<p>thanks, mmmcdowe and parmagal, it was early in the afternoon and I had just finished my practice SAT so I was a little tired.</p>
<p>best of luck to both of you, you guys have been extremely helpful to me, I wish everyone as young and confused about the process like I am had the opportunity to talk to you guys,</p>
<p>feel free to message me. This thread turned out for the better.</p>
<p>Anything is always “possible.” There’s state school students at every med school. From my experience interviewing and from what I saw on SDN during my application cycle, I’m inclined to believe that undergraduate name matters some, but obviously not as much as GPA/MCAT. If you look at the class rosters of most private Top 20 med schools, you will see that approximately 70% of the students come from a Top 20 college. Now, it’s possible that the top 20 colleges put out twice as many excellent applicants as the thousands and thousands of other colleges combined…or maybe medical schools just prefer (all things being equal or almost equal) applicants with brand name colleges.</p>
<p>^^Or maybe, top colleges, by definition already have a plethora of great test takers. (There is probably a reason that Harvard kids have the highest LSAT average…) And, of course, the private med schools are expensive…since private undergrad colleges are filled with full pay students (read wealthy), perhaps such kids can better afford a private med school, and thus spurn the instate public at a higher rate?</p>
<p>Sakky I disagree with some of what you are saying.</p>
<p>“Now, if you did mean ‘undergrad’, I’m not sure I can agree with that either. With the important exception of the tech institutes, the top ranked schools not only tend to be relatively grade inflated, but, more importantly, also tend to be relatively grade nonstochastic. While it may be difficult to earn A’s at HYPS, it’s also practically impossible to get an F. George W. Bush and John Kerry have freely admitted to being conspicuously irresponsible and unmotivated students while at Yale, yet not only did they nevertheless both manage to graduate, they also never received a single F between them - and did so before the widespread Ivy grade inflation that began during the Vietnam draft. Lower-ranked schools are far more likely to hand out F’s. One of the most effective ways to disqualify yourself from serious med-school consideration is to have your transcript peppered with F’s.”</p>
<p>^^^ I did mean undergrad. The reason most top schools rarely give out F’s, is because the students actually tried so they wouldn’t fail the class (this makes it harder for top schools to give out Fs). Most kids at lower ranked schools who make Fs, recieve Fs, because they didn’t try at all. Thats the main reason you see more Fs at state schools(there are a lot more kids at state schools who don’t try when compared to top schools) because at top schools, most kids do the work that is required for them. (If they didn’t, they wouldn’t have gotten into a top school). So you are not seeing grade inflation at top schools, but rather more hard working kids who achieve more.There are fewer Fs given out at top schools than state schools, is because the kids at top schools are more likely to do ALL the work required of them (which means less kids get Fs in classes).</p>
<p>The issue is my parents won’t let me take out loans at undergrad and they won’t be paying more than 10k (per year) for college so I won’t be going to a top college even if I somehow get accepted to one (applied to UVA and Yale, talked about it on the other thread and it just spiraled out of control).</p>
<p>Also, that was kind of my plan. I feel like I belong at a top college for grad school/med school because of what I had to go through in my life (poverty and racism), the fact that I am even applying to college is a miracle (well that is what a therapist I talk to said).</p>
<p>Oh well, thanks for the advice still. Now I will leave this topic before everyone comes in giving me flak for wanting to apply to a top university.</p>
<p>Actually I am planning on doing my first 2 years at a regular state university and then transferring to a better school if I do good in the university I attend.</p>
<p>If you like it there and are doing well, why bother transferring?</p>
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</p>
<p>Uh, not necessarily. Stanford got rid of F’s – they don’t exist. Yes, it is impossible to flunk a class at Stanford.</p>
<p>btw: check out the Cal-Berkeley thread. Bio 1 quiz: mean of 3, out of 10. SD = 1.5. You do the math to estimate the grade distribution; but note, Bio is soph-level course, so some of the kids “who don’t try” (your term, not mine) have already dropped out from Chem 1. Physics midterm: mean 44 out of 100…</p>
<p>Are those classes curved?</p>
<p>I don’t consider UCB your typical state school, its a damn good school, ucla, unc-chapel hill, georgia tech, uva…are extremely good state schools.</p>
<p>^^@ZFanatic, I doubt they are, over here, we have classes where the average is 40-50 on tests, and those aren’t curved at all.</p>
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<p>Perhaps most of the students at HYPS do try. But some don’t. Again, both George W. Bush and John Kerry have freely admitted to being indolent and feckless college students - Bush having joked on the campaign trail that “…to the C students, you too can be President of the United States” and Kerry saying: “I always told my Dad that D stood for distinction.” But they nevertheless still graduated. If they had gone to MIT (or Berkeley) rather than Yale, they would have flunked out. </p>
