I ended up getting a 4.0 this semester, so I’m just curious in terms of what it would look like in comparison to a 4.0 at a better school. I had tough time in high school because of a medical condition so I ended up with a B+/A- overall GPA and had to change my aspirations for what kind of college I could attend. I go to a very small private college (I love it now that I’m here) in the northeast that isn’t necessarily well-known, but I’m planning to hopefully go to a really good grad school when I graduate. I’m a neuroscience and psychology double major interested in either psychiatry (depending on whether med school seems like an option) or clinical psychology. Also, I’m slightly interested in being a psychiatric nurse. I’m only a freshman so I’m not 100% sure yet. My overall GPA is 3.845 because of a B- I got in a very difficult science class first semester, but I’m hoping I can at least get it up to a 3.9 over the next three years.
Anyway, would my GPA this semester mean as much as someone’s who got a 4.0 at a more prestigious university, like Georgetown or Tufts? I know that if of course doesn’t compare to an Ivy 4.0 but I didn’t know if it was any different with non-Ivy schools. And what about an overall GPA? I’m assuming a 3.8 may look more impressive at a school known for being academically rigorous like Georgetown than it would be at a small, unknown school?
Thanks in advance! 
I think it looks great for grad schools. Don’t worry about school size at all. They will look at any GRE, MCAT, etc. scores as well.
Stop comparing your school to “better” schools. Your GPA is great, and if it is to be compared to a student at another college, the courses they took to acquire that GPA are just as important as where they took them. Unless you’re attending a college known for grade inflation, a 4.0 is a significant accomplishment anywhere!
It’s a good GPA and you’re doing well. Keep it up and you should be able to get into your choice of grad schools.
The more selective the college, the harder it is to get a good gpa. This is because of curved classes. A curved class in a selective college is harder to get a good grade in since in selective colleges you have to compete against more high achievers for good grades. However, I don’t know how this affects grad school admissions, and if admissions doesn’t even care about which college you went to that much, it might be good that you went to the college you go to instead of a more selective college since it would be likely you would have had a lower gpa if you went to a more selective college.
Prestige is an irrational emotion that’s so powerful it drives people to do crazy things…like spend $250,000 on a bachelors degree. Don’t put your self-worth and identity on a school with a 5% acceptance rate. You’re just abusing yourself. Be happy where you are. You’re getting a great education at a top notch school.
Every class provides a syllabus detailing what you must do to earn a high grade. Syllabi differ from class to class even with the same course number and then by syllabi for the same class by different schools. For example, syllabi for 5 sections of General Psychology overlap, Hiwever, there may be some differences in class and course content, texts, presentations, etc. There is likely even more diversity with syllabi for General Psychology across 7 state schools. Some places do require the same syllabus for all sections, but faculty differ in emphasis.
Each syllabus explains what is needed to earn an A. Students must confirm to the grade requirements of their teachers. So, maybe you took General Psychology at Harvard or perhaps General Psychology at Webster University. In either case, students do what is required to earn the desired grade. There are subject specific tests on the G RE that will provide a sense of how your training in an area compares to other students in the same area. However, the test scores are not interpreted in terms of particular schools.
Thus there may be individual differences in subtopics. However, excellent students meet whatever academic demands they encounter. You just do what you gotta do.
Like the answer to a lot of questions, the answer is “it depends”. Some elite schools are not that tough academically while others are. Some small schools are very tough academically. Some schools have rampant grade inflation. So, that makes GPA hard to absolutely compare between schools. So, getting a high GPA at a better school MIGHT be a bigger accomplishment.
But it really doesn’t matter. A 4.0 GPA, or anything close to it, no matter what school is quite an accomplishment. If you can achieve that over your college career, it should open almost any door you want at any where you want to go.
Students often ask this question. You should now that graduate school professors are not machines or computers; they don’t do cold, mechanical comparisons of GPAs in this way (“Well, she got a 4.0 but it’s only at Marist, which is like a 3.5 at Georgetown.”) Their evaluation of your performance is much more holistic and qualitative. There’s no “equivalent” kind of mathematical work; a professor may qualitatively know that getting a 3.6 at Georgia Tech is a pretty difficult feat and give the Georgia Tech applicant a slightly higher estimation in their mind, but that doesn’t mean that they are downgrading a student from another college with a 3.6.
And it’s not necessarily done based on prestige or selectivity - it’s based on professors’ level of familiarity with certain schools. For example, I know many elite schools (and a lot of Ivies) actually engage in grade inflation, and contrary to popular belief, I might give the higher estimation to the 3.4 from the large public university instead of the one from the elite private one, for example. The median college GPA for the entire country is a 3.15, but over half of Harvard graduates have a 3.67 or higher. (A professor at an elite college told me point blank that the grade inflation is maintained to keep the alumni of that college competitive with the alumni of other colleges for fellowships, grants, and graduate school.)
So basically:
-Don’t worry about comparisons; just worry about keeping the highest GPA you can.
-A 3.85 is an excellent GPA. If you can get it to a 3.9, that’d be great, but don’t stress about it.
I would disagree with this. A lot of prestigious/selective colleges are well-known for grade inflation policies. Being graded on a curve doesn’t necessarily make it harder to get high grades, since I’ve seen curves (at very selective private schools) that award a VERY high proportion of As and Bs (at one department I’ve seen, the curve was set so that half the students in the class got As.)
I have no information on getting into PHD programs but from everything I have read and heard, what matters for medical school are your GPA, your MCAT score and your activities/experience. In effect, the MCAT is the equalizer that confirms your GPA. So if you get a high GPA from an little known college and a high MCAT score, the med school will treat your GPA accordingly. They will know that you are capable of doing excellent work in Medical school. If you have the extra curriculars, volunteer hours, hospital experience, research, ect. on top of the GPA and MCAT, you stand an excellent chance of getting into med school from any reputable undergraduate.