why would grad not consider the the grade deflation of a college? I mean lets say I got a 3.6 at berkeley and a 14 (is the MCAT score a range from 1-15? I’m not doing premed so I don’t really know) but got a 4.0 and a 12 at Stanford. Since Stanford has grade inflation on par with the Ivies, won’t med schools consider that the Berkeley kids had to compete with more, but see that he is as qualified due to his MCAT?</p>
<p>they should but evidence is that they don’t except perhaps to a small extent. Two otherwise identical applicants, then the school with more deflation/less inflation would likely break the tie, but taking a 3.5 from one school over applicants with a 3.9 at another, not so much. Best plan - have a 4.0 from Cal with a high MCAT - but easier to say than to accomplish.</p>
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<p>Carefully consider the following quote. It was, interestingly enough, written for premeds at Stanford, but the lessons surely apply even more saliently to premeds at Berkeley. </p>
<p>*…It is true that it is more difficult to get
an A in a Stanford pre-med class than it is at most other
schools. This is easier to understand since you are
graded on a curve with some of America’s best students.
Consequently, an ‘A’ at Stanford can mean a lot,
particularly in science classes with a ‘C’ mean.</p>
<p>However, most of you won’t get A’s in every
class. And because of this, some of you certainly
would have had higher GPA’s elsewhere. It is also true
that medical school know this and will take it into account.
However, this ‘forgiveness factor’ is not infinite.
Getting a 4.0 in your pre-med requirements at a
junior college will certainly make you a stronger applicant
than a 3.5 in your pre-med requirements at Stanford.</p>
<p>One admissions officer I spoke with estimated
the bump factor of attending a school like Harvard or
Stanford to be between 0.3 and 0.5 of a grade point.
For some of you, an ‘A’ in high school could
be achieved through hard work and determination.
This is not necessarily true of the pre-med classes at
Stanford. Everyone is trying hard. They are all smart.
And the classes can be very difficult.</p>
<p>The upshot of all of this is that some of you
may be more successful applying to medical school by
taking most of your pre-med classes elsewhere. And I
have certainly known many applicants who would have
been more successful applying to medical school if they
had pursued their academic passions at Stanford and
took their pre-med classes elsewhere, either in summers
or in a year off. I have also known students at Stanford—
who would have been fantastic physicians—who
quit the pre-med process in frustration without exploring
this option.*</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.questscholars.org/oldstuff/activities/professional/pre-med_letter/premed-letter-2001-2-pdf.pdf[/url]”>http://www.questscholars.org/oldstuff/activities/professional/pre-med_letter/premed-letter-2001-2-pdf.pdf</a></p>
<p>To be clear, this document was written by a former Stanford premed who won a Rhodes Scholarship, then earned his MD and serves on the faculty at UCSF, and also runs an NGO that helps students prepare for careers in medicine.</p>
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<p>My personal plan of success in life is to be as handsome as Brad Pitt, as athletic as Michael Jordan, as intelligent as Einstein, and as rich as Bill Gates.</p>
<p>Someone choosing an undergraduate school to play the GPA game for pre-med or pre-law to the exclusion of other criteria would probably choose a four year school with high grade inflation but not a very competitive student body. Candidates would include Arizona, Eastern Oregon, Kansas, Southern Utah, Western Michigan, Western Oregon, Wisconsin Green Bay, Wisconsin La Crosse (based on [National</a> Trends in Grade Inflation, American Colleges and Universities](<a href=“http://www.gradeinflation.com%5DNational”>http://www.gradeinflation.com) ).</p>
<p>Einstein didn’t do that well in high school, so I guess I’ll so you in CC</p>
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<p>Consider the #4 entry here:</p>
<p>[The</a> 5 Most Ridiculous Lies You Were Taught In History Class | Cracked.com](<a href=“The 5 Most Ridiculous Lies You Were Taught In History Class | Cracked.com”>The 5 Most Ridiculous Lies You Were Taught In History Class | Cracked.com)</p>
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<p>Another option is to come to Berkeley, but choose a creampuff major where you can earn high grades for relatively little work. I won’t name those majors, but surely others here know what I’m talking about.</p>
<p>Yet another option if you’re a premed, perhaps ideally combined with the above option, is to take your premed coursework at an easy community college.</p>
<p>*Myth #10.
I SHOULD TAKE ALL OF MY PRE-MED
CLASSES AT STANFORD BECAUSE IT WILL
LOOK BETTER TO THE MEDICAL SCHOOLS.</p>
<p>This is not true either. **Many successful medical
school applicants at the nation’s best medical
schools took many of their pre-med requirements at
community college in the summer or other local
schools. ** By taking some of the basics elsewhere, you
can create more academic freedom to take some of the
truly amazing courses that Stanford offers both in the
sciences and non-sciences. The introductory classes
are taught very well here, but they can also be learned
elsewhere. Many upper division classes in all departments
are uniquely taught well at Stanford.</p>
<p>The only caveat to this is that it might look
strange if you did poorly in all of your science classes
at Stanford and then did well in an ‘easier’ school.