<p>[Yale</a> grades portray Kerry as a lackluster student - The Boston Globe](<a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/06/07/yale_grades_portray_kerry_as_a_lackluster_student/]Yale”>http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/06/07/yale_grades_portray_kerry_as_a_lackluster_student/)</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/university-news/2001/05/22/bush-mixes-humor-with-humility-in-commencement-tal/[/url]”>http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/university-news/2001/05/22/bush-mixes-humor-with-humility-in-commencement-tal/</a></p>
<p>But what’s worse is, as I said, grading tends to be stochastic, which means that the correlation between trying hard and earning top grades, or more importantly, avoiding low grades, is not perfect. Surely we can all think of examples of students who tried extremely hard, yet earned low grades anyway whether to dint of bad luck or simple lack of talent in the topic. Yet what is meant by ‘low grades’ differs from school to school. </p>
<p>As a case in point, I know a guy who went to Berkeley, and right before final exams, found out that his beloved girlfriend had been cheating on him. Unsurprisingly, he bombed all of his exams, which caused him to fail many of his classes, and ultimately landing him on academic probation. If he had gone to HYPS, he probably would have passed even having bombed all of his finals. Granted, he probably would have passed with mediocre grades, but at least he would have still passed. </p>
<p>That highlights the problem: grades are not perfectly correlated with effort. You go to a school without grade inflation and - despite having worked like a dog during the semester - you have an unlucky day on the final exam, and you’re toast. </p>
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</p>
<p>Yet HYPS are ranked higher. More importantly, UCB is notorious for lack of grade inflation in the technical subjects. If you’re admitted to UCB and to HYPS, and you intend to be premed, you should probably take HYPS for the grade protection. Like I said, if you have a bad final exam at HYPS, you’re still going to pass.</p>
<p>UCB eats pre-meds alive. The only medical students from UCB that I have met were not science majors, ironically.</p>
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</p>
<p>Huh? Please elaborate. Your post was addressing grade inflation/deflation “top schools”. Did you mean to limit your discussion to HYPS (and, of course, Vandy)? Where do you draw the line at “top”?</p>
<p>zfanatic: Cal’s science courses are definitely curved, but you can do the math to estimate how many zero’s there must’ve been on that quiz. And of of them are D’s/F’s, which you cannot even earn in Palo Alto.</p>
<p>I draw the line at top 20, but I inculde UCB in it, because I believe it should be ranked in the top 20.</p>
<p>Given the choice between premed UCB and HYPS, I think it’s a no-brainer, for the latter provides a safety net that the Berkeley students can only dream of having. Like I said, it’s practically impossible to receive a failing grade at HYPS, but that is a perennial hazard at UCB. </p>
<p>Keep in mind that the premed ‘game’ has less to do with obtaining top grades than it has to do with avoiding bad grades. An F will damage your candidacy infinitely worse than an A+ will help. The optimal strategy is then to avoid schools that assign bad grades. Sad and cynical, but true.</p>
<p>Personally, I think that the med-school admissions process shouldn’t rely on grades at all, but merely on the MCAT score. If the problem is that the MCAT does not provide sufficient information about the applicants, then the answer is to design a better and longer MCAT. After all, if I can prove that I’ve mastered the premed material through earning a high MCAT score, why does it matter what my premed grades were? Unfortunately, that’s not how it works, grades do matter, which means that you should attend a school that minimizes the risk of bad grades.</p>
<p>" I draw the line at top 20, but I inculde UCB in it, because I believe it should be ranked in the top 20. "</p>
<p>What line and what qualifies you to draw such a line?</p>
<p>"Personally, I think that the med-school admissions process shouldn’t rely on grades at all, but merely on the MCAT score. If the problem is that the MCAT does not provide sufficient information about the applicants, then the answer is to design a better and longer MCAT. After all, if I can prove that I’ve mastered the premed material through earning a high MCAT score, why does it matter what my premed grades were? Unfortunately, that’s not how it works, grades do matter, which means that you should attend a school that minimizes the risk of bad grades. "</p>
<p>Grades give a long-term view of the applicant. Imperfect, yes, but still far better than relying only upon the MCAT. We also have ECs, etc. that are absolutely critical. If a student performs well all-around (i.e., 90th percentile at his/her school & 90th percentile on the MCAT along w/ good ECs, diversifying interests, clinical experience, amicability, etc.), s/he will have little problem getting into a school and we all know that which med school (as long as it’s a US med school) you go to basically doesn’t mean squat unless you’re going into academia.</p>
<p>^^^ Um, they were asking me what I was referring to when I said “top school”.? ***?</p>
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</p>
<p>Grades give a long-term, but skewed view of the applicant, for, like I said, not only does grading differ between schools, but also within the same school between different majors, and even within the same major, but different professors. The level of knowledge necessary for a B in one particular course at one school may earn you only a C (or worse) in that same course, but at a different school. That then leads to the twistedly rational student strategy of 'GPA-shopping": deliberately cherry-picking easy classes and avoiding difficult classes with the purpose not of learning anything, but simply to game their way to a high GPA. </p>
