<p>Someone told that a medical school would rather admit a student who started out with a 2.8 GPA and finished with a 3.5 GPA rather than a student who maintained a 3.7 GPA? Is that true, sound pretty outrageous to me.</p>
<p>^^. You must have my D in mind^^. She is applying this cycle and she is what you described - an upward trend in Gpa, however it’s not as dramatic. I can tell you that she had NOT received any II from allo schools, does that tell you some thing about the “love” from med school as you described ?</p>
<p>I think med school follows a very ridigid rule in admission process, that is number first trend later. </p>
<p>OP, your chances of being admitted to an MD school is directly related to your GPA and MCAT scores. The higher the better. You can view admissions data on the AAMC website. </p>
<p>S ended first year of college with GPAs below 3.2. Unlike the “typical” applicant who applies after junior year, S had to wait until after senior year to apply in order to squeeze out every A he could in order to get his GPAs up to competitive level. He eventually received 3 acceptances. Is an upward trend a positive, yes? Do med schools favor one over another??? As med schools have so many applicants, why give med schools pause to question your application? Why dig a big hole for yourself starting with say a 2.8 GPA? You’ll make life so much easier for yourself if you start/finish college with high GPAs. </p>
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<p>Someone told that a medical school would rather admit a student who started out with a 2.8 GPA and finished with a 3.5 GPA rather than a student who maintained a 3.7 GPA? Is that true, sound pretty outrageous to me.</p>
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<p>???</p>
<p>“would rather admit…” </p>
<p>Who told you that absolute nonsense.</p>
<p>The 3.7 student shows consistency and “slow and steady” which is what med schools need. </p>
<p>When they accept someone who started at a 2.8 and ended with a 3.5, then while they are banking on the thought that the person just had a slow start, there is a risk that the “slow start” was more than just youthful immaturity or a weak initial foundation.</p>
<p>Also, it is very hard to get from a 2.8 to a 3.5 unless you do a gap year. </p>
<p>To answer your question…NO, med schools do NOT prefer students who start quite low and finish stronger over students who are strong ALL THE TIME. </p>
<p>I think moms2’s answer was a bit overstated. The answer is more nuanced.</p>
<p>Med school adcomms can be understanding that sometimes there’s a rough adjustment to college for some students. (In fact some med schools internally reweight freshman grades during admission review to lessen the impact of less than stellar freshman grades.)</p>
<p>That said, even students who start out weak are expected to have improved their GPAs into the competitive range by the time they apply. This may mean they need apply after senior grades are in or after some post-bacc work.</p>
<p>But do adcomms automatically prefer a sharp upward grade trend over a ‘slow & steady’ performer ( or vice-versa)?That’s a big NO.</p>
<p>WOWM</p>
<p>I think M2ck was referring to a 3.7 steady gpa vs upward trend 3.5 gpa. Will an adcom view the upward trend 3.5 gpa over steady 3.7 gpa? the answer is no and my D is a good example.</p>
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think M2ck was referring to a 3.7 steady gpa vs upward trend 3.5 gpa. Will an adcom view the upward trend 3.5 gpa over steady 3.7 gpa? the answer is no and my D is a good example.
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<p>exactly</p>
<p>and I also was taking issue with the “would rather admit” claim. Total nonsense. </p>
<p>Adcoms are NOT sitting in some room saying, “Oh, we don’t want Jane; she has always maintained a 3.75 throughout her 4 years. We don’t want to have any of that in our med school. Instead, we much rather have a student like Bill who got a 2.5 freshman year and finished with a 3.5”</p>
<p>If all other things are equal, no way would they prefer Bill over Jane based solely on the fact that one had an upward trend, while the other was stable.</p>
<p>Med schools seem to really like STABLE.</p>