However, if you do fairly well at Stanford, it will not
appear strange that you took some basic coursework
elsewhere to save academic time and/or money.</p>
<p>**Take home point: You will not be penalized
for taking some of your introductory pre-med classes
elsewhere ** and this can free you up to take classes
which are uniquely taught well at Stanford. *</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.questscholars.org/oldstuff/activities/professional/pre-med_letter/premed-letter-2001-2-pdf.pdf[/url]”>http://www.questscholars.org/oldstuff/activities/professional/pre-med_letter/premed-letter-2001-2-pdf.pdf</a></p>
<p>I’m not doing premed, so good for that. I want to do something in IR. I’m considering going to an IR grad school or law. Also I don’t want to do the GPA-sneaking way. I want to study something I like: Polisci or Anthro (though Anthro is one of the GPA-sneaking routes). How hard is Polisci? </p>
<p>The reason this is important to me now is because I want to transfer. No offense to UCB, but I don’t like CA. I want to transfer to Columbia or Brown, but I hear Berkeley has high grade deflation, so I don’t want that to screw me over.</p>
<p>Keep one thing in mind - many who begin as pre-meds end up dropping that aspiration, sometimes because of the GPA they can earn in those weeder classes here, sometimes because they lose passion for medicine, sometimes because they gain passion for an unexpected different subject or for research instead of med practice, actually for lots of possible reasons. </p>
<p>As well, its pretty competitive out there and a pre-med may never become a med student because they don’t earn a slot. They may not complete med school or not get into a residency or not pass some future set of tests. They may develop issues that cause them to drop a medical career. They may burn out on it and decide they hate it. In all those cases, you have think about what kind of plan B you have. </p>
<p>If you went to CC and to lightweight grade inflated schools just to pump up your GPA, if you took a major you look down upon and don’t like simply to get the highest GPA, and then you end up not practicing as an MD . . . do those decisions sound so good now? </p>
<p>If instead you go to the best school you can, take something you truly like, take classes for the enrichment they give you, earn a degree in something that you would be satisfied as a career if medicine doesn’t work, then you will be light-years ahead of a person who down-scaled their school, down-graded their education and extinguished all passion for learning simply to game the med school admissions process. IMO.</p>
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<p>The chatter on the pre-med forums is that medical schools don’t like to see pre-med courses taken at community colleges (versus four year schools). Perhaps this is more recent than the time that the writer you are quoting applied to medical school (1990s). Community colleges in California also haven’t been joining the grade inflation race (indeed, they have had slight actual deflation) – also, those taking courses like organic chemistry and biology at community college are likely those aiming to transfer to four year schools, who would likely be more competitive (and chasing good grades) than the average community college student.</p>
<p>But that still leaves loopholes like those four year schools with high grade inflation relative to less competitive student bodies.</p>
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<p>False. Check out the mean gpa of Cal Frosh on UCStatfinder.</p>
<p>Of course, with a 3.65+ mean gpa, no college has the grade leniency at Brown. :D</p>
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<p>Sure, but do you know what they really don’t like? Premed courses at your regular university with poor grades. An A at a community college looks far better than a C (or worse) at Berkeley. </p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong. If you can get A’s in premed courses at Berkeley, obviously you should do that. But let’s face it, the vast majority of students in those courses won’t get A’s. </p>
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<p>As a Berkeley student, you will clearly be far superior to that of the average community college student. </p>
<p>And besides, who ever necessarily said anything about attending community colleges specifically in California? Go find a state, i.e. during the summer, where the community colleges are easy.</p>
<p>Compared to a typical CSU, UC Berkeley is the grade inflation queen of California.</p>
<pre><code> Average student GPA
</code></pre>
<p>year 1986 to 1996 to 2006</p>
<p>CSU Sacramento NA to 2.77 to 2.86</p>
<p>UC Berkeley 2.85 to 3.10 to 3.27</p>
<p>I have a problem with how grade inflation is being characterized in this thread. People are merely showing an upward trend and calling it inflation. While yes, literally speaking that is the denotative definition of inflation (an increase), you are forgetting that that still means nothing because Berkeley has upped its selectivity at a much more rapid rate than CSUs and other colleges you are comparing the GPA rise to. They are plucking much more intelligent students and it’s selectively harder to get in while we are not measuring if the difficulty is rising at the same rate or not. You guys are merely observing a GPA rise which could be due to other variables. In which case, connotatively speaking, there is no grade inflation per say (at least not the popular definition).</p>