<p>Hence, I would argue that the use of GPA is actually a net minus to the system as a whole due to the gaming it engenders. The world derives no social utility from premeds trying to scheme their way to higher GPA’s. Nobody should hold an advantage just because they went to an easier school or chose an easier major. The advantage of the MCAT is that, whatever its shortcomings, at least it is fair: everybody has to take it, and nobody receives an advantage merely because they happen to attend a school or took classes with easier grading systems. Again, if the problem is that the MCAT fails to provide sufficient information to the adcoms, then the answer is to design a better MCAT.</p>
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</p>
<p>I think you are far overestimating how many people actually “game” the system. Sure, a few may but they’ll get cut by the MCAT. The rest of us got our 3.8s by working hard, having some natural ability, and learning the material. Med schools can see right through easy course titles and they are not impressed when they see 100-level science courses through senior year, etc. GPA is not perfect but it’s the best we can do and has been found, for graduate schools at least, to be an excellent predictor of student graduation rates. I would guess the correlation coefficients are similar for medical school…</p>
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<p>I suspect that the premeds who are trying to game the system is quite close to 100%. Heck, this very thread (and numerous others) betrays the truth, as the thread was worried about whether med-school adcoms would devalue a lower-prestige undergrad program, and then progressed to a discussion of a presumed (and, IMO, false) tradeoff between undergraduate prestige vs. GPA. That’s all part of the game: premeds are worried about the signals they are transmitting to the adcoms to the point of gaming that signal. </p>
<p>But under my proposal, none of that would matter, for the game would be abolished. It wouldn’t matter if the OP went to Harvard or Armstrong Atlantic State as long as he scored a high MCAT. It wouldn’t matter if you got a 4.0 by cherry-picking your way through a creampuff major, vs. somebody who majored in a difficult topic such as Chemical Engineering and earned a 3.0. Again, all that would matter is whether you earned a high MCAT score. {Note, EC’s and essays would still be weighted, but GPA would not.} </p>
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</p>
<p>Oh really? Are you sure? </p>
<p>Then consider the words of Mike McCullough, who advocates that students do not pursue the most difficult track towards their premed requirements, and counsels students to consider taking premed coursework at a community college where they can earn higher grades. McCullough is a former Rhodes Scholar from Stanford who then earned his MD from UCSF, and is now a Kauffman Fellow and founder of Questbridge, an NGO dedicated to helping poor students gain admission and win scholarships to the top private schools. </p>
<p>*IF I DON’T TAKE THE ABSOLUTELY
HARDEST TRACK AT STANFORD, MEDICAL
SCHOOLS WILL LOOK DOWN ON ME.</p>
<p>False. Taking the hardest track in every subject
certainly helped you get into Stanford, but this
doesn’t translate into medical school admissions. Taking
the 20 series in math and physics is just fine.** Medical
schools don’t have the time or energy to diligently
follow all of the courses offered at every college in the
nation. **</p>
<p>…</p>
<p>Myth #10.
I SHOULD TAKE ALL OF MY PRE-MED
CLASSES AT STANFORD BECAUSE IT WILL
LOOK BETTER TO THE MEDICAL SCHOOLS.
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…</p>
<p>Myth #11.
I AM ALWAYS BEST OFF TAKING ALL MY
INTRODUCTORY PRE-MED CLASSES AT
STANFORD.</p>
<p>False. 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.</p>
<p>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.
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.</p>
<p>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. If you want to be a doctor and are
struggling at Stanford, this option is worth exploring.
I say this with some hesitancy because I know
it may cause controversy and it is difficult to know who
would be statistically better off focusing their pre-med
energies at a less competitive institution. I should also
add, however, that all such ‘core’ classes cover the material
required both for the MCAT and to be a good
doctor.</p>
<p>This in no way is meant to imply you made the
wrong choice by coming to Stanford if you are a premed.
Quite the contrary, Stanford may be the best
place in the country for pre-meds to attend college.
You can attain a first-rate education in any field and
simultaneously approach your pre-med curriculum with
more flexibility and more creativity than at nearly any
other university.</p>
<p>Take home point: Consider taking some of
your pre-med classes elsewhere if you are hitting a wall
here. Many successful medical school applicants have
done this. </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>[Michael</a> McCullough, MD - LinkedIn](<a href=“http://■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/in/michaelmcculloughmd]Michael”>http://■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/in/michaelmcculloughmd)</p>
<p>{What’s ironic is that McCullough addressed the above document to premeds from Stanford, a school that is notorious for its grade inflation. Hence, everything that McCullough says about avoiding difficult coursework at Stanford holds even more so for students at far harsher grading environs such as Berkeley.}</p>
<p>However, like I said, under my proposed system, none of that would matter. It wouldn’t matter if you took your premed coursework at a difficult school and receiving poor grades, compared to whether you took them at a community college and got straight A’s. All that would matter is what your MCAT score is. If the premed coursework at MIT prepared you well for the MCAT, then that’s all that should matter, regardless of how harsh the grading happened to be.</p>